Sin & Spirit (Demigods of San Francisco Book 4)

by K. F. Breene

  Kieran put his hand on Jack’s cold fingers, trying not to flinch away from the chilled skin. Pain and emotion welled up as the door opened. He stood, schooling his expression. A man didn’t cry. His father had drilled that into him as long as he could remember. A man held back emotion.

  Lexi stood in front of him, her lids heavy. Dawn peeked in the window, highlighting her still lovely face, the warm sympathy in her eyes.

  The lid over his emotions wobbled. He reached for anger to well up and overshadow it, but then pushed it down again. He wouldn’t reach for anger with her. Not with her. Not given his family history and what his father had done to his mother. That way lay damnation.

  “Hey,” she said, and soft comfort flowed through the soul link, warm and welcoming.

  He clenched his teeth, not trusting his voice.

  She nodded, as though to say she understood.

  “It’s late.” Her eyes flicked to the window. “Or early, I guess. Mordecai is still in wolf form, but his pulse is strong. Boman and Thane are taking turns watching him. You know that Henry went to the office for a while—I heard him tell you while I was getting paper.” Her brow knotted. She was putting all her ducks in a row. Probably trying to organize the chaos. “Zorn and Bria have exhausted…” Tears filled her eyes and her fists clenched. Terror and sorrow pumped through the soul link.

  He put his arms around her. She shook against him, giving in to her tears. He held back his own, knowing she needed strength.

  “Daisy is gone. We aren’t going to find her tonight,” she went on through sobbing hiccups. “I have to sleep. Tomorrow I can…”

  “Shhh.” Kieran rocked her. “We’ve grounded all private jets in the entire Bay Area, something only possible because she isn’t magical. She’s still on the books as a missing child. We’ve issued an amber alert for her and closed the magical borders. We’ve also alerted non-magical police officials and have video facial-recognition searches going for Daisy. Henry is working on identifying the woman, and soon we’ll have her info, too. They won’t get far. As soon as we can…process all this, we’ll get down to business and find them.”

  She shook her head, her tears soaking through his shirt. “How can you sound so confident when I know you are breaking up inside?”

  The lid wobbled. He needed to go for a swim and clear his head.

  “Training.” He pulled away enough to softly tip her chin up, getting her to look up at him. Tears beaded in her long eyelashes. “They tried to kill Mordecai, but they took her. If they were going to kill her, they would’ve done it by now. They probably want to trade her for you. Have faith, baby. She’s already walked through hell and come out smoking. She’s not helpless. They are bound to underestimate the feral being they have in their midst, and when they do, she’ll react as she’s trained to do. As Zorn trained her to do. She’ll give us time.”

  “I’ll trade for her in a heartbeat.”

  He didn’t argue with her. It wouldn’t come to that. He’d make sure of it. He’d failed Jack, but he’d be damned if he would fail Daisy.

  He traced Alexis’s perfect lips before trailing his fingertips down her soft, tear-streaked cheek…and found that he didn’t want to go for a swim in the deep sea. He didn’t want to lose himself in the ocean—he wanted to lose himself in her.

  He scooped her up into his arms, cradling her against his chest. He didn’t speak. Didn’t explain. He walked her into her room and hooked his heel on the door before swinging it closed with a bang.

  She kissed him first, just as eager to take a break from life, just as desperate to use him to do it.

  He set her down on the floor, ripping into her clothing. Pulling off her shirt. Her pants. He paused so she could rip his shirt off, too. He unbuckled and shoved down his pants.

  She crawled onto the bed, her watery eyes on him. Scared. Hollow. There was a hole in her heart where Daisy fit. Kieran knew how it felt. But his situation held no hope. Jack would be dead forever.

  The lid wobbled again. Emotion threatened to break free.

  Settling into her welcoming embrace, he lined himself up and thrust without preamble, physically sinking into her. Emotionally sinking in as well. He let the world drift away, the pleasure of her muffling the pain. He let their mutual love shut out some of the heartache.

  “I love you,” he said softly, next to her ear. He pulled out so he could push into her again, groaning with her. Hugging her tight. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, Kieran.” She clutched his shoulders and swung her hips up to meet his, crashing against him.

  He buried his face into her neck, smelling the sweet perfume of her skin. Their pleasure worked higher. Their desperation to be together mounted. He filled her, over and over.

  “Yes, Kieran,” she said, digging her fingertips into his back. “Yes!”

  Their magic swirled around them, fusing together, burning across their skin. Pleasure rolled through them, turned them end over end. He lost himself in it. In her. He hit the peak…but then kept going, kept pushing, wanting to forget, giving himself to her totally.

  A tidal wave of sensation crashed down onto them. She cried out his name as he shook with the orgasm, so intense that he felt dizzy. Their panting filled the suddenly quiet room, but he still wasn’t ready to release her.

  “It’s okay. I won’t tell,” she said, and even though she didn’t give any details, he knew exactly what she was talking about. She could feel the emotion in him. She could read him in a way no one else had ever been able to.

  So, despite his upbringing, despite his father’s lectures about what was and was not proper, he trusted her—and finally, for the first time with another human being…let go.

  23

  Daisy

  Pain rattled Daisy’s nerves, pounding through her body from her broken wrist. It dulled the throb in her face from smacking into that wall. That had been a helluva strong push.

  A different pain filled her. One of betrayal. She’d thought of Jack like family, the uncle she’d never had. She’d loved that fucking guy like he was blood. Only to have him do this? Betray their pack, as Mordecai would say?

  She sucked in a breath as white-hot agony pulsed through her, and not from her arm. Her arm would heal. The loss of Mordecai would not. He’d been more than blood. You didn’t go through a life like they had and come out without an attachment forged from iron.

  Jack and that woman would die for what they’d done. They’d die slow, too. Real slow. With much suffering. They’d killed the wrong one of the Daisy-Mordecai pair. For all Mordecai was levelheaded and soft-hearted, Daisy was a monster in a doll’s skin. She was a villain with a cherub face.

  She was hell in razor-spiked heels.

  But first, she needed to get the hell out of here.

  Zorn’s voice floated out of her memory: Step one, assess your surroundings.

  In other words, where was here?

  A leather office chair hugged her butt, and ropes, loosely and probably clumsily tied, held her hands around the back. Light showered down from a bare bulb suspended from the middle of the ceiling. It didn’t penetrate the black shadows lining the edges of the window, covered with a cream-yellow shade. Linoleum with brown in the cracks lined the floor, not dirty per se, but old. Nothing hung on the walls. A small round handle adorned the cheap wood door.

  It was still night, and she’d been stowed in some sort of storage room in an office building. Nothing fancy, and not in a nice part of town, but serviceable. Whoever owned or rented it had been doing so for years. Maybe decades. Otherwise the flooring would’ve been changed out, and little details like the knob would have been updated. It was easier to sell a building when things looked good.

  A sort of…dampness filled the air. Not moldy, but…damp. The mustiness carried traces of salt. This place was near-ish the ocean, but not so close that the waves could be heard.

  She was being held. It couldn’t be for ransom. The people Lexi and Kieran were messing w
ith had plenty of money. It was probably to bring Lexi to heel, or maybe to control Kieran through Lexi. Hell, maybe they were after some sort of trade. Daisy wasn’t fluent enough in the games of Demigods to know exactly where she fit in. She’d need to work on that. She needed to know enough to make educated guesses, not blindly grasp at straws.

  She twisted her chest. The hard hilt of a small blade pushed against her skin between the pads in her bra. Thank God for guys’ obsession with mammary glands. Big boobs helped hide weapons, and the stores were all too happy to sell overpriced bullshit to create that effect. The knife at her waist was gone, of course, having been the cause of Jack breaking her wrist.

  She moved her right ankle. The hard nylon holster was gone, and obviously the blade with it. Interesting. The woman had done a light frisk, but hadn’t checked Daisy’s cleavage. That bespoke a man more than a woman. When there was no purse to be had, the bra was a great place to store something. Ladies knew about this hiding place, especially violent ladies. Bria was adamant about that.

  She crinkled her brow as a muffled voice rolled through the door. The words didn’t take shape. There would be no eavesdropping in here. That gave her a big blind spot. She also didn’t know what kind of magic she was dealing with, not to mention how far the treachery in Kieran’s camp went.

  If you can save yourself, don’t wait. Being on the run gives you better odds than being locked in a box.

  Daisy nodded as Zorn’s words faded from her mind.

  She needed to free herself. If anyone could find her, it was Kieran—he was wicked smart, cunning, and extremely knowledgeable—but what if Kieran had flipped on them? What if he’d realized leading a territory would be easier if he took a page from his father’s book? Daisy wouldn’t put it past him. Men often lost themselves to greed and power. Hell, all the human kings in Lord of the Rings had become Ring Wraiths. J.R.R. Tolkien had known what was up.

  And yet…she found herself thinking of Jack’s strange, jerky movements. The way he’d dropped her. The woman who’d scooped her up had moved like that too, in jerks and jolts, as though she weren’t totally in charge of her body.

  Daisy shook her head and gritted her teeth against the dull agony of her wrist while she worked her left hand within the holds. None of that mattered right now. She didn’t have enough information to piece everything together. She had one purpose: get free and get out.

  Magnus

  “Sir, we have news and a possible situation.”

  Magnus looked away from his computer screen. Gracie stood in his doorway with a severe expression.

  “What is it?” He clasped his fingers.

  She crossed the room and stood behind the chairs in front of his desk. “Aaron made his move, and it was just as blunt and shortsighted as we suspected it would be.”

  Magnus listened in silence until Gracie had finished, giving him a moment to process.

  “He thinks nothing of the child Demigod,” Magnus surmised, leaning back in his seat. “He thinks the child tearing down his father was a fluke.”

  “Many do, sir, as you know,” Gracie said, tapping her fingers against the top of a chair. “They think Valens was too close to the situation to properly judge it.”

  “Which is undoubtedly true, to some extent, but Valens was not a trusting man. He kept his son on a very tight leash.” Magnus allowed himself a smile. “This is excellent. We can see, firsthand, how the child deals with the situation. If he moves to strike quickly and harshly, as I am sure he will want to, he’ll get flagged by the Directorate. I’ll personally push for his…removal. That would solve many of my problems.”

  Gracie knew enough about the Directorate, a secret society of Demigods that monitored the magical world and worked to maintain its balance, to know removal would mean demise. The Directorate was small and hand-selected, and not even the leaders who attended the Summits knew of its existence. If any one ruler stepped too far out of line, pushing for the grandeur of world domination as in times of old, the Directorate would swiftly and silently tear that ruler down. They’d been watching the child closely, understanding of the situation with his father but ready to block him should he attempt to expand his territory.

  “And if he does nothing?” Gracie asked.

  “Then I will know he is thinking of the long game, and I will need to continue with the plan we currently have in place. Either way, he will need to be removed from his position. I need access to the girl. Too bad. If he were to remove Aaron, it would help me out greatly. I’m sure no one would bat an eye if Patricia took over as sole ruler. She already handles all the details in their territory.”

  A little smile slid across Gracie’s lips. She knew Patricia was fond of Magnus. Too fond. She welcomed his opinion and his roaming hands. It would make for a great alliance and possible merging of territories. Patricia certainly didn’t mind looking the other way when her husband found lovers, as long as she was kept in a certain lifestyle. Magnus liked to spoil his women. Win-win.

  “Now for the stickier situation, sir,” Gracie said, and her humor fled. “Amos slipped into one of the child’s men during Aaron’s attack. His goal was to get the child killed in a way that would put the blame squarely on Aaron. But no one expected the Spirit Walker would be on the front lines of the battle. He had to improvise, so he decided to drag the wards out into the battle and ensure they were killed. The Spirit Walker is partial to those kids, and as we know, the child is partial to her. It would’ve escalated the retaliation and created chaos that Amos could later exploit.”

  “Yes, sound planning. What happened?”

  “The wards fought back more than expected. Amos had to kill one of them, and he was dragging the other out, intending to use the back door and slip into the battle from the rear, when he ran into one of Aaron’s staff. She apparently did a number on the body he was using, so he had to jump to her, something that really taxed his energy.”

  Magnus scrubbed his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. “Aaron is a fool. Did he not study the situation at all before bumbling into it?”

  “No, it doesn’t seem so, sir. Nothing besides a few Google searches and visiting in spirit.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “Unfortunately, the severe energy drain meant he couldn’t maintain real-looking movement in the possessed body. He didn’t have stealth on his side. He also needed to get back to his body without using much energy. He didn’t have a lot left, apparently. He decided to take the ward with him.”

  “He decided the best use of his time was to kidnap the wrong person,” Magnus said slowly.

  “Yes, sir. He didn’t want to leave Aaron’s staffer alive because she’d likely know she’d been possessed, and you’re the only one who has both a horse in this race and access to a Possessor strong enough to manage this. Except, before he could make her kill herself, he had to flee the body or risk his energy depleting so much that he wouldn’t make it back.”

  It took every ounce of Magnus’s self-control not to throw something against the wall. “I had Nancy place that Defalcator so he could get objects from the child’s staff. Amos doesn’t have anything belonging to Aaron’s staffer, does he? Or the kid he took?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So how the hell is Amos going to get back to her or the kid? He’s going to lead Aaron right to me, and the child with him.”

  “Amos will drive there, sir. He knows the location, so he’ll physically go. It’s one of Aaron’s spy shacks, as he calls them. There was paperwork in the car with directions and enough info that we’ll be able to link Aaron’s name to the kidnapping. It’s located in the non-magical zone and didn’t appear to have been used in a long time, which was why Valens probably didn’t know about it. It’s not too far away, though. The child is already searching for the ward, in both zones, so the woman’s in a bad position. She either needs to leave the ward behind or stay put. She can’t risk being spotted with the kid. That gives Amos time.”

  Magn
us laughed, incredulous. He slammed his fist against the desk. “Tell him to hurry. I can’t have the child finding Aaron’s staffer or the girl alive. He’ll need to kill them in a way that makes it look like they killed each other. Or that the staffer had wounds from the battle that bled out. Whatever. After that, tell Amos to wait. Lie low. We’ll see what kind of damage this does. If a Possessor is not suspected, only then should he re-engage. In the meantime, make sure we have everything we need to pin this on Aaron.”

  Gracie stood back from the chair. “Yes, sir. I’ll tell Amos right away.”

  Magnus waited for a beat, feeling his anger wrap around him. He couldn’t believe how shortsighted and stupid Amos had been. Magnus knew that, under duress, a Possessor was at risk of taking on the host’s desires and goals, but Amos should’ve been past that by now.

  Then again, when was the last time Amos had been in such a stressful situation? The position of a Demigod wasn’t what it used to be. These days, important things were usually decided with whispers in dark rooms, maneuvering and manipulating. There were fewer out-and-out wars. Less blades and blood.

  It seemed the child upstart was skewing things back toward the old ways. Magnus had to admit that it was a little refreshing. He hated hiding behind smoke and mirrors. He had always much preferred to look in a man’s face as he shoved his blade into his gut.

  But he was getting ahead of himself. The child was on shaky ground. The members of the Directorate were watching, not to mention the much larger pool of world leaders, magical and not, and the last thing Magnus needed was to be implicated in any way. That was a sure way to get his vote muted if something should come to pass.

  He had to make sure Aaron’s staffer and the kid were wiped out, along with any evidence implicating Magnus. If he could eliminate the witnesses before Aaron or the child arrived on scene, there would be more questions than answers. Only a great fool would move on another ruling Demigod with nothing but a hunch.