by Jami Gray
“Age isn’t everything, Natasha,” Carys interrupted. “Ryan trusted Gavin at his side for years. I think that speaks for itself.”
Exasperation wiped away Natasha’s patience and she waved Carys’s words away. “I’m not talking about age. I’m talking about knowledge.” The stubborn expressions around her sent her temper slipping. “I have walked this earth for hundreds of years. Longer than any of you. Only Ryan had seen more than me. The Council has had eons of manipulating the Kyn. They know each house’s weaknesses, their strengths, how to set each against another. All so they can achieve what they want. Their attention has turned to us, and we have no idea how long they’ve been watching.”
With each word, her fury rose, dragging her demon closer to the surface. The temperature in the room dropped drastically. Carys stiffened in her chair, while Cheveyo’s normally copper skin paled. Even the unflappable Vidis stilled.
“If we cannot present a solid front, you are asking the Council to annihilate us,” she spat out. “You want to pit a man, who’s just learning the extent of his abilities, and the unpredictable woman he stands with, against them?” Her hands curled into fists, then relaxed. “We must use this unsettled time to move ahead in this game or we will lose everything.”
Cheveyo’s throat worked as he swallowed, but his voice remained steady. “The Council is not invincible, Natasha. If we are to stand against them, the Wraiths must work with us, not against us. Let them choose their own captain.”
“You said it yourself,” Carys added. “The Northwest can’t afford to be divided. Even on this.”
Tucking her anger and frustration away, Natasha regained her frigid control. “A choice can only be made if they are given options. If he can’t stand against me, he deserves to lose.” If he couldn’t unify the Wraiths against her, he’d never hold them against the Council.
“Perhaps,” Vidis answered. “But you’ll gain nothing if you force yourself on them.”
Finally, they were starting to get the picture. Keeping her pleasure hidden, she looked down and smoothed a non-existent line on her white pantsuit with a studied nonchalance. Only when she was certain that nothing showed on her face but her normally expected arrogance, did she look up. “If Gavin can win the vote, the Wraiths are his. If he fails—” She gave a delicate shrug. “—I will do whatever is necessary to keep them out of the Council’s hands.”
Chapter Four
Business is a combination of war and sport.
Natasha ran a crimson nail over the etched edges of the small statuary bearing André Maurois’s quote. In her opinion, the French novelist had certainly nailed it.
Ryan gave her this piece many years ago, shortly after she secured a vital government contract. A tongue-in-cheek reminder of the bloodless battle she waged, and won, for their fledgling company. At the time, women were not known for wheeling deals with men, especially military men.
Yet, Ryan was never one to follow conventions.
From the beginning of their business partnership, he allowed her to forge her own path as she walked next to him. His ability to see beyond the obvious countered her drive for control. Together they created something unique to the Kyn world—a successful enterprise that allowed them to hide in plain sight. A dangerous achievement. So dangerous, someone went to extreme lengths in an attempt to destroy it.
She sat back down at her desk, her gaze not focused on the expanse of her office, but turned inward to a more treacherous landscape. Unfortunately, after dealing with the anger and fury of the other heads of house, her emotional grip was slippery at best.
Chaotic grief escaped its leash and seeped around the formidable barriers she erected to deal with the loss of Ryan. Here, where she was safe from scrutiny, she could let herself grieve. Things had moved fast, requiring rapid-fire responses in order to stem the on-coming tide, and allowing her to ignore the press of emotions. Until it caught her unawares.
Her fingertip traced her signature authorizing the public reveal of Taliesin’s reconstruction, a media event designed to reassure the human business world that Taliesin Security stood strong in the wake of their unexpected loss. Strange to see her name in place of Ryan’s.
In a matter of weeks, there would be no sign of the physical damage wrought by the spell that killed him. The reconstruction melody of heavy thumps and high-pitched metal saw blades would disappear as the physical pieces were put back in place. No visible scars would be left behind as reminders of what they lost. Of what she lost.
Betrayals made for strange bedfellows. A fact she learned at Ryan’s hand a very, very long time ago in a blood-soaked stone room in a desert land. He shattered her foolish heart, while ripping away her naive blinders, then offered her an alternative to certain death. Within a singular moment, he had secured her loyalty in a way no other had before or probably would ever again. Because of that, there was no way she would let his death go unavenged. Whoever was behind that spell—and Vidis’s little bastard brother was not the true mastermind—would pay. Pay in very arduous ways. It was the least she could do for the only one she called friend. Damn, she missed him.
A quiet buzz jerked her out of her grim thoughts. Frowning at the phone on her desk, she depressed the speaker button. “Yes?”
“Ms. Bertoi, Sector Chief Victor Osborn is here to see you.”
Well now, wasn’t this interesting? Tucking her grief away, her insatiable curiosity took front and center. What news would call for an unexpected visit from the Preternatural Crimes Division? “Please send him in.”
While she waited for the head of the government-sanctioned group who worked with the Kyn on decidedly other crimes to appear, she straightened the mess of papers, setting her desk in order even as she tucked her wilder emotions away.
When the door opened, she rose to her feet, her professional mask firmly in place and a polite smile on her lips. “Chief Osborn,” she greeted, walking around her desk to take his hand. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He met her halfway, his hand outstretched. “Ms. Bertoi.”
“Natasha, please,” she corrected, shaking his hand. Once he released her, she waved him to one of the chairs in front of her desk. “Won’t you have a seat?”
Instead of resuming her place behind her desk, she settled into the second chair.
“Natasha,” he murmured, taking a seat. He wiped an ineffective hand over his wrinkled slacks, before giving up and sitting back. “I apologize for interrupting you during this difficult time. I heard Mulcahy’s private funeral was today. My condolences.”
She dipped her head in acknowledgement. “I don’t mind the interruption, if you’re here to share information on the investigation.”
A grimace came and went. “I wish I had better news for you.” He met her gaze with an unusual shrewdness. “We’ve hit a dead end on the geneticist, Brant Sutler.”
A shift in his guarded expression made her ask, “Literally or figuratively?”
His lips quirked, before he stilled them. “Figuratively.”
A small spurt of surprise flashed. Not the answer she expected. “And the drug he created?”
Osborn shook his head. “No more public reports of wild wolf attacks, nor any sign of Kyn having control issues.”
She gave him points on his polite phrasing. When psychotic werewolves decided to shift in front of humans, “control issues” was the nicest thing you could call it.
“Both Sutler and his drug seem to have disappeared into thin air.” Frustration lent a sharpness to his words.
And if the bags under his eyes were anything to go by, he chased every trail he could find. “Did Division have any luck tracing Sutler’s financials?”
There was no way the human could have developed a drug powerful enough to force an unnatural shift on a wolf without some serious monetary backing. Jamie was tugging on a similar thread, but from an angle that Osborn had no knowledge of. Still, it didn’t hurt to see if the humans had stumbled upon any additional tidbits.
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“Not yet. His accounts are inactive. Not that there’s much in there. A few hundred in savings, and his last paycheck in checking. No movement on any charge cards or his travel visa. We’ll be expanding the search, but it’s going to take time.”
“Time is not our friend,” she warned. “The longer your people take to find answers, the more unsettled my people become.”
His expression didn’t noticeably change, but a wary anticipation sharpened the air. He drummed his fingers against the chair’s arm as he studied her. “I warned you before, your people are not the only unsettled ones in this, Natasha.”
“While I appreciate your warning, Mr. Osborn, you also indicated a definitive decision had not been made. Has that changed?”
His mouth thinned. “Mulcahy’s death appears to have accelerated the conversations on revealing the Kyn to the general public.”
Not surprising. A few key incidents in the past months left the thin curtain between the Kyn and the humans perilously frayed.
Hours before Ryan’s death, Osborn told the Northwest Heads of House that the U.S. government was considering reneging on the 1946 Agreement and outing the Kyn.
“While we agree an eventual reveal is necessary,” she said. “It would serve your leaders best if they remembered who and what they are dealing with.”
Osborn’s stiffened in his seat. “Threats don’t go over well with my government.”
She smiled, pleased when an uneasy frown marred his face. “Mr. Osborn, the Kyn don’t issue threats.”
Standing in the front receiving area, Natasha waited until the elevator doors closed behind Chief Osborn before turning to Rachel, Taliesin’s trusted receptionist. Even at this late hour, she remained as crisp and professional as ever. “Rachel, is Mr. Ryder still in?”
Rachel dipped her head, her manicured nails sounding an efficient rhythm as she checked her system. “I’m showing him still available, Ms. Bertoi.”
“Wonderful.” Noting the woman’s pale, drawn face, Natasha allowed a bit of warmth into her voice. “Why don’t you head home? There’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.”
Quickly veiled surprise added much needed color to Rachel’s complexion, but she only nodded in acknowledgement.
Natasha made her way to the door leading to the back offices. She reached out, only to have Rachel’s gentle, “Don’t stay too late, Ms. Bertoi,” touch an unexpected soft spot.
Natasha’s fingers tightened on the doorknob, but she simply nodded before pulling the door open and slipping into the hall. By the time she hit Jamie’s office, her composure was firmly intact. She gave a perfunctory knock then stepped through the partially opened door.
Seated behind his desk, Jamie visibly started and came to his feet. “Natasha? Did I miss a meeting?” His black shirt was rolled halfway up his arms, and there was no tie in sight. He ran a hand through his already artistically messy brown hair and gave his desk a quick once over before coming around to meet her. He waved to the lone chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”
“Relax. I just wanted to follow up on a few things with you.” She moved into the office, closing the door behind her. “Where are we on Brant Sutler?”
As she settled into the chair, he leaned against the desk’s edge and slipped his hands into the pockets of his gray slacks. “Nothing on Sutler, but we did find the human hired to assassinate Vidis.”
“The one who shot Xander instead?”
Jamie nodded. “He’s dead.”
She crossed her legs. “No surprise. I’m sure whoever hired him was very unhappy with his performance.”
Jamie’s gaze acquired a dangerous light. “He may not have taken out the Northwest Alpha, but going after Vidis’s mate did create a scene.”
“Hmm, yes, it did,” she agreed. “Quite the chaotic mess. I have to say it was beautifully done.”
“Would’ve been better had he used silver bullets.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But you get what you pay for.”
Used to the lust for turmoil that every demon thrived on, she remained unfazed by his calculated observation. “Pay for?”
“We did manage to trace a recent payment in the shooter’s account back to Vidis’s brother, Dmitri. Unfortunately, it dead ends there. No sign of who provided the money.”
Someone was very, very good at covering their tracks. “How much?”
“Half a million.”
Interesting. “A partial payment then. The shooter’s death? Was it one of ours?”
He raised his eyebrows, amusement lighting his eyes. “Are you asking as CEO or captain of the Wraiths?”
As much as she normally enjoyed sparring with the impertinent young man, today was not one of those days. She arched an eyebrow and infused her voice with ice. “Does it matter?”
Jamie’s normally easygoing mask slipped and something older and darker peeked out, wiping away his youthful illusion. “You truly want to hold all the power, don’t you?”
A subtle note in his voice made her wonder if something more was at play in the recent tensions in her house. Something beyond the simple machinations for her seat. “Not all,” she corrected. “Just the important pieces.” She tilted her head to the side and considered him. “Jealous?”
A flash of red, then he threw back his head and laughed, dispelling her momentary paranoia. “Nope, not a bit.” His laughter faded and he waved a hand, as if erasing his momentary challenge. “Have at it, Natasha. I’m interested in seeing what comes of all of this.” He straightened with a lithe movement and leaned closer. “Just remember who helped you along the way.”
Reaching up, she patted the side of his face. “I never forget what others do for me.”
He pulled back with chagrined amusement.
Folding her hands in her lap, she asked, “Are you going to answer my question?”
“I don’t think it was one of ours. It actually appears as if whoever is behind this whole mess is tying up loose ends. The police found the shooter in Idaho. They listed it as an open murder. No clues, no evidence, nothing. Chances are good it will graduate to a cold case.”
“Hmmm.” She added this newest piece of information to her collection. “That doesn’t bode well for the little geneticist on the run, does it?”
“You think whoever was behind Mulcahy’s death will find Sutler before we do?”
She rose to her feet. “I think, if the human has run to ground, there are more hounds than us on his trail.”
“Poor little tool,” Jamie muttered. He turned and caught sight of the clock on the back wall. “Damn, I have to go.” He moved back around his desk, powered down his computer, then reached for the jacket draped over his chair. “I’m running late for a get-together.”
And so was she. “Let’s meet tomorrow morning. We have a few more items to go over before our meeting with the media relations coordinator from the Chamber of Commerce.”
They aligned their schedules as they walked down the hall and through the now empty reception area. As the elevator doors closed behind Jamie, Natasha headed to her office to collect her things, her mind turning over all she had learned.
If the Kyn, or more specifically, the Wraiths, could get to the geneticist Brant Sutler first, their chances of uncovering a solid connection of who in the preternatural world had targeted the Northwest Kyn would rise dramatically. There was no solid proof tying Vidis’s brother, Dmitri to another, but there was no way the lone wolf could acquire half a million dollars for a hit. Not to mention the expense of having Sutler create a drug targeting shifters. Granted, Tomás Chavez, the Southwest Alpha could have the means to fund such an endeavor. He made no secret of his hunger for Vidis’s blood.
But there was that thrice-damned spell—cast from ancient magic that had been around longer than most of their suspects, human and Kyn combined. While she didn’t think Chavez had the finesse to craft the magic behind Ryan’s death, gods above and below knew revenge could make one very creative. Even as she gathered h
er things, she checked the time and decided to pursue that avenue later. Tonight, she had a meeting to make.
Her mind continued to riffle through hidden agendas and convoluted schemes, an activity one of her blood thrived on. Although she held suspicions on where all this would lead, identifying the money source could be a game changer. In the end, she intended to be the one making the changes.
She brushed her fingers over Ryan’s gift before turning off the light. “Time to begin our campaign, my old friend.”
Chapter Five
Streetlights cast hazy pools across the glistening cement as Natasha stopped outside the darkened doorway of an abandoned pub. Tucked among the Pearl District’s collection of art galleries and trendy restaurants, Zarana’s had sat empty since the death of its owner six months earlier. Yet the skin-ruffling energy of warding magic still hummed at its entrance
A sudden bark of laughter down the sidewalk drew her attention. Even dreary weather couldn’t dampen people’s desire to socialize. Having even meager crowds out helped to disguise her presence, letting her become just another gallery gawker. She was about to turn back to Zarana’s when movement caught her eye.
Two men strolled down the far side of the street. They passed by a well-lit restaurant and she caught sight of Jamie’s familiar features.
She stepped back into the pool of shadows, not wanting to be seen. At least not yet. As they drew closer, she decided it was time to move indoors. Calling on her maternal Fey bloodlines, kept from everyone, except Ryan.
Like most Amanusa, she preferred to remain very tight lipped about her bloodlines. While the Amanusa were the mixed offspring of the twelve original Fallen Angels and whatever Kyn female they managed to impregnate, all could lay claim to one of six bloodlines originating from the Fallen—War, Earth, Secrets, Enticement, Death, and Iniquity.
Unfortunately, blood didn’t guarantee power. The more diluted the genetic line, the weaker the demon. And if you had the misfortune of a human mother, your chances of surviving puberty were slim. The fight between the profane and divine tended to break the strongest of human minds, reducing them to a level beyond psychotic.
