Sin & Surrender (Demigods of San Francisco Book 6)

by K. F. Breene

  Lexi wore jeans and a plain shirt, having chosen to stay in and pack this morning, but Kieran hadn’t been idle. Even though they were all leaving in the afternoon, he was in his customary high-dollar suit and had already been out and about, shaking hands and hearing proposed alliances, soaking in the heightened status. He did not plan to let this situation go to waste. He had a chance to get ahead, and he was taking it, for himself, his family, and his territory.

  Now that Alexis had the power to get herself out of a jam if Kieran ever went crazy, Daisy felt comfortable enough to let down her guard and say that he was one helluva guy. He was Mr. Political when the situation called for it, but yesterday, despite what it might’ve meant for him personally, he’d walked out of his important meeting to help Alexis. When it came down to it, his family meant more to him. That meant something. It was what kept the crew together. Red had given her life—twice, apparently—to fight beside them. Jack had earned his way back because of his loyalty. Kieran had created those bonds of loyalty, and Lexi had strengthened them. Together they would be incredible leaders. Daisy sincerely hoped Kieran could keep it together so they really could live out eternity together. Lexi deserved to be this happy forever.

  “I would turn around and give you my full attention, Henry, but I don’t want to burn anything,” Jack said.

  “Ditto.” Donovan raised a spoon coated in brown sauce.

  Henry pressed on as though he hadn’t heard. “Through my…friend, I was able to get full access to the Summit surveillance. I’ve been downloading the info onto our cloud. We’ve got a lot of excellent information, sir.” Henry nodded at Kieran. “A lot of excellent information. Secret meetings were going on all over the place, as you’d expect. But some of the Demigods seemed to have an awareness of the cameras. They only spoke freely in places where the surveillance lacked audio. Less-established leaders, even those known for being more tech-savvy, didn’t show that same pattern. The pattern should help us glean a lot more information than what was said on tape.”

  Kieran leaned against the wall and pulled Alexis against him. “I agree. You’re recording it on our servers, you said?”

  “Yes,” Henry said, adjusting his computer under his arm. “We’re downloading it to our cloud in increments, picking times when the surveillance team isn’t watching things quite so closely. Their team is pretty good.”

  “Did you find out what the story was with Aaron?” Dylan asked. “Did he get in any trouble for what went on with the…with Damion?”

  Kieran slipped a hand into his pocket. “He lost a lot of status.”

  “That’s it?” Daisy asked, not bothering to hide her disgust and outrage. “How many people did that guy get killed?”

  “Losing status isn’t as mundane as it sounds,” Kieran said. “His lesser status means fewer allies. Less people to stick up for him. To help him. He’s vulnerable, and I suspect he has an enemy in Zander. Zander hasn’t come out publicly, but a few of the things he said… Trust me, Aaron’s loss of status today will be his ruin unless he can figure out a way to right this wrong. Given Alexis and I plan to cock-block his every attempt to climb out of the muck, well…”

  “He’s done,” Lexi said. “He’s messed with me one too many times. His demise won’t be fast, either. We’re going to make sure he hangs himself nice and slow. Make him feel it until he’s so weak that his wife eventually kills him. Magnus will help, I know he will. He’ll do it to help himself as much as suck up to me, but he’ll do it.”

  Dylan nodded, and Daisy’s outrage started to ease. She’d been saved and pulled out of the stink, but Dylan had only escaped his situation by dying. He had a vendetta against Demigods behaving badly that Daisy fully supported. If he was satisfied with the punishment, she was too.

  “What’s the story with that?” Mordecai asked, picking at his nail. “How are you going to leave things with Magnus?”

  Alexis sighed and leaned her head against Kieran’s chest. “He’s been shaped by the life of an immortal Demigod. I need to accept that. There is a lot of terribleness in him. A lot of things to dislike. He did let me live, though, even when he could’ve let me fumble my way to death. He’s been helpful at times. I won’t give up on him, though I will never actually trust him. Not completely. I guess that’s just how life has to be.”

  “I have faith that eventually you’ll be allies,” Kieran said, squeezing her. “That’s a better relationship than Demigods have with most people. It’s about as much trust as they are willing to give.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  “It’s all right, Lexi, I’ll be your daddy,” Jack said, flipping something.

  “Death really killed your sense of humor, dude,” Donovan said. “That joke was not on point. She might kill you again for that one.”

  “Nah, not when she sees that I am making her Christmas steak,” Jack replied.

  Alexis stared at the back of his head for a moment, and her lips tweaked up into a smile. “How did you know?”

  “I may have heard you calling your mom and then I might have listened in. You were loud as hell. The whole spirit world heard you, I think. That was probably Hades’s work.” He turned back, and his bright white smile lit up his face. “Who’s your daddy now?”

  “No.” Donovan shoved Jack. “Still no, dude. Let it go.”

  Alexis laughed. “It’s so wrong it might just be right.”

  “It’s not right, Alexis.” Thane shook his head with a pained expression. “It is weird, but it is not right.”

  “Speaking of other things that aren’t right…” Henry said.

  “Good segue,” Boman said, laughing.

  Henry grinned. “Zorn was right—a dark fae had business on the premises.”

  Daisy couldn’t help the flash of heat that burned through her body at the memory of those vivid green eyes above that wicked grin. She hadn’t told a soul about it—she was too afraid to—and she’d put the fear of God into Mordecai so he wouldn’t either. Although she didn’t know what he was capable of, he’d made two bodies disappear. That meant he was incredibly powerful.

  A sizzling chill made her shiver. She hadn’t even known it was possible to feel so hot and so cold at the same moment. It was like her body was being operated by someone else.

  “Demigod Lydia was slain in her golf cart yesterday when everyone else was trying to subdue Damion or Thane.” Henry tapped his computer with his thumb. “I haven’t seen the footage yet, though I was invited to later if we’re still here…” Daisy imagined he’d been invited for more than just that. “Word is her throat was cut and the wound didn’t heal before she bled out. All of her people were left alive, but they were in a magically induced sleep. None of them saw anything. They don’t know who did it.”

  Kieran nodded slowly. “She hired the fae to ransack my memories. She must’ve signed a contract by that point, and since she didn’t live up to her end of the bargain, she paid the price.”

  “Yeah, but if they didn’t do the work, then why would they expect to collect money or whatever?” Alexis asked.

  “They wouldn’t just be expecting money,” Zorn said. “When pulling memories from Kieran, they’d learn his secrets. They’d learn about him and all he knew. They would’ve had his knowledge. She denied them that when she failed to deliver him. They took hers instead, and then made her pay the ultimate price. Only a fool makes a bargain with the fae.”

  “So the fae set Damion and Thane loose so he could create a distraction?” Jerry said, his hands braced on his hips.

  “I didn’t have a hope of hanging on to control.” Thane shook his head. “Not a chance. I can’t even tell you why. One minute I was good to go, and the next I was looking at a young dude and seeing red. I don’t even know what made me snap, just that I did.”

  “I don’t know that he was royalty, but whatever he was, he was incredibly powerful. They wanted the job done right,” Zorn said. “And it looks like they got what they wanted. Lydia’s debt has been pa
id.”

  “Did they want a rematch with you?” Mordecai asked Thane. “Since you missed the Berserker thing?”

  “It is believed that the Berserker cage, as they call it for the Summit, isn’t strong enough to hold Thane,” Kieran said, the pride in his voice ringing loud and clear. A few of the guys started to laugh.

  Jack turned around and nudged Thane with his fist. “I’d like to see if that’s true. Certainly your ability to withstand Damion makes you the most dangerous, and therefore best, Berserker in the world.”

  “Ah now.” Thane slipped his hands into his jeans pockets. “If Lexi and her cats hadn’t already dropped that guy down a peg, I wouldn’t have gotten through it. I was fighting for my life.”

  “We done patting each other on the back?” Zorn asked, shifting his weight.

  Another wave of butterflies rolled through Daisy’s middle. She pushed forward.

  “Wait a minute.” Lexi pushed off Kieran, stepping in Daisy’s way, and leveled a finger at her. “My blood magic might help you heal fast, but you can still die, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Daisy said, seeing Amber out of the corner of her eye, dressed in black leather and strapped with weapons. The swarm of butterflies kicked it up a notch. She’d refused to accept Kieran’s blood magic, for obvious reasons, but when Lexi had offered last night, Daisy had been one hundred percent game. Kieran had walked them through it. Daisy had gotten a shot of awesome, plus an amazing side gift of feeling people or souls or presences or whatever from a distance of thirty feet. Game changer.

  “Do not take any unnecessary risks,” Lexi said, her voice as hard as nails. It was the voice Daisy didn’t dare defy.

  “Fine.”

  “Do what they say.” She pointed first at Zorn, then Amber, who would accompany them in the hunt.

  “I know, I know.”

  “Do not get seen or caught.”

  “I’ll help with that,” Henry said, tapping his computer. “I got a…meetup on standby if necessary.”

  “Whore,” Daisy murmured.

  “It’s not a job when it’s a good time.” Henry blinked, and Daisy got the impression it was supposed to be a wink.

  She wrestled with a smile. “I’ll remember that when—”

  “Oh no, you will not,” Lexi said, her finger still leveled at Daisy but her scowl on Henry. “Don’t encourage her.” Scowl back on Daisy now. “Do not kill them. Maybe one, but no more. We don’t need their Demigod on our asses. Find them, and send a message.”

  “We’ll definitely send a message,” Zorn said with a growl, adjusting his machete.

  “Crap on a cracker, I want to go so bad,” Bria said, practically bouncing up and down. “It isn’t fair that only Zorn and Amber can go.”

  “The bonus of training a kid.” Amber shrugged, waiting patiently for them. “This will be child’s play, Lexi, don’t worry. This kid is good. Won’t take but a minute to track them all down and slice them up.”

  The color bled from Lexi’s face. “Oh God, why am I letting her do this? This isn’t right—”

  “She’s kidding, Lexi, she’s kidding.” Bria rolled her eyes. But she shot Daisy an excited thumbs-up on the sly.

  Boman clapped. “The gremlin goes on her first ride. Dang it, I want to go too.”

  “Join the club,” Dylan said. “Are you sure you don’t need me? I can lurk in the background in case—”

  “She doesn’t even need us.” Zorn motioned for Daisy to get going. “We’re just there to keep things quiet.”

  Daisy walked out the door with Zorn and Amber, into the bright sunlight. Something about this moment felt so completely right, as if her life up until this point had been preparation for what was to come.

  Not looking back, she sank into the frame of mind Zorn had taught her. She lightened her step, like Amber had coached. They didn’t take the golf carts. Instead, they slipped from green patch to green patch. The blood power had given her strength and speed, and running felt effortless now.

  They had a good idea of who’d made the threats. Daisy had seen a few of them clustered together when leaving the Summit building yesterday, the shoes familiar. One of them had even worn the ring she’d noticed in the surveillance video. She’d quietly pointed them out to Amber, who was confident one of them was on Demigod Rufus’s team. If one was, they all probably were.

  At Demigod Rufus’s lodge, though, most of the golf carts had been taken. They were probably at the Summit building, gossiping and schmoozing, or else just drinking. It was only late morning, but the whole event had been thrown off the rails.

  Still not winded, they slunk around corners, entered the Summit building, where interior bars and restaurants were positioned on the west side, and blended in with the crowd. Daisy had been trained by Zorn for over a year now, and Amber for six months—not a lot of time. Even still, this felt perfectly natural to her. Effortless, almost. If someone happened to glance her way, she simply slipped behind someone else, playing it off as though she’d been moving that way all along. Her short and slender frame was a benefit, allowing her to hide behind women as well as men.

  Near the doorway of one of the interior bars, a pair of scuffed boots caught her eyes’ attention. Next to those walked the runners she’d memorized. And she saw the tarnished silver ring on a swinging hand.

  Zorn turned into gas, the easiest cover and one that allowed him to stay close, as she slipped behind a doorway. Amber paused in walking, looking down at her phone, her hair obscuring her face and her body language distracted. It was the look of a million people, and despite her leather and weapons, the eye cataloged her as a known quantity and slid right by. So easy.

  The scuffed boots belonged to a man of medium height with messy brown hair, stubble, and a belching problem. He led the tall guy with the runners away from the bar. They met up with a woman whose combat boots Daisy didn’t know, plus another group of boots she did.

  Ta-da.

  “Time for bait,” she said for Zorn, and slipped out of the doorway. The group was headed to the far exit, smelling faintly of beer and bourbon. They were starting to let their hair down as the week droned on. She would’ve been happier if they’d been stone sober, but whatever. She didn’t have time to wait.

  Amber cut across her path and then slunk through a group of people chatting about the gods’ visit. They didn’t give her any notice. Zorn increased his distance, so when she eventually waltzed in front of her target group, making Scuffed Boots stutter-step so as not to trip over her, he’d be behind them.

  “Hey, ain’t that that Chester?” one of them said.

  She started, glanced back with a frightful expression, and then hunched, playing the scared little rabbit. She headed toward the nearest exit, hurrying her steps.

  “Why yes, it is,” another said, his voice low.

  “I feel like a little fun, how about you all?” one asked.

  “Should we? That’s that new Demigod’s kid,” one of them answered.

  “That new Demigod ain’t gonna know who roughed up her kid if her kid can’t talk. She doesn’t have the blood bond. Not our fault if she accidentally dies because she can’t withstand a little beating.”

  “Nah. I’m out.”

  Daisy, nearly to the exit, hurried to the side and into a hall, not seeing who took off. It would be the smartest thing they ever did.

  “Coward,” the leader said, and they turned after her, following her around the corner instead of heading out the door, too stupid to know it was a trap. Zorn followed behind, and Amber would go around back and cut through the building to make sure there was nowhere for them to run.

  Daisy stopped at a dead end, turned, and put up her hands. A group of five, two less than the crew that had delivered her hate mail, crowded in front of her, excited expressions on their faces, and a couple with alcohol-hazed eyes. The one in the back would go free, she decided, the woman whose shoes she didn’t recognize. She nodded slightly to Zorn to convey the message.


  “Looky, looky,” the leader, Mr. Scuffed Boots himself, said.

  “You have no pride in your footwear,” she said, straightening up and then loosening, dropping her Little Miss Rabbit act.

  Scuffed Boots frowned, his confusion probably from her change in demeanor. “Huh?”

  She pointed first to his boots, and then to the footwear around him. “I know you’re the ones who left me the love notes in pig blood. Well, pig blood and paint, but whatever. Cute messages. Unoriginal, though.”

  Scuffed Boots puffed up in pride. “Your kind doesn’t belong here. Consider this your exit pass.”

  “What’s amazing is, by being a close-minded, intolerant turd, you’ve shown that you are no better than a Chester. And now you’ll be killed by one. Oh the irony.”

  Without wasting another second or allowing them to activate their magic, she attacked, sprinting forward while throwing her knives. The first landed in the base of Scuffed Boots’s throat, a little low, but the second stuck him right in the eye. One-in-a-million shot. He went down before he could fire off one of his useless magical flares. Clearly that would be the token dead guy.

  Another shocked her with a blast of static electricity, painful but not fatal. She pushed through the pain and raked her blade across his throat, not deep enough to kill. She jabbed him in a couple more places, just so he hurt real good, was hit by another blast, used him for a shield, and threw a throwing star at the guy in the back before Zorn could slice him with the machete.

  She unslung the dagger from her side, and Amber covered the opening of the hallway. Daisy kicked the groaning human shield out of her way and felt a horrible wave of sadness wash over her, an emotive magic. Growing up like she had, she’d never had time for sadness, depression—any of it. Logic saved your ass. Logic got you through. The rest could be ignored. It had to be.

  With both hands, she jammed the blade of her dagger into the soft spot between the shoulder and the chest of Mr. Sadness, his expression of rage doing nothing to sell the magic he was trying to cast on her. She yanked the blade out, dodged a fist filled with a knife, just missed a kick, and turned. Dagger in her left hand, she swept her right hand across her upper thigh and pulled out a small throwing knife she’d taken from Red to remember her by. Daisy had her own knives, but it felt better to hold on to Red’s memory. Besides, Red had always liked being a part of the action—she would’ve wanted her knives to keep working.