6
Random whistled—whistled—as he walked out of the bedroom. Valkyrie had never seen a man so happy to be relieved of the burden of thinking she liked him. His entire demeanor had shifted when she’d told him she didn’t care about him. As if he’d spent the last year carrying the weight of her supposed affection around like a boulder and now he’d gotten to cast it off.
She’d been right all along, couldn’t believe some small part of her had thought he’d meant all the things he’d said to her. It had been hard not to believe him. He’d spent a bloody year trying to convince her he loved her, and she’d never let him touch her in all that time. Not until Jace’s wedding.
He hadn’t looked this happy when she’d told him to leave her alone then. Of course, then, she’d practically had her body wrapped around his right before she’d told him to leave. He’d probably thought she was about to sleep with him, because she had been about to sleep with him before she’d come to her senses, and he likely hadn’t appreciated the sudden switch in her temperature.
She followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the bar, gritting her teeth at the cheerful look on his face. If he was so damn happy to think she didn’t want him, why had he insisted on sticking to their deal?
Guilt, she decided, as he poured a cup of coffee and put it on the counter before her. She always came back to guilt as his primary motivating factor. She just needed to make him understand he had nothing to feel guilty about.
That night—he hadn’t done anything that night except what she’d asked him to. And despite the pain of seeing him so happy right now, if his safety weren’t a factor, she wouldn’t go back and change what had happened.
But his safety was a factor. She had quit trying to convince him to leave because she knew him. The more she told him to do something, the more he’d try to find a way around it. They had that in common. If someone pointed them both at a brick wall and told them not to get to the other side of it, they would both end up on the other side. The difference between them was that she would bash a hole through the wall and everyone would see her coming a mile away. Random would sneak around somehow, and no one would even know he’d reached the other side until he got bored and revealed himself in some spectacular fashion.
Better if he thought she’d agreed to let him stay. And, truthfully, because she needed him. Getting what Danvers wanted wasn’t going to be easy. Random’s Aspect, his uncanny ability to luck into the things he wanted, might be the only thing that would allow her to acquire it within the timeframe Danvers had specified.
Once she had acquired it, though, then all bets were off. Then, she would knock Random out and send him across the ocean if that was what it took. Because she didn’t believe for five seconds that he could teleport. She’d lost track of the number of kids she’d intimidated, threatened, and beaten up when necessary after Random had first moved to Seclusion. The Aspect Society Academy prized strength, and instructors tended to look the other way where childhood bullying was concerned. If she hadn’t stepped in, Jace and Random would have been bruised and bloodied more days than not.
She hadn’t minded. It had given her something to focus on other than her mother’s recent death. Something good to do with the skills her father had drilled into her. To say that everything had changed after her mother died wasn’t quite accurate. It was more that everything had...intensified. Elijah had never broken her bones while her mother still lived.
“So what does Danvers want?”
The question took her from memory into the present. Random set a plate of frittata, bacon, and hashbrowns in front of her as her stomach rumbled. Goddess, she missed his cooking. She shoveled an obscenely large forkful of hashbrowns into her mouth and stifled a moan. She closed her eyes. Nothing had a right to taste this good.
“Do you and the hashbrowns need a moment alone?”
She flicked her eyes open to find him opposite the bar from her. His forearms rested on the counter. He leaned forward with that trademark wicked look in his eyes that had gotten so many women into his bed. The look that promised he was skilled and fun and absolutely worth it. She happened to know it was a promise he could deliver on.
“Of course, if you don’t want to be alone, we could always make it a threesome.”
Her throat went dry as she swallowed. Goddess curse it, now that he thought she didn’t care about him, he’d decided she was safe enough to flirt with again.
She pointed her fork at him. “Do you want me to carve your heart out with this?”
He put a hand to his chest. “No point in taking what’s already yours, love.”
Valkyrie snorted. His heart belonged to her about as much as the Eiffel Tower did. She should have told him she was madly in love with him when he’d asked if she cared about him—maybe then he’d still be all serious and morose instead of flirty and heart-stopping sexy—but the truth had never been her area of strength.
“Danvers?” Random prompted.
She put away the plate’s contents before she answered. His food was too good to ruin with unpleasant conversation.
“The Council is in possession of an item. He wants it.”
“And?”
“And I need to acquire it for him or else.”
“I could fill a book with the things you’re not telling me.”
She didn’t answer. The answer held so many tangled threads she was afraid they would all unravel at his feet the moment she opened her mouth.
“What’s the item? And before you lie to me, I’ll remind you that what he had planned for Siren isn’t exactly a secret. He wanted to use her power to destroy the Council. That didn’t pan out for him and now he’s manipulating you into taking something they have? I don’t think I need three guesses to figure out why.
“Aunt Ella is on that Council. I know she frightens the living daylights out of most people but she took me in when no one else would. I’m not going to let her get hurt.”
Valkyrie stiffened. When she was around Random, she forgot what other people said about her. What they thought about her.
Heartless. Selfish. Soulless. Bitch.
She’d heard it all whispered behind her back over the years, and she’d worn it like a mantle because it was either that or feel the sting. Random had never treated her like that. She’d believed he hadn’t thought of her like that. Clearly, she’d been wrong, if he thought she would put her own life above everyone else’s, above his aunt’s.
She reached for the unfeeling fog of indifference she’d lived most of her life wrapped in. It was harder to find than usual, but eventually her fingers closed around it and she drew it on.
“Do you forget that I have a vested interest in keeping the Council alive as well?” Not the reason he would think, not her father’s connection to the Council, but still, a reason. “I have no intention of giving Danvers anything. But I need him to think I will. Which means I need to steal what he wants.”
“And what would that be?”
Getting Valkyrie to actually talk was like trying to brush a cat’s teeth. It didn’t have to be a big deal. The whole thing could all be over in a few minutes if she would just stop fighting, but instead it was going to drag out for the next half hour and he’d likely be bleeding by the end of it.
He wasn’t sure what he’d said to make her shut down in truth instead of just presenting the façade, but the ice she brought to the room now could have frozen the Sahara.
“The Council’s adnexus.”
Random blinked. “Their what?”
She frowned. “Aunt Ella never told you what makes the Council the Council?”
“That would be the Aspect Charter? The laws upon which our society is founded?”
She shook her head. “I’m not talking about their legal authority. I’m talking about the reason they’re so difficult to kill. The reason an appointment to the Council is for life. The reason a councilor can’t abdicate their seat unless they die.”
“There’s no law t
hat says a councilor can’t abdicate.”
She looked at him like he was being intentionally dense. “In the history of Aspect Society, name one councilor who has ever abdicated their seat.”
Random forced his memory to dredge up his fifth year Academy history class, when he’d had to memorize the name of every bloody person to ever hold the title of councilor. His brain hurt after going through the first century’s worth, and he couldn’t remember half the names, so he gave up.
“I’m sure there was someone.”
“No,” she said softly, “there wasn’t. And there never will be. When you join the Council, Random, you are bound to it. The magic that ensures that binding is older than the Council itself. You cannot be unbound except in death. And while a councilor can be killed, it’s exceptionally difficult. That is why Danvers needed Siren’s Aspect if he hoped to take them all out before a new Council could be formed. That’s why he didn’t simply pick them all off in their sleep.
“The adnexus is the tie that binds them together, the vessel that holds them. Destroy that adnexus, Random, and you destroy the Council.”
“You seem to know a lot about this,” he said carefully.
She shrugged. “Father talked a lot.”
There it was again, that shift in her voice. She wasn’t lying, precisely, but she wasn’t telling him the truth, either. Not all of it. However she’d learned about this adnexus—he was still having difficulty with the idea that Aunt Ella would ever willingly bind herself in such a way—she hadn’t learned it in idle chats with Elijah Winters.
“Let’s say you’re correct and this is all true. You want to steal what would then be the most important thing the Council possesses? The Council. We aren’t just talking about a jail sentence, Kyrie. They’ll kill us and not even Aunt Ella will be able to veto them on it.”
“I don’t intend to get caught.”
“Said every thief ever.”
“I won’t get caught.”
Clearly, that line of logic wasn’t working, so he switched to a different one. “Do you even know where this adnexus is? How to get it?”
“Yes.”
“Where, how, and why do you know?”
“The less you know, the safer you are.”
Random gripped the edges of the counter. There was not enough time in the world to do the amount of baking he would need to do to lower the heights she raised his blood pressure to.
“I may not be able to convince the Council about what happened with Danvers last night if you deny it, but all it will take is one anonymous tip mentioning an adnexus no one is supposed to know about to ensure it’s locked down so tight you won’t get to it.”
Valkyrie had an unparalleled ability to talk through clenched teeth and she exercised it now, answering his original questions in reverse order. “Like I said, Father talked a lot. I need blood from DuPont and your aunt, and it’s beneath Council headquarters.”
“Just DuPont and Aunt Ella? Not the other councilors?”
She opened her mouth, shut it.
Shit. “You already have the others, don’t you?”
She didn’t say anything, which was answer enough.
“Kyrie, how long have you been planning to steal this thing?”
She sighed. “Since Siren confronted the Council in her home. When she fought them, her Aspect showed her the nature of their connection. She thinks that if she has the adnexus itself she can dismantle it and break the Council’s bonds without killing anyone.”
“And why would you—and her, for that matter—be so interested in doing that? Do you have a secret plan to dominate Aspect Society that I don’t know about?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then what?” he snapped.
“My father has been missing long enough that the Council wants to replace him. I’ve already lobbied for two extensions on his behalf and I don’t know if I can win another. As I told you earlier, there is no abdicating from the Council. If they want to replace him they will have to remove him from the adnexus. It will kill him.”
There was something else, something more going on she wasn’t telling him. He was certain of it. He was equally certain he wouldn’t be able to pry it out of her. He’d have better luck calling Siren and trying to pull it out of her. So he let it go, for now.
“How much blood do we need?” If they needed a blood bag he was going to have to tell her this was suicide.
“A few drops is fine. Soaked into a napkin, cloth, whatever, is fine too.”
“How much time do we have?”
“The sooner the better.”
Would it kill her to tell him anything without him having to drag it out of her? “Let me think about how to handle Aunt Ella. As for DuPont—he has dinner at StellaMia’s with his wife every Saturday evening at seven.”
She frowned. “Why do you know that?”
“I find it useful in my career to know things about people.” It was technically true, and it sounded better than, My assistant reads the society pages. “I’m sure if we go, something will work itself out.” That was how his Aspect tended to function.
“Today is Saturday. StellaMia’s books out weeks in advance.”
“I can get us in.” At the incredulity on her face, he added, “I can probably get us in.” He’d started eating at StellaMia’s once a month, at Mrs. Harrington’s insistence that he be seen in respectable establishments with some regularity. He’d continued going because the food was phenomenal, and because Stella and her partner, Mia, were lovely people.
“But I’d have to plead a special occasion to the owners. You’re not going to like it.”
“What kind of special occasion?” she asked, suspicious.
“A date.”
The only problem with people as blissfully in love as Stella and Mia was that they always wanted everyone else to settle down and be as happy as they were. They kept telling him that eating alone was a surefire way to be alone for the rest of his life. They would be thrilled, likely to an unbearable level, if he told them he wanted to bring a woman to their restaurant.
“A date is a special enough occasion for the most exclusive restaurant in Seclusion to find you a table?”
“Stella and Mia happen to believe in the power of true love, and they desperately want me to be happy. I am going to need you to at least try and sell the date image, though. They can smell bullshit a mile away.”
She struggled with it before she ground out, “Fine.”
“That means no visible weaponry.”
“I said fine.”
“Please don’t accost anyone or break anything. I like eating there and don’t want to get kicked out.”
“Any other rules I should know about?”
“Yes. I consider Stella and Mia friends. Please be nice to them.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Just promise.”
“Fine. I will be nice. Are we done here?”
“Just one more thing. The adnexus. It’s a physical item?”
She nodded. “A scepter.”
“How big is it?”
She frowned. “I don’t know, exactly. Maybe sixteen, eighteen inches long? Why?”
“Because you want to steal a magical item that is bound to five of the most powerful people in Seclusion. If they can feel it’s magic, they will be able to find it.” He tapped into his Aspect, felt his power searching, hunting, and then a black stone box popped into his hands. “Would this be big enough to hold it?”
“I think so. But it’s just a box, Random.”
“Can I have one of your daggers?” She held a blade out to him. He glanced at the naked steel. “I meant one of the imbued ones.”
She grimaced, but she traded the plain dagger for one with runes etched along the blade’s length. Every Aspecter felt the need to use their Aspect. If it built up too much inside them, they became like a vessel trying to hold more than it was meant to contain. Valkyrie built up Aspect like she was a battery wit
h constant access to a supercharger.
She could only burn off so much from training, so much from the contracting work she used to do for the Council. So she channeled a lot of into her weapons, into the runes she inscribed for strength and stealth and true aim.
Her weapons were as much a magical artifact as the Council’s adnexus. He took the dagger, placed it in the box and closed the lid. The power imbued in it naturally filled the box, then leaked out, reaching for the ties it held to the person who had made it.
“I can still feel it,” Valkyrie said.
“That’s because I haven’t done anything yet. Tell me when you can’t feel it.”
Though Random’s Aspect didn’t fall into a defined category, he had personally always thought of his affinity as Desire. What he wanted at any given moment, his Aspect tried to make happen, and it often created things for which no recognized spell or affinity existed.
But it had to be a genuine desire, and one that wasn’t entirely selfish. He had frequently desired a million dollars, but somehow that had never come into his possession. Right now, he wanted to ensure that when Valkyrie stole the adnexus—because Valkyrie never failed at anything, so she would end up with the bloody thing—she wouldn’t end up in a Council holding cell five minutes later.
So he needed this box to be able to contain the Aspect signature of a magical object. His Aspect caught the flow of his thoughts, and once it realized that this was connected to Kyrie, it leapt into his hands, flowed out of them into the box, eager to begin.
Sometimes he wasn’t sure who was more in love with Kyrie—him, or his goddamn Aspect.
His power flowed around the box, feeling the magic signature of Valkyrie’s dagger within, considering. Then it sank into the box itself, weaving into the stone, creating a latticework of lines that formed a pattern Random had never seen before, and would probably never be able to intentionally recreate.
“Holy shit,” Valkyrie said.
Valkyrie's Call Page 9
