by Sadie Moss
Gods, I hoped that was true.
Not wanting to disturb anyone, but too jittery to keep staring at the ceiling in silence, I released Jae’s hand and slid downward then crawled off the foot of the bed. When I turned to look back, a smile parted my lips despite my churning anxiety. The men had all shifted slightly, closing up the gap I’d left behind. But I knew as soon as I returned, the space would open back up for me.
I crept downstairs, through the quiet house, and out the back door. Jae had keyed me into the new wards, but I still glanced up at the glow around the house warily as I entered the sprawling garden.
The moon was high in the sky, casting a bright blue light over the flowers and hedges that lined the path. There was a chill in the air, and I wrapped my arms around myself. It wasn’t unbearable, but after ten days of being too cold all the time, my body craved warmth.
When I reached the bench we’d gathered around the day my four first arrived here, I sat down, pulling my knees up to my chest. I closed my eyes and inhaled the sweet scent of lilacs.
I wish Beatrice were here. I wish I could talk to her.
Twice, Rain had taken us from each other.
I couldn’t get her back, but I’d be damned if I let him destroy any other families.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
The voice made me jump, and my eyes flew open as I instinctively summoned a small flame.
Akio held his hands out. “Relax, kitten. No need to greet me with your usual level of violence.”
I snorted but snuffed the flame. “No, I couldn’t sleep. Sorry, I tried not to wake anyone when I left.”
“You didn’t. I was already awake.” His eyes were like reflections of the night sky above, glimmering with starlight.
The incubus sank languidly onto the bench beside me, and we sat in silence for a few moments. When I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms, he glanced over at me. Then he leaned forward, pulling his dark, long-sleeved Henley over his head.
He held it out to me, and I quirked an eyebrow. “You really will use any excuse to take your shirt off, won’t you?”
“I could let you die of hypothermia if you prefer,” he said dryly, making me purse my lips to hide a smile. Gods, he really was dramatic.
“All right, give me that.”
I swiped the large shirt from his hands and slipped it on over my tank top, relishing the way his warmth and scent still clung to it. I almost lifted it to my nose to inhale the spicy smell of him, but caught myself—though maybe not fast enough, if his smug grin was any indication.
“So, what keeps a kitten awake at night when she should be resting and recovering?”
I huffed a laugh and gave him a sideways glance. “Seriously?”
“What? I’m not allowed to ask?”
“No, you are. It’s just… you really want to know?”
“Why not?” One side of his mouth lifted, and I couldn’t help but remember how soft his lips had felt against mine. “I can be a good listener. If it helps, pretend I’m Jae.”
I sputtered, his words catching me off guard. What did he mean by that? “I don’t only confide in him! I talk to Corin and Fen all the time. And I’ll talk to you anytime if you just ask.”
“I thought that’s what I just did.”
Oh. He had me there.
Feeling suddenly awkward, I rubbed my hands on my soft pants. “Well, I think an easier question to answer would be what’s not keeping me up. There’s so much, Akio. So much to do, so much to consider. So much riding on this. I’m not used to taking care of anyone but myself, and I don’t feel qualified for any of the responsibility I’ve been given.” I paused, giving him a chance to jump in and say something comforting, but he just watched me, his tattooed arms crossed over his chest. So I went on. “I don’t know who to trust anymore. Besides you four, I mean. There have been so many lies, so much betrayal. Corin says we have to trust someone to move forward, but I’m so scared of being wrong again.”
I ran out of words then, though thoughts continued to streak like comets through my mind.
Akio shifted his gaze to the small burbling fountain nestled among the flowers in the garden, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.
“I loved a woman once.”
My eyes went wide. That was not at all what I’d expected him to say. I angled my body toward his a little, trying not to make my intense interest too obvious. “Oh?”
He smiled sardonically. “Don’t sound so surprised, kitten. I am capable of the emotion.”
“Uh, right. I mean, of course.”
“This was many, many years ago. Long before the Great Death, before the Resistance. When I was just a human trying to find my way in the world. Looking for someone to build a life with.” He sighed softly. “Then I found Ria. She was beautiful, intelligent, and sophisticated. A powerful mage. Too good for me, I was sure. But she wanted me, and I didn’t question my good fortune. Our affair was like a whirlwind; even now, looking back on it, it almost doesn’t seem real. Days and nights spent in each other’s arms, the entire world forgotten.”
I picked at a thread on my pants, trying to unwind the knot of jealousy hardening in my stomach. “Sounds… nice.”
“Oh, kitten.” He chuckled. “It was more than nice. It was sin made corporeal. It was pleasure unlike any I had ever experienced.” Akio shifted next to me, his body growing tense. His voice dropped. “She evidently felt the same way. But while I was convinced I’d fallen in love with her, despite having known her just a few short weeks, she wanted me for nothing more than sex.”
“Oh….” I said dumbly, my gut twisting for an entirely different reason now.
“While I was making plans to ask her to marry me, she made a deal with a god and cast a powerful spell to turn me into an incubus. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for us to share our bodies willingly, out of love. She wanted to own the pleasure I gave her, to preserve it and control it. She turned me into a demon of lust to serve her.”
Holy fuck.
Silence settled between us, broken only by the call of an owl in the distance.
My heart ached at the pain in Akio’s smooth voice. Though he might claim the memory was so old it felt like a dream, the wound was real, and it was still fresh. I didn’t know why he was telling me this right now, but I got the feeling he hadn’t shared the story with many people.
And shit, no wonder he was always so hot and cold with me, why he seemed to chafe at the connection my magic wove between us more than the others did. I’d rebelled against the bond myself for a long time, because it brought back terrifying echoes of my indentured servitude to the Gifted man, Edgar. I hadn’t been able to see a “bond” as anything positive, only as a loss of control and subjugation to another person. Given Akio’s history, I was sure he felt the same.
“I’m sorry. That’s awful. What did you do?” I nudged him gently.
He looked down at me, the angles of his beautiful face hard in the moonlight.
“I did just what she intended. I served her pleasure for many years. She had turned me into a creature of lust, and I had no control over my instincts at first. But gradually, I began to come back to myself, flashes of the man I had been in life returning. And when I was fully in control once again, I killed her.”
My breath hitched.
I wasn’t surprised to hear that, nor particularly sorry he’d done it. That fucking bitch deserved what she got.
But I wished he hadn’t had to. I wished he’d found someone who cared about him enough to want love from him as well as sex—even if that meant his life took a different path and I never got to meet him.
“I’m so sorry, Akio. You deserved better than that.” The words were paltry, but they were all I had to offer.
He stared at me for a long moment, his eyes inscrutable in the darkness, before he spoke again.
“Don’t trust anyone more than they give you reason to, kitten.”
And with that, he stood and walked back toward the house, his tattoo
s shifting under the moonlight, his gait oddly stiff.
Chapter 7
“What happened to Tarik?”
I glanced at the back of the unfamiliar fairy’s head as he drove us to the palace. His deep blue, almost purple hair was a stark contrast to the bright green locks of Beatrice’s usual driver.
“He… left.” Fen grimaced.
His tone made me curious. “What does that mean?”
“Well, he quit. And we’re pretty sure he’s the one who told the Representatives that you’re sheltering Blighted families in your grandmother’s house.”
My eyebrows shot up. “What? But he’s the one who went to pick them up!”
“Yeah. Because you told him to. And his job was to serve Beatrice—and you. But he wasn’t exactly happy about bringing the Blighted into the Capital. After you disappeared, so did he.”
Leaning back against the seat, I stared out at the large estates we drove past. “Well, shit.”
Sometimes I forgot the enormity of what faced us. There were the looming, obvious threats—Rain’s magic pull, mass violence against the Blighted. But then there were the smaller, more pervasive and mundane obstacles. Like the fact that even a genuinely nice guy like the green-haired fairy, Tarik, held such a deep-rooted prejudice against the Blighted that he couldn’t abide by my decision to invite them into my grandmother’s home.
“But Elren is great!” Fenris tapped the back of the driver’s seat enthusiastically, and fairy magic flooded the car, making joy bubble up within me. “He helped us search for you. Called in some connections.”
I was tempted to ask if Elren knew about the Resistance and had taken a blood oath too, but zipped my mouth shut. My guess was that the fairy had been kept on a need-to-know basis, only told that I was missing, but not given more details about why. Although the Resistance could use more magical support, it was harder to convince the Gifted, or even the Touched, to turn against a government that had favored them for so long.
“It was my pleasure, sir. I’m glad you’re found, Miss Crow.” The fairy glanced at me through the rearview mirror, his eyes the same deep blue as his hair. I smiled at him and dipped my head, not missing the fact that he called me “Crow” instead of “Lockwood.” He must’ve seen the propaganda Noble was spreading. Maybe he was more sympathetic to our cause than I’d thought.
Before I had time to consider that further, we pulled to a stop outside the palace. Guards lined the steps like they had in the days after Beatrice was killed. Apparently, security was still elevated.
We stepped out of the large SUV and Elren pulled away. All of my four had insisted on coming to the palace with me this morning to confront Rain; Corin had looked ready to fight anyone who tried to make him stay behind. I hadn’t argued. There was strength in numbers, and after ten days apart, I needed them near me.
It felt a little strange to try to recruit help from the Representatives at the same time we were attempting to undermine them. But Jae was right. We needed more magical firepower to stop Rain. Then we’d deal with the rest of the Gifted government.
The guards watched us walk quickly up the steps, but no one moved to stop us. I wondered how much longer I could skate by on my grandmother’s legacy and my family name. Probably not long, if Noble kept wallpapering the city with images of me as an icon of rebellion. Even if the Resistance didn’t claim me as one of their own, the Representatives couldn’t be happy about the granddaughter of one of their esteemed members being associated with a rebel group.
We walked in a tight cluster, drawing curious stares and some outright glares from palace staff as we headed up to the fifth floor. At least by now I knew my way around well enough not to have to stop and ask a guard for directions.
When we reached the large double doors to the council room, I hesitated. Would Rain be in there? Or was he busy dealing with the fallout from my escape? Finding a new Gifted person to pull magic from?
A hand fell on the small of my back, and I looked over into Jae’s serious face.
“You can do this, Lana. We’re all behind you.”
I shot him a grateful smile then pushed the doors open, leading the way into the room. It probably broke all kinds of palace protocol for me to bring my four men into a council meeting. I’d also forgone the fancy dresses for a more practical outfit of dark jeans and a long-sleeved top, but we were about to throw a metaphorical pipe bomb into the place anyway. Hopefully, once the Representatives heard what I had to say, my outfit and the company I brought with me would be the least of their concerns.
Just as they had the first time I’d shown up at a meeting, everyone in the room froze to look up at me.
Theron sat at the head of the table like always. In fact, everyone seemed to be in the same seats they’d occupied last time.
Including Rain.
The Chief Advisor sat at Theron’s left side, and he straightened in his chair at the sight of me, his eyes widening. Although he was a good actor, he couldn’t hide the brief flash of shock and fear on his face. Had he hoped I’d died on the mountain trying to escape? Had he thought I wouldn’t come here?
“Hey, Rain,” I said casually, coming to stand at the opposite end of the long table from Theron. “Surprised to see me?”
“Miss Lockwood.” His raspy voice was blandly pleasant. “I’m… relieved to see you.”
“What the hell is this? Is she allowed to parade her pets all over the palace now?” Nicholas shot out of his seat, jumping straight past the surprise at my sudden reappearance to his anger at the presence of my four.
I saw Jae and Akio step in front of Corin, and although I knew he must be chafing at the protection, I was glad for it. Not one of us doubted Corin’s abilities, but as a team, we looked out for each other.
“Miss Lockwood.” Theron raised his hand, not so much in a greeting as to quiet the room. He looked older than he had last time I’d seen him, his face more tired. “What is the meaning of this? I allowed you a place on this council because of the many years of dedicated service your grandmother gave us. But you’ve taken the good faith I put in you and twisted it beyond recognition. You clearly have no place in this government or in this palace.”
“Blighted-lover!” Nicholas spat, baring his teeth. His gaunt face was pulled into a threatening scowl. No one else at the large table looked much friendlier.
Victor Kruger rose slowly to his feet, and tension crackled through the room.
“I’m not here to try to reclaim Beatrice’s council seat,” I said, my voice rising with each word. I needed to get this out fast before things got ugly. “I’m here because I have information that concerns all Gifted.”
At that, Rain surged to his feet. “If you’re not a member of this council, you have no right to be here, Miss Lockwood. Leave, now.”
I tilted my head at him. “Aw, Rain. What about the obligation you have to my family? What about your promise to help me?”
“What promise?” Jonas Nocturne looked past Theron to Rain, who shifted uncomfortably.
“Oh, you didn’t hear about that? Didn’t you know he promised to help me root out who killed my grandmother? He could’ve made my search much easier by just admitting he did it.”
Rain scoffed as several sets of eyes turned to him. “You’ve gone quite mad, Miss Lockwood.”
I slammed my hands down on the table and leaned toward him. “Yeah, I am mad. I’m fucking furious. You lied to us all, Rain. Me and everyone in this room. You killed Beatrice. You’ve been the one abducting Gifted citizens from the Capital. You created the spell that caused the Great Death.”
The room went quiet, and now everyone was looking at Rain.
My heart thundered in my chest, but I didn’t move, keeping my gaze pinned on him.
His mouth opened slowly, as if he were considering his next words carefully. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “This was your plan, Miss Lockwood? March into a council meeting and accuse me of something so ludicrous, so outrageous?” He chuckled lightly, t
he wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening. “How exactly did you think that would work?”
I clenched my jaw, my hands fisting on the table. I couldn’t tell if he was acting or addressing me honestly right now. Maybe a little bit of both.
“It’s true! He tried to pull magic from people, but it fucking killed them. And he’s planning to do it again. He’s got a bunker up in the mountains that he—”
Rain’s laugh interrupted me. “Listen to yourself, Miss Lockwood! You sound insane. Why would anyone on this council believe you when, as our esteemed Secretary General just pointed out, you’ve made your allegiances perfectly clear? The man behind you, Akio Sun, is a known Resistance member.”
“What?” Simon Gaunt’s head snapped in our direction, his too-smooth face aghast. I remembered how upset he’d been about the Gifted abductions and the attacks on the palace. He seemed to operate entirely from a place of fear.
“Known, huh?” I ground out. Jae’s magic swelled behind me, and I could tell he was preparing to fight our way out of here if we had to. But I wasn’t done trying to show the Representatives what was right under their noses. “Known to you, because you were put in charge of gathering intel on the Resistance—of hiring mercenaries to take out targets that might be a threat to the government. But you didn’t stop there, did you? No, you hired those same mercenaries to bring you Gifted and Touched lab rats for you to experiment on.”
Rain stood tall, somehow managing to look imperiously down his nose at me from several yards away. “This has gone on long enough. Secretary General, I cannot allow her to continue spreading such unconscionable lies about me.” He glanced across the table to where Victor and Nicholas sat side by side, practically salivating like junkyard dogs hungry for a fight. “Perhaps you were right. We have given the Blighted too much freedom. It’s time to put them back in their place.”
The two men grinned viciously, and Eben Knowles shifted away from them, as though the bloodlust emanating from them made him uncomfortable.
