“Arsidian Demons,” Mihail read from the sheet of paper in front of him. “They’re class-four preternaturals, the most deadly of any paranormals. They inject venom into their victims through their claws and teeth, paralyzing the central nervous system and poisoning the blood. Their bite is fatal to humans ten times out of ten.”
“Oh, my gods,” Zuriel murmured. Why had he never heard about these monsters? The goblin attack had been shocking enough, but from the sounds of it, these Arsidians were a hundred times worse. “What else?”
“They’re soulless. They survive by leeching the souls from others. The more powerful the being, the stronger the demon becomes.”
“I admit that sounds disgusting,” Jacobi interrupted. “What does that have to do with what’s happening here, though?”
Zuriel was just wondering the same thing. “There aren’t any demons here.” A few shifters, a lot of elves, but there weren’t any demons on the island other than Aspen. He felt confident that his friend definitely hadn’t caused the devastation.
“Wait,” Nikola warned with a smile. “There’s more. See, this obviously isn’t a full registry. That thing’s like a damn book.”
“And?”
“We gave Xander a list of possible suspects, and the names of the guards for good measure since this started here in the palace.” Running a finger over the paper, Mihail stopped at a name about halfway down the page. “None of the residents are registered, but not everyone was born here.”
“Nithron,” Zuriel mumbled, reading the name over his friend’s shoulder. “Okay, but we already knew he’s not from here.”
“Look closer.”
“Shifter hybrid. Demon hybrid. Class-two preter. Minimal threat.” He understood what he was reading, but he wasn’t sure it convinced him. “It says low threat? What kind of demon is a class-two?”
“An Aíma, apparently. They’re blood demons from what I understand.”
“None of the victims were missing blood. They weren’t even bleeding.” Well, he couldn’t say for sure about any of them except for Lily, but he hadn’t seen a scratch on her. He assumed the others had been similar.
“The other guards checked out,” Nikola informed him. “All, except one other.”
“Marcel,” Mihail add, tapping his finger atop the guard’s name. “Rissian’s mate. He was born to a pack in Germany, and then removed from their registry four years later.”
“Shifter hybrid,” Zuriel read, noting the absence of any further information. He’d been in the same room as Marcel on several occasions, and he’d never scented anything amiss. “Maybe there’s nothing else because he was removed.” The excuse sounded flimsy, but so was the case against the prince’s mate.
“I still think it’s worth checking out,” Mihail argued. “We can investigate quietly.”
“How do you suppose we do that?”
“Well…” Jacobi popped one hip out to the side, huffed on his fingernails, and rubbed them against his chest. “Are we genetically modified Desirables or not? I’ll take Nithron.” He wiggled his eyebrows and giggled mischievously.
“Fine,” Zuriel conceded. “I’ll pretend to be Rissian and question Marcel.” He didn’t like it. There was potential for so much to go wrong, but it was something. “We’re not going to tell Spiro until we know something for sure, though.”
“Falsely accuse a palace guard or a royal consort?” Nikola snorted as he pushed his hair out of his face. “Yeah, no thank you.”
Zuriel knew his mate would take the suspicion seriously, but if they were wrong, there was going to be a huge fallout when the smoke cleared. Despite Spiro’s protests that he wasn’t extremely close to his siblings, Zuriel highly doubted investigating Rissian’s mate would bring them closer together.
“Let’s go.” Reaching for the button on his jeans, he jerked his head toward the door. “Spiro is meeting with his brothers right now, and I know Nithron is down at the clinic with the bodies.”
“Awesome,” Jacobi responded excitedly. “I’ll be Locien.” He sighed a little and fanned his face. “That family has such lovely genes.”
“Okay, Casanova, keep it in your pants and let’s get this over with.”
“What if something goes wrong?” Ever practical, Mihail planned for all scenarios.
Unfortunately, Zuriel didn’t have a good answer for this one. So he just kicked his pants off and shrugged like he wasn’t about to vibrate out of his skin. “Then I guess we bend over and grab our ankles, because we’re completely fucked.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You can do this,” Zuriel said to himself as he stood outside the door of Rissian’s room. He was a complete replica of the elf, right down to his slightly pointed ears. Of course, Rissian was much bigger than him, so he’d had to borrow some of Spiro’s clothes, but he knew no one would be able to tell the difference physically.
“You’re back early,” Marcel greeted when he finally gathered the courage to step into the room. “How did it go?”
“Same as usual,” Zuriel replied, hoping that was a suitable response since he wasn’t sure what the meeting was even about. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better.” Marcel kicked his feet up on the coffee table and dropped his head onto the back of the sofa, stretching out his bare torso. “I’ve seen death before, but this…this was different.” Rolling his head to the side, he lifted one hand and crooked a finger. “Come sit with me.”
Eyeing all the naked skin, Zuriel had serious doubts about getting too close to the shifter. Damn it, he should have thought this through better. As mates, it was natural that Rissian and Marcel would touch and kiss—among other things that he’d rather not contemplate. The only problem was that Rissian wasn’t really in the room.
“Have you eaten?” he asked, stalling for time while he tried to think of a good reason to stay right where he stood.
“Nah, I don’t really feel like food right now. Every time I close my eyes I see Lily’s face. She was so young. And Jaeah.” A weary sigh fell from his lips. “I’ve known him since we were kids. He was the first friend I made when I moved here. Who would do something like this?”
Zuriel cleared his throat, chastising himself for falling into the trap of sympathy. Marcel’s words were pretty, and they were definitely convincing. It was his thoughts that Zuriel was there to investigate.
“Everyone is devastated, but we’re going to find out who did this.”
“Why are you standing all the way over there?” Sliding the zipper of his jeans down, Marcel arched his back and pushed the denim off his hips, leaving him totally naked.
Resisting the urge to turn away or shield his eyes, Zuriel silently berated himself for being such a pussy. The self-lecture did the trick, but he found it much harder to slip into his mask of uncaring sex slave than he had before meeting Spiro. Still, he managed to accomplish it, viewing Marcel’s nude form clinically, but with just enough manufactured desire to appear believable.
“I can make you forget for a few minutes, but it won’t fix anything. You’ll still feel just as hollow and sad when we’re finished.”
Marcel shrugged and beckoned him closer again. “I’ll risk it. I just need a few minutes of peace before I have to return to patrol.”
“Why is he being so distant? What did I do? Fuck, we don’t even have to mess around. I just want to hold him for five minutes.”
Marcel’s pleading thoughts flitted into his mind, and Zuriel resisted the urge to wince. Words could be manipulated, but the guard had no reason to censor his thoughts. Other than his friends, Spiro was the only one who knew he was a telepath or a shape-changing Desirable.
“Don’t move,” he ordered seductively. “I have a surprise for you.”
“Ah, I like surprises.”
“Uh-huh.” Backpedaling to the door, he gave one last endearing smile and then turned to let himself out, leaving Marcel with the assumption that he’d return shortly.
The doorknob was
in his hand, and he’d turned it just halfway when a large body slammed into him from behind, pinning him heavily against the door. “Nice try,” Marcel growled into his ear. “Rissian was late for the meeting. He left two minutes before you walked into the room.”
He could kick himself for being such a damn fool, but that wouldn’t get him out of his predicament. Instead, he chose to take action, shifting back to his normal size in hopes that he could slip through Marcel’s arms.
The act only left him at a further disadvantage, though. “What are you going to do?” he taunted. “Are you going to kill me? You know you’ll never get away with it.”
“Actually, I will. I kill you, which in turn kills your mate, and then Rissian steps in to save the day and rids the island of this plague that took the life of the new king and his beloved mate. Rather brilliant, don’t you think? Rissian will be a hero.”
His blood ran cold, but he wasn’t afraid to die. His only regret would be that no one would ever know what a deranged monster Marcel was. “One little problem with your plan.” He squirmed until he could look over his shoulder with an evil grin. “Spiro hasn’t claimed me. We’re not bound.”
“Bullshit,” Marcel spat. “You’ve been together for weeks. No shifter can resist the urge that long.”
Zuriel lifted one shoulder as far as he could, which admittedly was very little. “Believe what you want.”
He was beginning to piece it together, but none of it would save him. Marcel wasn’t strong enough to take on Spiro, but if Zuriel and his mate were bonded, their life forces were linked. Kill one, the other dies. However, even though that plan hadn’t worked out, Marcel wouldn’t leave him alive now that he knew the truth.
“So, tell me something. Do the bodies look like that because of the venom, or because you sucked out their souls?” If he was going to die, he might as well ask his questions.
“It’s a combination of oversaturating the blood with venom and forcibly removing the soul.” Marcel sounded confused by the question, as though he wasn’t sure if Zuriel was playing with a full deck. Too bad he snapped out of it just as quickly. “No more talking.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why poor Lily had needed to die in this quest for power, but he figured he already knew the answer. She and the café owner were both just decoys, used to distract everyone from the true target.
“How long were you poisoning the king before you finally killed him?”
“Shut it,” Marcel snarled. “I have to think.” He was clearly growing more desperate now that Zuriel had thrown a wrench into his plans. “Not here,” he mumbled. “It can’t happen in this room.”
Jerking Zuriel away from the door, Marcel wrenched it open and stuck his head out into the hall, presumably to check for witnesses. “Where are we going?”
“Who knows you’re here?”
“No one,” he lied.
“You’re lying.” Damn shifters and their ridiculous sense of smell. “That’s okay. You were kidnapped. I tried to save you, but sadly, I was too late. By the time I caught up to you, the kidnapper was gone, and you were dead.”
“Really? That lame story is the best you can come up with? How are you going to explain being naked?”
“It’ll be enough when I produce a murderer. I’m thinking Nithron will do nicely. Everyone suspects him anyway. As for my nudity, I had to shift, of course.” Once sure that no one would see them, Marcel yanked him out into the corridor by his hair. “Let’s go.”
Before Zuriel could even open his mouth to scream, a long, sharp talon pierced the side of his neck, burning like a white-hot poker. Immediately, he felt his limbs grow heavy, his eyelids started to droop, and though fire coursed through his veins, it wasn’t enough to keep him conscious.
He registered being lifted off the floor, but that was the last thing he felt before the darkness swallowed him whole.
* * * *
“The families have been notified, and the ceremonies will be held together at the burial grou—”
“Spiro!” Three voices shouted his name in unison as they rushed into the office where he was holding a meeting with his siblings. “Spiro, you have to save him,” Mihail demanded. “Go, go now.”
“Save who?” Rissian asked. “What happened?”
“Where am I going?” Spiro asked. “Take a deep breath, Mihail, because you’re not making any sense.”
“Oh, for the love of dildos,” Jacobi yelled, ending on a dramatic huff. “There’s not time for explanation, but we think Zuriel is in trouble.”
“Where?” Jacobi was right. The details weren’t important just yet. All Spiro needed was a location.
“He was pretending to be Rissian, and he went to talk to Marcel,” Mihail supplied. “Please.”
“Marcel?” Rissian jumped to his feet so quickly that his chair toppled over behind him. “Why would he go see my mate?”
“There’s no time!”
“Calm down.” Holding his hands up, Rissian made placating gestures to calm the agitated group. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Marcel wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
“I believe them.” With squared shoulders and a steely gaze, Nithron stepped into the open doorway. “Marcel said he found Jaeah dead, and the shop hadn’t been opened yet. I bought a cup of coffee and a bagel from Jaeah, though, not twenty minutes before I heard Zuriel calling for help.”
“We think he’s a demon,” Nikola hurried to add, “an Arsidian Demon.”
“They don’t give off a scent. Haven’t you ever noticed that you can’t scent his emotions, not even when he’s aroused?” It was apparent that Mihail was uncomfortable with the accusation, but there was also a panicked undercurrent that couldn’t be ignored.
Worse was the flicker of doubt in Rissian’s eyes, as though he was truly considering what the three were saying but didn’t like where it was leading. “If you’re wrong—”
“If we’re wrong, I’ll stand naked in the town square while people throw rotten garbage at me.” Jacobi grabbed Spiro’s wrist and pulled hard. “Please! Just believe us!”
“Marcel was in our room when I left.”
Spiro nodded calmly, though his heart pounded painfully against his ribs. His lion roared for blood, beating against him so violently that his fangs burst through his gums. He tried to remind himself that they had no proof that Zuriel was hurt, but logic and reasoning had abandoned him.
“Nithron, gather the guards and start searching.” Hopefully, Rissian was correct about Marcel’s location, but if not, Spiro needed to cover as much ground as possible.
“We’ll help, too,” Mihail announced as he gathered his friends and sprinted out of the room after Nithron.
Rissian was the next through the door, and Spiro was just half a step behind him while their other siblings watched on in a kind of stupor. “I can’t believe it,” Rissian said as they hurried toward the staircase. “I would have known. This just doesn’t make any sense. If it’s true, he…he…”
“I know.” If the allegations were true, it had been Marcel who’d murdered four people, including their brother. It was horrific to think about, but if he was found guilty, if he’d harmed one hair on Zuriel’s head, Spiro would have little mercy on him.
They were more than halfway up the stairs when Rissian suddenly stumbled to a stop and grabbed the railing in a white-knuckled grip. “Oh, gods,” he breathed. “I…I can hear him.”
Having not claimed his own mate yet, Spiro had completely forgotten about the telepathic bond between pairs. “Where is he? Where is Zuriel?”
“Marcel has him.” His head snapped up, and his pupils dilated until they completely dominated his eyes. “He’s going to kill him.”
Without waiting for more, Spiro turned and began charging up the stairs again, only stopping when his brother called him back.
“They’re not in the room. He has to make it look like someone else did this, like it was a stranger to the island, and he was trying to save him.”
>
Spiro assumed Rissian was paraphrasing, because that didn’t sound like a very well-thought-out plan to him. “Where are they?” Grabbing his brother’s shoulders, he shook him roughly as he growled. “Tell me!”
“It’s only glimpses of inner monologue. I can’t see what he’s seeing right now.” Stopping abruptly, Rissian twitched, and his nostrils flared. “Zuriel was taking the shortcut to town. He knew he wasn’t supposed to go alone.” He blinked several times, his eyes focusing on Spiro once more. “They’re in the forest near the edge of town.”
Spiro nearly fell to his knees, knowing he’d never make it in time. Still, he had to try, had to pray that Nithron had sent guards to search the grounds as well. “Try to talk to him,” he ordered. “See if you can stall.” Then he flew down the stairs, and ran toward the doors. His lion would be able to move faster, but he couldn’t risk the time it would take to shift.
“Fuck,” Rissian screamed, and footsteps pounded over the wood floor behind him. “He won’t listen.”
“Keep trying!”
“I’m only making it worse. He knows he’s caught now.” Rissian stumbled, and an agonized moan echoed around the entryway just as they reached the front doors, stopping Spiro in his tracks as well. “No.” Rissian waved him away. “Go. I’ll stop him, but you have to get to Zuriel. He needs your blood.”
“Rissian, you can’t stop him from here. C’mon.”
“I can.” Rising to his full height, Rissian unsheathed his dagger from his belt and bowed his head to Spiro. “I’m sorry, brother.”
Backing away, Spiro kept his gaze on the gleaming blade in his brother’s hand. “What are you doing?”
“I’m the only one who can make this right. I’m the only one who can stop it.” So swift that Spiro almost missed the action, Rissian turned the dagger on himself, plunging it into his heart.
“No!” As he watched his sibling crumple to the ground, Spiro was torn between saving his brother and rescuing his mate. “No, no, no!” This wasn’t what he wanted. In a thousand years, he’d never have guessed that Rissian would sacrifice himself to stop his lunatic mate. It wasn’t fair, and it damn sure wasn’t right.
Jaded [The Moonlight Breed 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Page 12