by K. N. Banet
“Then you’re doing the right thing, saving lives—”
“To who? The Tribunal certainly wouldn’t agree,” I hissed. “They could have my head for it. Certainly not to the men he left without families while he went on a grief- and insanity-induced murder spree for several decades. They would hate this. They would think I’m showing him favoritism because he’s my family and fuck, maybe I am.”
“Okay, I get it.” He lifted both hands and stepped back from me.
“Do you?” I asked softly, throwing strawberries into my blender. “Do you really? This is the supernatural world, and we don’t play by the rules, Raphael. Everything humans have thought to ban, we still allow as long as we can get away with it. Sure, there are Laws, and most of them are serious, but there’s a lot that people get away with. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you’ll be just as fucking cynical as me.”
“What are you trying to say?” He seemed genuinely confused.
I let out a huff, trying to find the best way to explain.
“Humans outlawed duels a long time ago, yeah? They think that conflict doesn’t need to end in bloodshed. After a few generations, everyone got used to that. Unless it’s a war or something, no one really duels. If they fight, it’s not socially acceptable. Are you following?”
“Definitely. It’s human nature to fight for something, but kids get suspended from school, people get arrested for assault. No longer acceptable to society at large. Got it. We’ve had those laws for decades.”
“Now, consider taking the generations out of the equation. A lot of supernatural species are immortal with long life spans. Suddenly, some assholes decided to write down some rules. No stealing children from humans, no wars, none of that. The bad guys? They still want to live in the world they grew up in and reigned supreme over. They’re still chafing, and they’ll find any way to continue their lifestyle. Not because they’ve had it for a few human decades. In some cases, they’ve been living this way for literally thousands of years.” I finished putting together my smoothie and hit blend. “There’s no right way to do anything. We’re the wild west, Raphael, and we probably always will be. I know I’ve said that to you before. Sure, we made rules and try to enforce them. We even have that fucking prison now, even though it seems pretty worthless at the moment. But we still have people, a vast majority of the most powerful supernaturals, who want to live lawlessly and do as they please because they’re powerful enough. Does it make me a terrible person for just trying to survive and assuming the worst? I don’t know. Sure, I see the world cynically, but that’s because we’re supernatural, and idealism is for the dead.”
My parents were idealistic. I used to be, too.
“I never said you were a terrible person,” he snapped, hitting the counter. “Fucking hell, you are impossible.” He stormed out. I finished blending my smoothie, and he walked back in, only gone for maybe thirty seconds.
“Let’s try this again. I can’t fucking handle leaving this unfinished.” I almost groaned. “I saved you because you saved me. When you look at me, don’t be cynical. That’s all I want, okay? Try to embrace just a little idealism for me. That’s all I want, to be someone you don’t assume the worst from.” There was something desperate in his last words. I wasn’t sure if it was because of me or if he was trying to convince himself of something. I glanced up at him for a second and caught a dizzying amount of emotion on his face I wasn’t prepared to deal with.
“I saved you for selfish reasons,” I whispered.
I also put your life at risk for selfish ones.
Gods, I am a terrible person, aren’t I?
“I don’t care,” he snapped. “You saved me, and that’s all that really matters.”
“Sure,” I mumbled. “Let’s drop it.”
“We have time, so why don’t we try to reach some level of understanding?” He stood too close, which was still about five feet away. I could feel his heat, my skin too sensitive to his temperature.
“Understanding?” I scoffed. “What? Do you want my backstory? Do you want to know how I got here, dealing with you? With Nakul?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“Why?”
“If you won’t tell me for the sake of finally getting to know each other better, maybe we can make it about this. If I’m going to be putting my life at risk again, I might as well know more about the woman who pisses off everyone she meets. I need to know when I need to look over my shoulder and with whom.” The look he gave me was expectant.
He has a point. I hate it when he has a point.
“Fine. While we wait for Hasan to call me back, we’ll talk. You might as well understand exactly why people dislike me, considering it might get you killed too.” Since I didn’t know exactly who put the hit on me, assumptions were a bad thing. I couldn’t assume it was Mygi in retaliation for keeping Raphael from them. I couldn’t assume it wasn’t a personal grudge or a professional one. I could only follow the facts.
And he might as well be on the same page. I’ll treat him like Cassius. A partner sometimes.
“I grew up being trained to protect myself on my family’s property. And to give you an idea of what that means, the property had twelve-foot stone walls, magical traps littered all over it, and a wide variety of deadly snakes we kept, both for our own enjoyment and a further layer of protection, especially from humans. The magic traps were for other supernaturals.”
“So, you grew up paranoid and hidden.”
“Yeah, and if you were a normal supernatural, you would have already assumed I did because every naga lives that way now…except me. I go places and do things. Why? Because none of it works. I was twelve when my family was murdered. I was able to get out through one of our hidden escape routes, but my parents never followed me. My brothers never followed me. I spent a little while roaming, unable to find anyone or get help, too scared to ask normal people. I was very sheltered.” I poured my smoothie finally, hoping it wasn’t ruined by sitting for so long and walked into the living room.
“Same night? Nakul’s wife and son were butchered. It was a coordinated attack on every naga family with a female. We’re considered more vulnerable, thanks to sexism, and obviously, females equal breeding, which equals repairing our kind’s population.” I rolled my eyes as I finished.
“Jesus,” he whispered, following me. “That’s an archaic way of thinking.”
“Isn’t it? Remember what I just said, though. Most supernaturals are immortal. Sexism is hard to beat when it’s being perpetuated by men who are accustomed to times when women were property in a very real sense.” I sighed as I sat down, crossing my legs. Raphael sat down in one of the armchairs, then leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped together. The lines of his face were severe, even in the low light.
“You seem bitter.” The words were sad. “Is that what I’ve been missing here? You’re bitter.”
“I am,” I answered shortly, unable to deny it. “You would be too if you were found as a young teenager, your family dead, and the leader of your people told you that you had one responsibility in life. Have children. Breed. That’s it. Get paraded at puberty in front of the males of your kind, in hopes one of them might be compatible with you. Have kids as soon as possible, as often as possible.”
“Compatible?” Raphael sounded disgusted.
“Information for a different night, but you can assume it meant they wanted to find someone for me to fuck and have kids with.” I wasn’t getting into naga breeding with him tonight. Probably would eventually, but not tonight. I didn’t want him knowing the signs of compatibility, for obvious reasons.
“What did you do?”
“I ran away,” I said simply, but there was so much more.
I could still remember every detail of that night. Adhar upset I wasn’t able to mate with any of the available male nagas, furious even, like it was somehow my fault. He knew I would grow up to be a de facto leader of the naga, someth
ing no one had told me. I heard him say it that night, about how he needed to make sure I was perfect, well educated, and continued the old ways of doing things. Being mated would have helped control me and kept me doing things his way.
The old ways didn’t work. Not a single time in my life has his way of doing things ever worked.
So, I snuck out the window. I charmed the snake that lived in a bush under the window and used it to lead the others away from me. I stole money and found a way to get out of India before they found my trail. I was proficient at being alone by then, after surviving without my family. I never went back. When I left India, I stayed gone. It was twenty years before Adhar and I spoke again—twenty years without seeing or speaking to a single one of my own kind.
Trying to chase away the thoughts of the other nagas, I went back to the story.
“I got into some trouble, nearly got myself killed a couple of times. Went through some bad shit until I was seventeen. Hisao found me by accident and took me in. I trained with him since he knew I would never go back to the shelter of a naga compound. He pointed me to the Tribunal and becoming an Investigator or Executioner. I picked Executioner. I knew if I didn’t pick whichever one gave me more power to protect myself, I would never be safe. I picked up languages, having already trained myself to learn on-the-fly, thanks to the time I lived on my own after my family died. I changed, leaving behind things that made me a naga and an Indian. Luckily, I have a look that can blend in with a lot of different places. I learned how. Finally, I settled in America and never left. I like it here. I like pretending I’m American and belong here.”
He leaned back, confused or surprised.
“That…sounds kind of like me,” he said softly. “Running from things you don’t understand and can’t control. Running from bad people who wanted to do things to you that you didn’t agree with. You’ve just been doing it longer.”
I froze, knowing he was right. I never really considered his situation with mine, not like that.
“I found a way to stop running,” I finally corrected. “But, yeah, you hit the nail on the head. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about most of that, and I didn’t even get into everything.”
“I have a feeling we’d be here all night if you did,” he said, a dark chuckle filling the room. He stopped, looking guilty. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Mind if I ask one more thing?”
I shrugged, not really caring anymore. We’d lived together for four months and never really talked. It honestly felt good to tell him about me, to show him more of myself. I wanted him to understand me. I probably wanted more than that.
“Where does Nakul fit into all of this?”
“Oh.” I snorted, looking toward the bedroom I had locked my uncle in. “We thought he was dead for a long time. From my understanding, Adhar and others had gone to his home, found the bodies of my aunt and cousin, but not him. They’d assumed he was captured and killed. Wouldn’t be the first time. They actually thought that happened to me until they caught wind of my movements. It wasn’t until I was an Executioner and met Cassius that I heard about Nakul again. I didn’t know it was him at first, but Cassius was working on the case and in the area. I got nosy. At the time, we hated each other. He was so prim and proper, and I was…just not either of those things.” I rubbed my hands together. “I looked over the case while he was bitching about something, and it stuck out to me. Everything felt familiar as if I’d seen it or heard about it before. The bodies were placed and positioned, and the families were similar. I asked to go into one of the crime scenes, and I could taste one of my own kind in the air, and I knew who it was. Cassius kept me on to help. We chased Nakul for a while and finally caught him. He was…batshit insane. He’d completely lost his mind. He was so driven by grief and anguish, he’d lashed out in the most painful way he could.”
We sat in silence for a long time. I stared at my closed windows, wondering if I would be able to watch the sunrise or if it was too dangerous. It took my mind off the thoughts of the past creeping up in the dark.
“I’m really sorry for always giving you a hard time,” Raphael said quietly, breaking the silence. “I know when we met, I was an asshole. You killed people, and that’s wrong, and I was so single-minded about it. Do I agree with it? No, but…”
“You understand,” I finished for him. “That’s all we can hope for, right? Understanding each other.”
“Yeah, but it’s not just—”
He jumped and stopped when my phone started ringing. I quickly grabbed it, this time checking to see who it might be.
“What’s going on, Paden?”
“Look out your window,” he ordered.
“No…” I trailed off. “I don’t think I will. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“There’s a storm brewing over the city.”
That doesn’t sound good—only one explanation for that.
“There was no rain in the weather report this morning. None for another week, actually,” I said nonchalantly. “This is good. City needs rain.”
“Kaliya.” Paden didn’t sound amused.
“Sorry, but I’m not confirming anything over the phone, and you know it,” I replied. “I’ll give you an update later. Thanks for the call.”
I hung up on him before he could try to dig for more information. I knew what he wanted. He wanted confirmation, and I had no intention of giving that to him for him to sell to whoever he could before dawn broke. I turned to Raphael and sighed.
“Levi is in the city.”
I stood and walked to one of my sealed windows, using my phone to open it. When Raphael walked up beside me, I wondered what he was thinking, seeing the storm brewing over the city. It looked natural, but there was nothing natural about it. Lightning flashed, and the crash of thunder came soon after.
“What are we going to do?” he asked softly.
“We’re going to go out there and find him before he destroys the city, looking for me.” I was unable to tear my eyes away from the sight. There was a lot of power brewing in those clouds, but I knew Levi’s weaknesses. I just needed a chance to take advantage of them.
“Absolutely not,” Raphael said quickly, grabbing my wrist as I started walking away. “You are not going out there to hunt him down. It sounds like a great way to get killed.”
“Someone has to do it, and it’s my job,” I reminded him, looking down at where he was touching me before looking up into pitch-black eyes. “I have to do whatever is necessary to protect this city and the supernatural world as a whole. I have to be willing to put my life on the line.”
“Kaliya, please. You don’t know where he is. Do you even know how to find him?”
“No, but I can track him,” I said, knowing he had a point. Always with this man. “I’ve tracked harder to find people in a short amount of time. It’s about knowing who to ask for help.”
“And who would you go to?” he demanded.
“A local witch coven. They would be able to prod the storm with their own powers and find the source. Most witches who can do weather magic of any degree need to be at the center of the storm, but Levi is a special guy.”
“What exactly did he do? If we’re going to hunt this guy down, at least tell me about him.” I saw the defeat and resignation on Raphael’s face, and it was prominent in his voice. I was most surprised he was still willing to help me. He’d been serious about that. He’d have my back.
“He was always a strong weather-based witch, but one day, he was expelled from his coven. Only a few months later, a storm brewed over the town where the coven was based. There were no survivors by the time he was through. As they died, he took their eyes and their lives, transferring their innate power to himself. He’s as strong as thirty witches at this point. That’s why he can call storms this big. Luckily, he’s still just a human. He’s vulnerable.”
“How many people did he kill?” Raphael asked softly, looking back out at the storm,
black spreading through the veins of his face.
“Twelve people that night. He wasn’t caught for a while. Humans have the tendency to get drunk with power, and that sort of theft of magical power gives them an insane rush. He went on a killing spree.”
“What did he want?”
“No one ever really figured that out. Some say he was trying to make himself a god. Some say he was learning how to steal the power of supernaturals, and that accelerated his power. They found dead werewolves, fae, and others in his hideout. Whether he got power out of them, no one really knows.” I finally pulled my wrist out of his hand while he was distracted with the thought of Levi out and about.
“See why we need to deal with him? If he’s out hunting for me or anyone, really, he’ll probably only get more powerful. We would have to go out there, eventually. I need to deal with Nakul’s memory problem if we want any more answers.”
“Yeah, I get it,” he said softly.
We both changed into better clothing and grabbed ample rain gear. I checked out weapons and ammo, replenishing the ammo, even though I hadn’t used much at the prison. I shoved the car keys in my pocket and started walking out the door, just in time for me to hear the ding of the elevator at the other end of the hall. Before Raphael was able to react, I shoved him back into the condo and slammed the door closed, leaving me alone while the elevator door opened. Before I could turn back around, a body slammed me, threatening to crush me.
13
Chapter Thirteen
Can’t catch a fucking break tonight, can I?
I struggled as furred arms wrapped around my core and squeezed, forcing the air out of my lungs. I felt the distinct crack of a rib beginning to give way to the pressure. My arms were pinned to my sides, so I reached for my firearm in the holster. I managed to pull it out and fire a shot, feeling a hot burn down my thigh. The brute roared and let go, stumbling back. I fell to the ground, barely catching myself before my face hit the floor. I could taste gunpowder and blood on the air and blindly fired behind me. The condo door swung back open, and I scrambled in. Raphael tried to push it closed, but he was met with a massive man trying to push his way in.
