by Quirah Casey
When I don’t respond, she picks up the phone from the coffee table, turning it off herself. “Agent Levitsky is persistent,” she says, setting the phone back down.
“And quite an asshole, too.” I listen to the giggles of my two little girls as they run around in front of us. They laugh harder when they fall to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
“I mean, what difference will it make if London works with you guys?”
“A huge one! London is…infuriating, practically a child, and I don’t trust him.”
“Infuriating, huh?” She raises a brow at me, her words heavy with implication.
“Yes, infuriating. Just like you when you don’t agree with me,” I snap. I feel small hands wrap around my leg. I look down to a mismatched pair of eyes—one green, one purple. A mix, just like her hair.
“Yes, Quest?” I ask. Journey climbs into Mel’s lap, grinning.
“Come play with us,” she demands.
“I will. Just give me a second, okay?” Quest frowns, folding her arms over her chest, no doubt ready to argue, but Journey grabs her arm, pulling her twin away.
“I think we could be walking into a trap.” I return my attention to Mel but glance over at the girls every few seconds. There are no threats here in the privacy of my home, but you can never be too cautious. “It's just too fucking coincidental that those two strolled into my bar on the same night, and then bodies started turning up left and right with my calling card, and now they want to work together as the three stooges.” I shake my head, leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest.
“I know how it looks to you, but they don’t seem that bad. Especially not Agent Levitsky.”
“You’re thinking with your heart rather than your head as usual, giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.”
“No, I’m not. I just think that we should do whatever it takes to keep the girls safe.” She gestures to them, then leans closer to me on the couch and lowers her voice. “If there’s one thing we can agree on a hundred percent of the time, it's that they come first. We have to protect them at all costs, even if that means putting our pride to the side.”
I pull back, meeting her gaze head on. “You think I don’t know that? I’m worried that working with those two might put the girls in more danger.”
“We have evidence that they have been nowhere near the murders.”
I glare at her. “We also have proof that it's not that hard to cover up murders. We’ve done it enough ourselves. Well, me more than you.”
She pulls back and we stare at each other, at an impasse. “You could send them away to stay with Ru while this is going on, make sure they’re out of harm's way if this all goes to shit.”
“I keep Ru away so that she can’t be connected to us—”
“Which is why she’s the best person to send them to.”
“No, I want Ru to live her life. She’s young and needs to act her age. Plus, she’s just one person. Who knows if she’d be able to keep both girls and herself safe against multiple enemies. Then I’d have to worry about three people instead of two.” I shake my head. “They’re safer here where I can protect them.”
“You’re rarely home, Blue. How can you keep them safe if you’re not around? You don’t want to send them to stay with Ru? Fine. Bring her here, let her stay with Marie and the girls while we’re working, and at night, and you and I will both be close enough to watch over them.”
“I don’t want Ru involved, and that’s final. There has to be some other way.”
“But there isn't. You should listen to me, especially since you’re already getting sloppy from the stress. You put the girls’ camp fee on the wrong credit card, for fuck’s sake, and now we’re in this situation.”
I stand, moving away from Mel. ‘The girls are safe for now, and there’s no reason to continue this conversation.”
She catches my wrist, stopping me in my tracks. “Come on, Blue. You can’t keep shutting down like this.” I take in the pleading look on her face, her bottom lip jutting out as she watches me. “This is important, and we need to decide what to do, now.”
I pause, knowing she’s right. But we’ve already gone over all of our options, and none of them work for me.
“Blue,” Melodiya says softly.
Quest shouts for me to come play, breaking the tension between us.
I pull away from Mel. “Later.”
♛
I open my office door, pausing when I find someone already sitting in my office chair.
“How did you get in here?” I slam the door behind me.
London smiles and reclines in my seat, his feet propped on the desk, a lit yada in his hand. “I have my ways.”
Ways, my ass.
“You know, I think I quite enjoy being you, Pudding.” His posh English accent grates on my nerves. “Your truck driver called to confirm that you still want your shipment to arrive on Friday. I told him that it was still on.” He takes a drag of the yada, blowing the smoke in my direction, his grin widening.
“Get up.” I throw my bag onto the desk, trying to keep from wringing his neck.
“I think that you should take Blaine’s offer.” He makes no move to get out of my seat.
“I am not going to allow you two to set me up.”
“Set you up?”
“Are you deaf? Yes, set me up. It’s pretty clear that you two are scheming against me.” I stomp around the desk to stand right over London.
He looks up at me, a confused expression on his face. “Me and Blaine? I barely know the chap.”
I snatch the yada from London’s lips, slipping it between my own and taking a drag. He watches intently, his tongue flicking out to lick his lips. Placing a hand on his shoulder, I see his eyes dilate slightly as I lean closer. He smells nice; I catch the soft, mellow scent of yada, but also something else, something woodsy. From the places where my hand touches his exposed skin, sparks course through me. I drag my lips along his neck, enjoying the pleasure and tingles that go through my body. He shivers, and I hear his heart rate pick up. My lips stop right at his ear. “I told you,” I breathe, “to get out of my seat.”
A whoosh of air leaves London’s lungs as I throw him to the ground.
I reclaim the chair and prop my feet up on the desk, mirroring the position London was just forced out of. “I think that I’m much better at being me,” I admonish. “I would have seen that attack coming a mile away.” I don’t even try to hide my amusement as I blow the yada smoke in his face as he looks up at me, bewildered.
“You shouldn’t be worried about whether I’ll agree to work with the agent,” I advise him. “Instead, you should be worrying about all the favors you owe me and how you’re going to repay them, Pudding.”
London stands up, dusting himself off as he glares at me. He perches on the desk in front of me, next to my feet. “All work and no pleasure, huh. That must get old.”
“Trust me, I get all the pleasure I need. Just not from two-faced dragons who think they can overthrow me.”
“I’m not trying to overthrow you.” His brows pull together. “Does this amount of paranoia tend to benefit you?”
“Always.”
“Well, if it's straight to business then, I have the location of something that I hear you may be interested in.”
My ears perk up at that. “Well, if you’d just found me and led with those words, you wouldn’t have had to sneak into my office.” I gesture for him to continue. “Go ahead, what is it you think I’m interested in?”
“Kinky sex, for one.” His grin returns.
“Stendahl.”
A smug look crosses his face. “It's a locating device: Uytre. You may be familiar with it.”
Of course I am. And somehow he knows that.
I’ve been trying to get my hands on Uytre for the last couple of decades. It’s one of the only artifacts that I haven’t been able to pinpoint. It's always moving: Denmark, Florida, Malaysia, Turkey; the list goes on and on.
“I’ll tell you more once you agree to let my people go.”
“No go, Moses.”
“And why not?” He crosses his arms over his chest, his smile fading.
“Because you owe me the information. I don’t need to trade you for it.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t owe you anything.”
“Really. Well maybe I should just go and kill your sister, since it seems that you don’t want to repay your favors.”
“I didn’t ask—”
“You didn’t ask me not to, even after I made it clear that I don’t do anything for free.” Haven’t we already had this conversation? I could have sworn we did.
London shakes his head, letting out a grunt. “How about I give you the information in exchange for my people, and I still owe you for the other thing.”
“Things, you mean. I let you two live when you took my mark, and I saved your sister, and—”
“Why is your blood so strong, by the way?” he interrupts.
“—I didn’t kill you for breaking into my office, and I’ve allowed you to stay in my territory.”
“Bloody hell, your whole territory thing is starting to get irritating.”
“I’m not the one who needs this deal, Stendahl, you are. So if you’re going to be a brat, you can leave.”
He looks up at the ceiling, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I give you the information in exchange for my people, and I owe you two favors.”
“You give me the information for your people and owe me four favors,” I correct.
“Two.”
“Four.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Fine.”
I smile, satisfied.
“What’s to keep you from breaking your promise?” he asks.
“What’s to keep you from breaking yours?”
“I always play fair. You, on the other hand…”
“I always keep my bargains, but if you insist, we’ll go and see Fran, and she’ll bind us. Until then, a blood promise will suffice.”
“I knew the witch was one of yours,” he mutters as I pull a blade from my boot. It's one of my spares, a backup that I keep on me just in case something goes wrong with my other weapons. Obviously, my tätowierungs literally never leave my body except during battle, but you can never be too cautious.
“Everyone in this town belongs to me.” I grab his hand, slicing his palm. He tenses for a second, then relaxes. I cut my own hand, pressing my palm to his. His golden gaze lifts to mine. “Including you, now,” I say as I feel our blood start to mingle. Tingles emanate from my hand, running up my arm and through the rest of my body. I recite the incantation needed for the ritual, and London does the same, repeating my words.
There’s silence after the vows are over, a thick tension in the air. London must have moved closer to me at some point, and I can feel the heat radiating from his body. That hypnotic smell… His thumb moves in gentle circles against the back of my hand, and I realize that we’re still holding hands even though our cuts have healed.
I pull away, licking the excess blood off my hand. London’s eyes follow the movement, and he holds his own hand out. “Want to take care of mine too, Pudding?”
I catch myself considering it for a second. Then I slap his hand away, and he laughs as he wipes the blood on his jeans.
“If you try to use that for some kind of spell, I’ll slaughter you and everyone you love,” I warn.
“There’s that paranoia again.”
“Tell me about Uytre.”
“It's in the CDA lockup in Portiyr.” Portiyr is another hotspot for chöąts, the closest one to Lobrooke. It’s nearly a day’s drive away—half a day if I were to shift and fly. “It's why you need to agree to work with the agent. We need his access codes and keys.”
This feels like another setup, but I need Uytre to find someone I’ve been looking for, someone whose blood my swords have been thirsting after for a century. For once, I throw caution to the wind, trusting that if this is a ploy, I’ll be able to get myself out of it.
London settles back onto my desk, and I lean back, studying him. His arms stretch behind him and support his weight, muscles bulging under his dark shirt. His legs are spread slightly; his dark pants cling to his skin. My gaze travels to his neck, watching the tan skin move as he swallows. Finally, my eyes glide over his plump lips, past his sharp nose to those eyes. Right now they’re glittering with mischief and amusement, the golden orbs begging for trouble. He’s practically a god, a golden god who’s definitely going to get me in trouble.
He catches me looking. “Maybe we should kiss, really seal the deal.”
I lean forward and shove him off the desk again as I stand, dialing Levitsky’s number.
“So aggressive,” London says, a lazy smile playing across his face as he looks up at me.
“Hello?” Levitsky’s deep voice comes across the line.
“I’m in.”
London, still on the floor, gives me a thumbs up.
I know I’ll regret this. But I need Uytre. And I need to protect my daughters.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Your security system is quite impressive,” Agent Levitsky says, eyeing the keypad next to my office door.
“But apparently not as effective as it should be,” I tell him, feeling London's presence the second I open my office door. Unsurprisingly, he’s in the same position I found him in last night.
Levitsky’s eyes widen a fraction as he looks as the conceited dragon, who’s smirking at us.
“Out of my chair,” I snap at London as the office door closes.
“Lovely as usual, Pudding.” He seems to debate moving for a second, but when I take a step closer to him, he lifts himself out of my seat, shuffling to one of the other chairs. He nods to the agent. “Hello, Blaine.”
“Sit,” I direct Levitsky as I recline. We’re supposed to be meeting here to discuss our plan of action or whatever. After I vetoed the idea of a meeting at the agency or London’s lodgings in town, we decided to convene in my office at The Lair.
The agent sits, laying down his file and tablet on my desk. “On to business.” He taps at the tablet. “The CDA has recovered footage from one of the street cams that caught the attackers getting into the van. Unfortunately, we don’t have any from the scene of the fight, because apparently, there are no cameras between this building and the next.” He sends me a pointed look.
He must think I don’t have any cameras in the alley so that we can’t be incriminated by the CDA for the illegal interactions that go on there. Sure, that’s why there aren’t any visible cameras. But there are cameras in the alley: undetectable, non-governmental issue cameras. I already have Mel working on that footage, looking for anything that can identify the attackers or help us figure out who they work for.
“We couldn’t get facial recognition on any of the attackers because of the masks.” Levitsky continues to tap at the tablet. “However, we did get a tattoo on one of the men.”
I perk up at that, watching as he pulls up a picture. “The mark doesn’t come up in the system on anyone with priors, though, so we’ve reached a dead end.”
London leans over, looking at the tablet. He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen such a mark.”
I hold my hand out and Levitsky hesitantly passes me the device. “What do you think I’m going to do, smash it?” I roll my eyes before looking at the zoomed-in picture. It’s grainy and dark, showing tan skin with a dark mark, a circle with a blurry word written inside of it. “Hmm.”
“‘Hmm’? Does that mean you recognize the tattoo?” Levitsky asks, leaning forward.
“It's not a tattoo. It’s a brand. A byurtid brand. I’m surprised that the CDA hasn’t caught you up on our local customs, Agent.” I study the picture for another moment before passing the tablet back. I know exactly who created this brand, what it means, and where I can find the brander. I’m just not sure if I want to share all
that info with my so-called partners.
“Blue, what’s a byurtid?”
I raise my eyes to London. He’s watching me intently, frowning. He doesn’t like that I know something he doesn’t. I smile at that. “A byurtid is a slave, acquired through purchase or deal. They have to service their owner, or urewt, in every way: sex, food, blood, et cetera.”
“What? That’s illegal!” Agent Levitsky blurts.
I shrug. “In some parts of the world it’s not.”
“But it is in the States.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at that. “It used to be fine. Until humans decided that we needed laws and rules like theirs. We have the Synod to create those laws, but many ignore them. They made prostitution illegal, for fuck’s sake. I don’t understand what’s wrong with two consenting people having sex for money. We all have to make a living.”
“Wow, I didn’t realize you were such an activist,” Levitsky intones.
“Do you own any byurtids?” London asks me, genuine interest in his eyes.
“No. I don’t have to make people do what I want.”
“Because they’d be dead if they didn’t?”
I smirk. “We’re not here to talk about me.”
“When you were talking about what byurtids provide, you said food. What do you mean by that?” Levitsky asks, his face wrinkled in disgust.
“I mean that urewts can eat their byurtids if they please.”
“Like drinking their blood?” London’s brows pull together.
“Sure, but they can also eat their byurtids’ flesh if they want. Sometimes it’s just a chunk taken out here and there—for the most part, they let the slave heal so that they can use them again later for more food. In other cases, the whole process is a little more extreme.”
“What?” Levitsky shouts, lurching forward in his seat.
“Ghouls?” London asks at the same time.
“Yes, but not only them. Wolves, witches, dragons—whoever pleases, really.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“That’s fair.”
“What do you mean it's fair?” Levitsky jumps to his feet, his skin rapidly shifting back and forth between human and siem form. London also stands, putting a hand on the agent’s shoulder as if to hold him back. As if to protect me.