by K. N. Banet
“Yeah, it takes two weeks for a healing you did to fully set. I know.” Before that, there was a chance a new injury could break the magic done, and wounds could reopen.
“For the way you were? I’d give it more of a four to six range. You had layers of injuries from repeated fights. I know the last day has been mostly on your shoulders—thank you for killing Levi—but you need to learn your body has limits the werewolves and vampires do not. You are just as fragile as me, and you don’t see me out there with a gun, trying to kill everyone.”
“You don’t like to kill people,” I reminded her.
“And you do?” The look on her face was disbelieving.
“I’m good at it, and it’s my job. Being proficient at a task and enjoying it are two different things. No one enjoys being kicked around while trying to do their job.”
I didn’t want to talk about this. The idea of enjoying my job was too close to being like Nakul or someone like Erline, who loved what she did. I wasn’t a serial killer. I was a professional, who took out the serial killers, despots, and abusers—those who would see the supernaturals return to darker times, doing as they pleased. I enjoyed cleaning up the world I lived in to be safer for everyone, from this coven to the werewolf pack of Phoenix to the nagas in India.
I didn’t enjoy killing. It was a means to an end.
We walked beside each other to the ground level of the coven’s home, then she led me to a sitting room near the main entrance, opening the door with a wave of her hand and a mumbled word.
I saw Raphael first, his head coming up. He jumped to his feet and took two massive steps to meet me near the door as I tried to enter.
“They said you were okay, but…” His eyes searched my face, looking for confirmation.
“Good as new!”
“Not quite,” Monica snapped. “I mean it, Kaliya. You need to be careful.”
“I can’t promise that, Monica, and you know it,” I replied in a singsong voice. “I never knew you cared so much about my health.” I was naturally distrustful of most witches and generally kept my distance from the coven unless we were brought together for my job or their services. They weren’t people I spent time with otherwise.
“I don’t think we can save you the next time,” she said harshly. “You need to understand that we’re draining coven power right now to help contain this situation. The same way vampires are risking their own to keep the streets clear of supernaturals, and the werewolves helped recapture that nuisance of theirs. The fae are hunkered down, and their leaders are gone, so there’s no magical backup. We put you back together, but you are not fixed.”
“Monica—” I really didn’t need this woman pissed off at me.
“And I’m going to charge you a pretty penny for this next task with Nakul. The heal was free, but this will not be. I can’t just offer you and the Tribunal unlimited access. I have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.” She turned on her heel and started walking back out of the room, sparing me a glance. “We’ll be in the greenhouse to complete the potions, then we’ll meet you in the west wing auditorium, where we’ve put Nakul. He’s under heavy magical sedation, so he’s already prepared. You have thirty minutes.”
“The cost?” I asked, knowing I needed to have the money on hand, or she would ask for a different type of payment upon the spell’s completion.
“Three million, due upon the end of the spell. And…” She narrowed her eyes on me. “A drop of his venom.”
“No, and if I hear you’ve kept any, the threat stands.” I shot her down without a single moment of consideration. Under no circumstances would that ever be an acceptable price. “I’ll pay you four million, but you aren’t keeping anything that belongs to a naga. Not you, not one of your coven, not a witch you happen to see passing through. No one in this building or outside of it.”
I had to be protective. A hair, a nail clipping, a teardrop, a scale, a drop of venom—all could be used for spells. Some just added power to a spell. Some were used to direct a spell at the unfortunate donator. Some were the base ingredient for dangerous poisons that had no cure, though my venom didn’t need magic to help with that. She could do things with it I wasn’t comfortable with, though—like creating a single dose of anti-venom for one person to try to kill me with. I wouldn’t allow any naga’s safety to be violated by being the subject matter of a witch, Nakul included.
The answer would always be no.
“Four million, it is. You know where to send it.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “I just figured since he tried to kill you—”
“He’s a naga, and I’m one of their rulers. I don’t care what he’s done. I won’t willingly part with a piece of him to you or anyone else.”
“You really need to speak to Kartane,” she said ominously, then walked away, the door closing me in with Leith and Raphael.
“You know, the more I meet your…friends in the supernatural world, the more I think you need to find better friends,” Raphael said softly, leaning over my shoulder to say it in my ear. “Leith, Cassius, and Sorcha are nice. Paden is fine, but…” He looked pointedly at the door.
“Monica isn’t my friend,” I clarified softly. “She’s another power in the region, and we need to be friendly, but that doesn’t mean we’re more than occasional allies. Sometimes, I’m her client. Normally, I let the fae heal me for a price and come to her to get the scars cleaned up. That’s all.”
“Ah.”
Slowly, I felt a hand touch my lower back and wrap around. I looked up at my roommate, wondering what he was doing.
“I was worried about you,” he whispered, his warm chocolate eyes hooded as he stared at me.
My heart gave a hard thump. My fangs dropped and waited for me to use them.
I stepped back, letting out a slow breath.
“Thanks.” I turned away from him to find Leith casually flipping through a magazine.
“These witches have the most unusual interests,” he said blandly as he closed the magazine and put it down. When he looked up, he smiled. “It’s good to see you awake and moving, Lady Kaliya. Now, I need to return home. If either of you needs anything, please don’t hesitate to call or come by again.”
“Thank you, Leith. Tell Cassius I’m sorry about the blood.”
“It’s already handled,” he promised, touching my arm before strolling out of the room.
“I was convinced he was going to run,” Raphael mumbled, watching the door close once again.
“Most fae who work for nobles are used to dealing with other supernatural species, but there’s a particular divide between fae and witches. Fae don’t like witches, humans who dabble in powers beyond their comprehension. Witches think fae are fucking full of themselves. It’s a thing. Leith doesn’t like conflict, and it’s not his place, so his best bet is to leave as soon as possible. He knew I was alive and saw me to confirm, so now he’ll be able to tell Cassius.” I looked around the room and wondered if now was a good time to deal with Nakul, or if there was something else that needed to be said.
Raphael reached out and grabbed my wrist. He didn’t pull on me. He stepped up and wrapped his free arm around my shoulders.
“I thought you were going to die,” he said into my hair.
“I didn’t know we had this type of relationship,” I said, swallowing a lump of anxiety that had risen up in place of everything else I had been feeling. Whatever those feelings had been, I couldn’t remember.
“I didn’t either, but then I picked you up off the floor, and you were bleeding everywhere, and it was so fast. I’ve been into you since we met, Kaliya. Seeing you nearly die a few times put some things into perspective for me. We still barely know each other, but there’s something…between us. I know there is. I can feel it. You nearly died, and we never addressed it. I thought we would have time. I’ve been biding my time for months, trying to get to know you better, but then you nearly fucking died.”
I stared at his chest, letting him talk, wonderin
g how I found myself in this position.
“I don’t love you or anything. I’m not crazy enough to think I do after we’ve known each for only a handful of months, but…” His words faded away for a moment. “You aren’t going to admit to it, are you?”
“I’m into you,” I conceded with a nod, not looking at him. “I always fall for you good guys. You are just the most recent one.” I tried to step back from him again, hoping my excuses worked. He didn’t need to know he was the only person I could biologically mate with. That had no business being said here or anywhere…ever. “It won’t be healthy for either of us and—”
“Kaliya, I can be bad too,” he said, holding me where I was, his words hot in my ear, making other areas a blazing inferno. “I just want to explore this, you know? Life’s a fucking mess, and who knows when Mygi might try to take me back to the lab. If you’ll have me, just give me one date or something when this is over. Yeah?”
One date. That was all this fucking good person was going to ask for, one date. Of course.
“One date,” I promised. “But I meant what I said in the elevator. I would totally fuck you, no strings attached.” I needed to take control of the conversation again, throw him off his game because his game was very much biased in his favor. “I don’t need roses or dinner. Just you without your clothes and a bottle of scotch.”
When a delightful red tint hit his cheeks, I felt like I had the power again. His ability to distract me and make me weak at the knees was unfair, and I couldn’t let him realize just how effective it was.
I was able to break the hold and walked toward the door, intending to get back to work. As I pulled it open, his hand came up and stopped it. His other hand grabbed my waist as he came up behind me and held me there. The heat that radiated from him wanted to send me up in flames.
“If that’s what you want,” he murmured in my ear, his body curled over me. “Then we can do that...on two conditions.”
Well, now I know why his girlfriends called him Dom.
26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Laughing to himself, he let me out of the room, causing me to glare back at him.
“I’m not into the kinky stuff,” I informed him as we walked. I knew where they were keeping Nakul, but a witch showed up out of nowhere as I went down the hall toward the auditorium.
“Oh, yeah? I was just going to say one date and no alcohol.”
“Oh, well…” I wasn’t sure how one planned a sex date, so I let the conversation drop and followed the witch. Thankfully, Raphael was willing to let it drop as well.
We were led into the center of the auditorium. This wasn’t some high school set up. This was old school. A circular, lowered area was in the middle, where Raphael and I stood, and a table was in the center. Nakul was on it. The center area was lined with windows and seating, rising up toward the ceiling. A witch could hold a lesson, and the entire classroom could see. They could do a massive group spell, the spectators feeding their power into the witches who were channeling it.
This was where shit got done.
I went to Nakul’s side and was surprised to find I wasn’t pissed or angry. He looked a little worse for wear, his face a mass of bruising, and his nose was swollen two sizes bigger than it had been.
“I hit him pretty hard,” Raphael explained, stepping up next to me. “Why didn’t you bite and kill him, Kaliya? Why didn’t you use the one weapon you had on you? Your venom.”
“Because by the time I realized he was spelled, I also knew he had been fighting it for so long. He didn’t want to do it. Every piece of him screamed against it. He didn’t want to, and it was hurting him. He’s not Wesley. He wasn’t at the prison as an out-of-place victim. I had to show him some measure of kindness, right?” I looked up at my roommate, our hot conversation forgotten as I searched the eyes of someone I knew was good. “He didn’t want to, so why would I kill him for it?”
“I killed Dunter and one of those wolves,” he said, his voice taut. “If they were spelled, you’re calling me a murderer.”
“We didn’t know when you killed Dunter that people were being spelled to kill me,” I whispered. “I killed Levi and Erline and one of those wolves, but I don’t think they were under a compulsion spell. I really don’t. I think they were trying to win freedom.” Whoever had laid this trap had laid it well, with several possible ways to have me killed. “But not Wesley and…not…” I waved my hand at my uncle. A war raged in my head as I weighed whether I had done the worst thing or the best thing. Was there a right or wrong here?
No, there’s never a right or wrong. There are a thousand shades of grey, and I live in them. Purely black and white worlds are for the foolish, who have never experienced the real world beyond their own limited scope of imagination.
I should have killed him the moment I saw him in the condo, a dark part of me whispered.
I have to be loyal to the nagas first, just like Adhar and Mahavir, a selfish, yet confused, part of me returned fire.
I stepped back from my uncle, turning away so I could clear my head. I found a way to rationalize and avoid the entire problem. I didn’t need the conflicting feelings, and I wasn’t going to deal with them yet. They could hound me another day.
“Anyway, he has information we need. I couldn’t lose it.” I walked to seats on the side of the circular bottom floor, each step echoing in the room. When I sat down, I noticed my roommate was staring at me.
“And there you go,” he whispered. “Locking everything you feel away and talking about it in a way that’s easy to rationalize.”
“Yup, you’ve got me figured out.” I lifted my hands in defeat. “Emotions make the job hard, and my job is hard enough. Thinking about what I did doesn’t change that I did it. I put my life at risk to keep him alive. It’s over, and now I’m going to get what I want.”
He nodded as he walked over and took a seat next to me.
Are you sure you want me, Raphael Alvarez? This isn’t going to stop just because you think you like me.
“You can talk to me about anything,” he said, staring at my uncle’s still body. “If you ever need someone to talk to about it.”
“I don’t talk about it, I just live with it.” I let a murderer live as he tried to kill me because I pitied him, and he was one of mine, someone I was supposed to protect from the viciousness of the outside world. Having a rational reason and sticking to it was the only way I could live with it. This man had killed women and children. I had let him live while he tried to kill me.
“Kaliya—”
“I’m not talking about how I’m a terrible person,” I snapped.
He leaned back, his expression hurt. I turned away, and we waited on the witches in silence.
Monica and Piper came in first, shaking both of our hands. The seats around us slowly filled while we watched. By the time the last witch came in, half of them were full.
“Now that we have everyone, there are some things I need to clarify with you, Executioner Sahni.” Monica gestured for me to rise, so I did. “We might not be able to fix anything today. As you can see, we’re not running at full capacity for this sort of spell. It took a lot of power to track Levi through his storm, and more people were drained to try to heal you. What we can do today is identify the problem and give you a glimpse of what lies beyond whatever block someone put on him. We can do more digging at a later date when things have settled. Because of this, I’m dropping the price back down to three million. You can send it now if you agree to the terms.”
“And what about information that may be found in his mind? What about the matter of secrecy?”
“I will be the only witch of the coven privy to what is learned in his mind. You can have full confidence, anything found will stay with me unless you give me leave to mention it or use it for another purpose. I don’t toy with blackmail, Kaliya, and I don’t need to make an enemy of a sanctioned killer.”
I believed her.
I reached for my
phone and didn’t find it. Raphael cleared his throat and held it out to me. I quickly punched in the right bank information and sent three million from one of my offshore accounts to another account that belonged to the coven. While I was on my phone, I noticed a missed call and text from Hasan. Promising myself I would get back to him soon, I continued with the task at hand.
“Done,” I said, shoving the phone into my pocket.
“Take a seat here. Raphael, please wait—”
“What are we doing?” he asked, directing it at me.
“I’m getting in position to ride in Nakul’s memories. You need to get out of—”
“Let me go,” he said sharply, a little desperate. “Let me…ride his memories, too. It might show us who did this to him, right? Who did the magic or who that healer is, yeah?”
“Yeah?”
“Let me ride his memories. Kaliya, I’m…I really think I should get a chance to see. I’ve seen people who work for…” He gave me a look, telling me everything without exposing it to the coven around us.
“Fine, if it’s okay with Monica.” I turned to her, not needing to ask. She could hear the entire conversation.
“Make another seat for him,” she ordered someone in the background. A cushion was run out from a side room and placed near mine. “You’ll both join hands with me around Nakul. He’ll be kept asleep. This will just be a dream for him, and if I can’t remove the block placed in his mind, he won’t remember any of it. We’ll be silent observers to his memories, but there is a risk to him. He could lose his memory completely. Removing the block could leave him brain dead. A variety of things can go wrong, so you will ride silently without trying to fight it or force it. If you need to get out, open your hands, and you’ll be disconnected. You’ll still be aware of the real world. And please, don’t get lost in your own memories. You can take us all for a ride down different roads and expose Nakul to them.”
Nakul was lowered to sit in a chair, and the table was rolled out of the room.