Snared (Kaliya Sahni Book 2)

by K. N. Banet

  Only the best criminals ever escaped, then they became mine to deal with.

  “You were trained by his son,” the werewolf reminded me.

  “Yeah, and?” I snorted, walking for the door of the gym. So were a handful of other Executioners and a couple of freelance assassins, pretending to be normal bounty hunters. “I can be there in two nights. Does that work?”

  “Yeah. Sooner the better. I’ll put you on my schedule, and if anyone calls and bothers me, I’ll at least be able to tell them you’re on your way. Let me know what sort of security you want for that…”

  “Yeah. His name is Raphael, and I don’t know what to call him, either.” Chuckling, I opened the door and walked to the elevator, waving at the janitor who handled the common areas of the building. He was the only supernatural who operated in the building other than me. A troll who could make a human glamour, he stayed out of everyone’s way. I’d known him for over two decades and got him the job in the building when it was built. “Let’s just call him human for now and leave it at that.”

  “We can do that,” Tarak agreed softly. “Well, two nights from now. See you then.”

  “Yup.” I hung up and stepped into the elevator when it opened. Leaning on the back wall I resisted the urge to dent the metal with a punch as I thought about dragging Raphael to a prison.

  I walked into my condo and looked around, frowning when I couldn’t find said not-human. I jogged up the stairs to the bedrooms and knocked on his.

  “Hey, Raphael?”

  “Yeah?” he called out.

  “We need to talk. Something came up, and I want to get it all planned out ASAP.”

  “Give me a moment.”

  Shrugging, I walked back downstairs, noting how he neatly put all the dossiers I made on supernaturals on the small table that was becoming his desk. I didn’t need to eat for a few more days, but I knew I needed to make a plan if I was going to be exposing myself to the criminals of the prison. I grabbed a premade protein shake from the fridge.

  I should eat tomorrow, so I’m not sluggish, but I have energy. I can’t survive on shakes. Not if I’m going to maybe run into…

  As I finished the shake and threw the container away, a cold rush hit me.

  Ah, shit. He’s still going to be there. He’s always going to be there.

  I tried to take a deep breath, tried to banish the face from my mind, but it was difficult. It was hard to forget the face of one of my own people—especially that one.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked up and nodded, glad for his sudden appearance.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. So, I just got off the phone with a colleague, Tarak, one of the Wardens of the prison. The Tribunal is giving him a hard time about getting a report done and turned in. We’re a little late, so we need to go down there two nights from now and do a walkthrough.” I was rambling, but the longer I looked at him, the more I relaxed. There was no reason to worry about Nakul. He was behind bars. “It should be routine. In and out, and no dealing with prisoners for the most part. Tarak already assured me he’d up security for our visit, thanks to your presence.”

  “I have to go?” he asked, frowning. He had one of those frowns that was too severe, but it, like every other expression, looked good on him.

  I licked my lips, considering his question, and caught something in his scent I wasn’t expecting. I had been staring at him but hadn’t been looking for the right things. His cheeks were a little flushed, and his chest was moving a bit more than it normally did as if he had just exerted himself. The taste in the air was sexual arousal and sweat.

  The questions raised were something I needed to come back to later because he was looking for an answer.

  “Yeah, you do. I promised Hasan and the rest of the Tribunal you would stay with me, and this is something that will take longer than a couple of hours. I can fudge those rules in the building when we go to the gym at different times, or I let you sneak off into the grocery store while I wait in the car, but…”

  “You can’t leave me for most of the day and night,” he said, his sigh punctuated with annoyance.

  “Yeah. For practical reasons, it’s better that you’re seen with me. They’ll know we’re taking this protection detail and training seriously. Plus, the prison will tell the Tribunal about my visit, so they’ll note you aren’t with me for the eight hours a walkthrough could possibly take. On top of that, even driving fast, it can be a two-hour drive there and back…”

  “I understand.”

  With that, there was a heavy silence between us, and I watched his face as his eyes turned thoughtful.

  “Is that why you came back from the gym early? To tell me that?” he asked, looking down at his hands on the kitchen counter.

  “Yeah. Well, not all of it. If I’m taking you to the prison, there’s more you’ll need to quickly learn about how to stay out of trouble there. It’s not a great place to make enemies, believe me.”

  Ooh. I did come back really early…no wonder I might have interrupted something he was doing, he probably doesn’t want me to bring up.

  “Oh, I can only imagine,” he mumbled. “Teach away.”

  “Really? You have no problem going with me?” I had expected more of a fight. Now that I didn’t have one, I was downright confused.

  “I know we got off to a rocky start, but it’s been four months. I know you’re trying to help me and do your job outside of my…problems. Let’s get started, and hopefully I won’t be in your way.”

  I watched him walk out of the kitchen into the living room. I spent a moment to be grateful. I had no idea what Raphael was thinking most of the time, but he was a sponge for new information, like when I had met him. His level of understanding was damn near touching.

  Before I walked out to tell him more, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent Cassius a quick text explaining the situation. I didn’t think I would get a response, but it was worth a try. Maybe Cassius could put off his visit to the fae lands for a few days.

  I put the phone down and walked into the living room, glad to see Raphael was waiting on the couch, holding his stacks of dossiers on supernaturals.

  “I’m going to teach you the protocol of the prison and how it’s run, then who to avoid,” I explained, taking them from him. “You might need these if you want to know more about someone’s species, but really? This is only in case we need to go into the yard.”

  “Okay…” He seemed tentative, and honestly, I couldn’t blame him.

  5

  Chapter Five

  “Okay, go through it again,” I said patiently, keeping my eyes on the road. Raphael groaned. I was asking him to talk through the planned evening ahead of us—for the fourth time in less than two hours.

  “We’re going to be let in by a fae and a witch who monitor the magic they use to mark the border of the prison’s land.” He seemed bored, which I didn’t know if I liked. He was quietly confident about our visit to the prison as if he wasn’t worried about anyone there giving him a hard time. “If they don’t approve of us, we set off the alarms, and the werewolf pack that the Tribunal keeps on hand treats us like enemies, trying to break out the prison’s inhabitants.”

  “Good. What’s next?”

  “Some of those wolves will meet us on the road and run with the vehicle until we reach the actual guard gate. The guards at the gate check our IDs, and the wolves will back off and continue patrolling the desert. We’ll be allowed in, and you’ll take us to the parking lot, where we’ll probably be met by one of the Wardens.” He sighed. “Then we go inside with whoever that is. Tarak is the werewolf, Dian is the fae, and Eliphas is the witch. They’re all called witches, right? Not warlocks or anything?”

  “Depends on where you live and what type of magic they do. It’s something they pay attention to, but not really anyone else does. Any human who dabbles in magic is a witch in our eyes, and whatever rules or terms they want to use is their own business.”

  “Our?”
Raphael gave me a strange look I caught out of the corner of my eye.

  “Most supernaturals who have never been human and never will be human,” I clarified. “If you want to find out their specific titles, you can, but I’m not interested. I just look at the resumes when I need to hire one of them, which isn’t very often. I prefer fae magic.”

  “You are so strange sometimes,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I didn’t know that was even something to care about.”

  “Yeah, those are nuances you’ll learn over time with different supernaturals. I don’t use witches for much because they can be unpredictable in that human way. Humans are a wild card, and so are witches. People say fae are unpredictable, but they really aren’t. Don’t get caught in word games with them when you might owe them anything. Some fae are worse about it than others. Paden is very chill with me, but he’ll tongue-tie others to get something out of them. Cassius doesn’t play those games, but that might be because his father is very good at playing them. If you ever meet a fae named Brion, just turn around and walk away.” It took me a second to realize I had rambled as I often did on long drives. Normally, I drove alone, and that got intensely boring, so when I did have someone in the car with me, I liked to get it out of my system and fill the dead air.

  “You’ve talked about him before, Cassius’ dad. He’s like a missing king or something?”

  “Yeah…” I shrugged. “I knew him a long time ago. He was the fae king who sat on the Tribunal. When he mysteriously abdicated his power and disappeared, it was supposed to go to Cassius, who turned it down. Now, we have Oisin, Brion’s brother, whom you’ve met.”

  “The one who didn’t like me and wanted to hand me back over to Mygi.” Raphael groaned. “Sometimes, I feel like my head is going to explode. Growing up human, I knew there were werewolves. I knew the government and others believed the fae existed, but I always thought of them as aliens, you know? Now, I’m on the bad side of a fae king. Rumors of witches are real. Werewolves are…well, exactly what they let the public believe. And there’s even more. Just the other night, I was reading the stuff you printed out about sirens. Are they fae or nymphs? Are they demigods? Does anyone really know? Has anyone ever met a demigod? I’m pretty sure I haven’t.”

  “It’s a lot.” I was amazed he was opening up. Four months of nothing and a two-hour drive finally let me see behind his stoic exterior. “But you’ll get there. When you live a long time or just in our world, you’re bound to make enemies. There’s no avoiding it. As for the demigod question, they’re not common, and they’re laws unto themselves. They don’t really play well in a group and definitely don’t follow the Tribunal’s rules if they don’t want to. I haven’t heard stories about one in…” I hummed, trying to remember the last I had heard of that demigod. He was the son of some Greek, which thankfully was less common now than it had been in ancient times. “Sixty? Seventy years?”

  “You probably have more stories than the history books can hold.”

  “Not really. I’m pretty young compared to most, and most of my stories don’t belong in the history books. I never met the demigod. There are no interesting stories between me and him. I have no idea where he is, what he’s up to, or even if he’s still alive.”

  “Can they die?”

  “Everything can die,” I whispered, gently pressing the brake as I saw two figures on the road ahead of me, the fae and witch on duty. “I would know.”

  “That’s right. You would. I guess I forgot what you were after a few months of nothing happening.”

  “Raphael—”

  “I shouldn’t have.” He didn’t look at me again as I slowed to a crawl, then stopped in front of the two guards of the prison.

  I rolled my window down and smiled at them, trying to be personable, and as if I wasn’t screaming on the inside with frustration and anger. I needed him to get over it. I needed it more than anything. The light burned my eyes, and the heat was overbearing this far out into the desert, but it was better than the cold wall that had just filled the BMW.

  “Hey! Tarak scheduled an appointment for me. Standard walkthrough and report this evening.” I checked the time, seeing it was nearly four. “We’ll probably be here until midnight.”

  “He let us know. Have a safe visit,” the fae said with an affable smile. He nodded to the witch, and both of them raised their hands, two different types of magic that worked in very similar ways. Fae had specific light and dark abilities, based on their clans, but all of them could do certain things. I didn’t know the real list because the fae were a little guarded about what all they could really do. Part of that was because of the witches, who always tried to copy them.

  “You’re clear to go in,” the witch called out, revealing it was a woman. I hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at her. I shoved my hand out my window with a thumbs up and hit the gas once they were out of my way.

  As I drove through the barrier, there was a moment when it seemed charged. The air felt as though a thunderstorm was brewing and caused the hair on my arms to stand up. It passed quickly as we made it through and once we were beyond the barrier, not even a residual tingle of magic remained.

  “Does that happen every time?” he asked, looking back with a severe frown.

  “Yeah. It’s just how the barrier is set up. If you’re hostile, it hurts, but some have still been able to get in one way or another to help get their friends out.” I didn’t feel like talking anymore.

  It took thirty seconds for the wolves to show up. Raphael visibly tensed in the passenger seat, but I didn’t say anything. I knew he’d had fights with werewolves working for Mygi Pharmaceuticals, and the giant canines running alongside us probably brought up those memories. I wanted to see if he had a prejudice against them, so I tested the waters.

  “Did you know the moon-cursed actually take the shape of ancient beasts,” I said softly, looking at the two in front of me.

  “I think you’ve explained it before, but I also read it in the files. Werewolves are like direwolves, gigantic compared to modern wolves. Werecats are actually solitary sabretooth cats. They aren’t real species, they’re supernatural versions of ancient animals.”

  “They aren’t so bad, the werewolves. They pack hunt, and most have a strong Alpha who keeps them in line. The Alpha sets the tone of the pack and—”

  “They were just doing their jobs, I know. You don’t need to turn this into another lesson. I don’t hate werewolves because some helped Mygi. Why should I? I was going to join the military, and one day, I would have been in their position in a way.”

  I sighed, shaking my head to myself as the building came into view. At least he was honest, though I was a little annoyed he had picked up on what I was doing.

  We made it through the gate without a problem, the werewolves leaving us. I pulled into the parking lot, which only had the vehicles of the employees who worked in the prison, and found my favorite spot in the back.

  “Let me do most of the talking,” I said, before jumping out of the BMW. Tarak was walking across the parking lot with a female werewolf, his second, Korey. “No Dian and Eliphas?” I asked loudly.

  “No, not tonight. Dian is in the fae lands on vacation with his family. Eliphas is working on an upgrade to our security spells.” Tarak reached out as I met him, and we shook hands. Raphael walked up, and I watched Tarak’s nose twitch and his lip curl. “What is that smell?”

  “I don’t know. He smells human to me.” Most of the time. I didn’t find his not-human scent unpleasant, so I wasn’t sure why the werewolves thought he was gross. Not every one of them reacted, but I had a feeling that was a manners thing, not a lack of sense of smell.

  “Ah.” Tarak didn’t seem too pleased, but he reached out to Raphael. “Sorry. I’ve just never encountered a smell like that before. You must be Raphael. I’m Tarak. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah.” Raphael shook his hand, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. Then again, I wouldn’t be happy to shak
e hands with someone who said I smelled bad. Tarak picked up on it and looked at me again.

  “Let’s get this over with. I need to talk with you for a moment. Do you mind if Korey takes Raphael closer to the door?”

  I hit the button on my key fob and nodded as it opened, revealing the weapons I had brought.

  “Do you mind if I arm him?” I asked.

  “Not at all.” Tarak shrugged like I figured he would, but it was always polite to ask in this situation. I knew he would never tell me no to arming myself, not with my position and reputation, but that didn’t mean my plus one had the same privilege.

  I grabbed a holster and a couple of guns, holding them out to Raphael. He put them on fast, checking the chambers and loading everything as he went. I was honestly glad to see he was good at it on his own. Other than close-quarters combat with weapons, I didn’t have much to teach him about self-defense, and that training was touch and go.

  I slid my sword belt around my waist and positioned my talwar to the left, attached a holster for a Beretta on my right hip, strapped a knife to my right thigh, then tucked smaller ones in each boot. When I was finished, Raphael was already walking off with Korey.

  “What do you need?” I asked, looking at the Warden, only a little worried. I never liked when the Wardens had something to tell me.

  “He’s not in solitary this time,” Tarak said softly.

  That cold wave hit me again, making my chest tight.

  “Is he on good behavior?” I tried to make that come out even, but there weren’t many in the world I was genuinely scared of—one just so happened to be a member of my own species and in the prison. On normal days, I didn’t think about him. I wasn’t sure why his existence was bothering me now.

  Maybe it’s because I had to bring Raphael.

  “Yes. He hasn’t been in a fight with another inmate for a year,” Tarak explained. “He’s not talking to the guards or threatening anyone. There’s a chance you’re going to see him in the yard or the library. I just want you to be ready.”