City of War (Chronicles of Arcana Book 4)

by Debbie Cassidy

  Ivan ... The Draconi king. Ivan, my father? “What did you do, Liana?” Because I needed to hear it regardless of the conclusion I’d just reached.

  “I did what any loving mother would.” Her tone was saccharine. “Knowing I couldn’t be with you, knowing that you wouldn’t have a parental figure to watch over you after you left the orphanage, I gave you your father, sans memories, but still.”

  A strange numbness gripped my mind, followed by a cocktail of emotions. It was hard to define. My hand slipped from Liana’s throat, and I took a step back.

  “Wila?” Noir gently gripped my shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “Give her a minute,” Valance said. He was beside me now, his almond scent competing with Noir’s cologne to keep me grounded.

  “You can tell him, of course, free him from the binding,” Liana said. “But there’s a risk that his psyche, what’s left of it, will shatter from the revelation. Souls, especially ones forced to remain on this plane, are fragile things.”

  Her words were a distant hum, buried beneath the revelation. Gilbert was my father. She’d trapped him, taken his memories, and locked him up just like she’d done to Seb. Oh, shit. Seb. But my ether-kindred conveyed no shock. Instead, he emitted a new emotion, something cold and alien and unforgiving. And now he was awake, fully awake and on his—

  “Hello, Mother.” Seb stood beside me, his body glowing softly where motes of sunlight from the ether still clung to his form. Recharged from his drift, he was re-energized and radiant with power, and his beautiful face was set in cruel, sadistic lines. He was dressed in head-to-toe black. His pants were loose fitting, but his shirt was skin-tight, lovingly caressing every muscle and sinew of his torso. He was a silver-haired panther, ready to strike, and Liana was his prey.

  There was real fear in Liana’s eyes as she looked up at him. Had she forgotten what she’d created, what I’d finally unleashed? But then her expression closed off.

  “I’m not your mother,” she snapped. “You may be connected to Wila, but you didn’t come from me.”

  “And I suppose I should be grateful for that,” Seb said. “But you see, I’m not in a very grateful mood. In fact, I’m more in a flay-skin-from-someone’s-bones mood.” He tapped his chin. “What do you think, Wila? Would it be all right to indulge? I have been deprived of pleasure all my life. You owe me.”

  Although his question probably sounded rhetorical to Liana, he was genuinely asking for permission—remembering that I’d said killing Liana was a no-no. But ordering him not to flay her now would make him seem weak, as if he was under my control, which I was under no illusion that he was.

  I touched his elbow lightly. “I’m sure Lex would rather not get blood all over his lovely carpet.”

  Seb slid an irate glance my way, his jaw ticking. “I suppose you’re right.” He bit the words out like tiny morsels of regret and then focused his attention back on Liana. “Next time we meet, let’s hope it’s on a laminate floor.”

  Liana lifted her chin. “Say what you will, but I do not regret my actions or decisions.”

  “I’d quit while I was ahead, Liana,” Lex said.

  She turned to him. “You agree with this? With her foolish dream of peaceful coexistence.”

  “Didn’t you believe in that too, long ago?” Lex said. “It was why you fell in love with Ivan. It was why you signed the treaty.”

  For the first time since we’d met, there was real pain in her eyes, real doubt. She’d loved my father, she’d believed in peace, but now ... Now she was hardened and jaded, and fuck, I was not going to feel sorry for her.

  “We’re done.” I turned my back on her. “Get out.”

  “You can’t speak to me that way.”

  “I just did.”

  “Liana, you should go,” Lex said.

  “So, you turn your back on me also?” Liana asked him, her tone dropping to a lethal baritone. Her pale green eyes, so like mine, flashed in warning.

  “I turn my back on what you stand for, Liana,” Lex said. “Not on you. I care for you, and that won’t change, but I cannot support your ideals. They go against everything I stand for, and the fact you kept them from me is forcing me to question if we were ever really friends at all, or if I was merely a pawn in your elaborate game.” He sighed. “I’ll continue to give you and your people sanctuary, but my aid will go to Wila.”

  “The Shedim will rise against the Draconi, with or without their figurehead,” Liana promised.

  “No,” her companion said softly.

  “Excuse me?” Liana glared at the young Shedim.

  She ducked her head, but then, setting her jaw, stared right back at Liana. “Your Majesty, with all due respect, the others deserve to know the truth. They deserve to be given a choice. They—”

  The young Shedim’s plea was cut short. Her mouth remained parted as crimson welled up across her throat, and then her head slid from her shoulders and hit the floor with a wet thunk.

  “Liana, what did you do?” Lex asked in a hushed voice.

  Liana tucked her dagger back into its sheath. “Do what you must, Wila. Go on your pathetic quest for peace, but you will never have my army. My Shedim hear my word and mine alone.” She exhaled through her nose. “Petula was a good soul. May she rest in peace.” And then she strode from the room without a backward glance.

  Seb stared at the bloodstained carpet. “You should have let me flay her.”

  Valance cleared his throat, his attention on Sebastian. “Um. Wila, I think you may have some more recapping to do?”

  11

  With Noir, Valance, and Quinn safely back at the house, I’d taken Mini and gone for a drive deep into Eastside. Barnaby, with his potions and lotions, would have something that could get Valance back into fighting-fit form.

  The hour was late, and the streets were buzzing with night activity. The smell of freshly cooked black bean sauce drifted to me from the Chinese takeaway on the corner, and the aroma of strong coffee hit me from the right. The two delicious scents mingled into a heady combination. The alleyway was dark, almost pitch black, but my night vision, sharper now that Liana’s muting spell was gone, made it easy to navigate.

  The bell above Barnaby’s shop door failed to tinkle as I entered. The familiar scent of old books and dust didn’t tickle my nose. In fact, the shelves looked decidedly bare, and were those boxes piled up against the wall?

  My pulse picked up. “Barnaby?” I strode toward the back of the shop, toward the arch that would lead me into his inner sanctum, and smashed into a wall.

  Fuck! My hands came up to cup my face. Shit, the first time I decide to not be cautious I get whacked. What the heck?

  “Barnaby?”

  A clatter of boots down the stairs and then an unfamiliar figure appeared behind the shop counter. Tall, slender, and refined-looking, the dark-haired stranger raked me over curiously. His gaze flicked to my face, and then the arch, then back again.

  “Can I help you?”

  Ignoring the throbbing in my face, I offered him a smile. “I’m looking for Barnaby, the owner?”

  “You’re one of his clients?”

  “Yeah. I need to speak to him.”

  “Name?”

  “Wila. Wila Bastion.”

  He pinged open the cash register and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “This is for you.”

  “What is it?”

  He offered me a sympathetic smile. “Most probably a goodbye note. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish packing up the place.”

  My heart sank. Barnaby couldn’t be gone. But the few lines on the crisp paper confirmed it.

  Dear Wila,

  It’s been an honor doing business with you, but I must return home at short notice. I hope that one day we will see each other again, and if we don’t then I hope that you find the answers you seek, because knowing you has given me mine.

  Barnaby.

  The dark-haired man came back into the shop. “Is there anything else
I can help you with?”

  I held up the note. “This makes no sense. Where did he go?”

  He shrugged. “I’m sorry. I’ve been instructed to pack up the place and ship the goods to various antique dealers. I have no idea where the owner went.”

  Barnaby was gone, like really gone, and what did he mean about my having helped him find his answers? The quicksand feeling in the pit of my stomach told me I’d probably never know.

  I tucked the note into my pocket. “If you hear from him, can you tell him ... just tell him I got my answers.”

  The man smiled and nodded. “Sure.”

  Leaving him to his parcel tape and boxes, I headed back out into the street.

  It was almost eight in the evening when I got home. The house was silent, but Gilbert greeted me with a cup of tea. “Valance is upstairs being stubborn about asking for help getting showered,” he said. “I offered to run him a bath, but he declined. If he’s not careful, he’ll make the internal injuries worse.”

  I took the cup. Staring at him, I took in his huge form and the reproving set of his jaw aimed at Valance’s pig-headedness. This was my father. Mine. And he’d been here all along. He’d been with me every day for the last seven years.

  I set the cup on the table. “Gil, can I get a hug?”

  He was thrown for a moment and then his presence surrounded me and gently squeezed in a heartfelt hug. My eyes pricked, and I held on, relishing the contact. My father ... Mine.

  “Wila, are you all right?”

  I reined in the emotion and stepped back. “Yeah, just needed a hug, that’s all.” I picked up the cup and drained the scalding tea. “I’ll go check on Valance.”

  I headed out of the room before I could betray my thoughts, before I could tell him who he really was, because Liana’s warning echoed clearly in my mind. The truth could set him free, or it could shatter him completely. I couldn’t risk losing him, not now that I’d finally found him.

  Upstairs Valance’s curses were audible through the bathroom door. “Hey, I’m coming in.”

  Valance stood by the bathtub, his face slightly paler than usual. He arched an enquiring brow. He was in pain, and there was nothing I could do.

  “I’m sorry, Barnaby was a bust.” I closed the bathroom door and reached around Valance to turn on the shower.

  Unlike me, he hadn’t had a chance to clean up properly after our return from the Everdark, and the wound inside his abdomen probably made raising his arms, and bending and twisting, super painful.

  “I can manage,” he said tersely. “I’m not an invalid, Wila.”

  “I know that, I just wanted to perv at your naked, wet body.”

  He let out a snort. “Well, that makes perfect sense.”

  Valance winced as I helped him tug off his T-shirt. The bathroom was already steaming up.

  I unbuckled his jeans. But he caught my hand before I could unzip them.

  “I can manage.” He unzipped his jeans and made to pull them off. His face contorted with pain. “Fuck dammit!”

  “Let me, please.” I fluttered my eyelashes at him, eliciting another snort of amusement.

  I helped him undress and then tugged off my own clothes.

  “Wila ...” This time, the torment on his face was of a different nature. “Are you trying to torture me?”

  I snorted. “No. I’m going to get in the shower with you and clean you up.”

  I stepped into the tub and held out my hand, cheeks flushing as he raked me over. We’d seen each other naked before, of course, but not like this, not in the real world about to take a shower together. He stepped in with me and then backed up into the spray. There were no words spoken as I shampooed and rinsed his hair or as I used my loofah to scrub his body with my jasmine-scented body wash until he was moaning and gripping my hips with desperate fingers. His arousal pressed against my abdomen, painfully hard, but sex was out of the question, not until he was healed, and without Barnaby’s concoction to detox him, that could be days. But there was no reason he couldn’t release a little tension. Slipping down onto my knees, I took him in my mouth. His gasp was a raw, primal thing, and his hands tangled in my hair, fingers flexing as I worked him.

  “Wila, fuck, you need to stop.”

  I pulled back. “Am I hurting you?”

  “Sweet fucking pain.”

  But his face was paler than it had been a moment before. Shit, maybe this was a bad idea. He urged me to my feet, his electric blues locking onto mine, peering into my soul and trapping me. “I love you, Wila.”

  We’d skirted the words so many times in the Everdark. I’d whispered them in my heart as we’d fallen asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms, but to hear him say them out loud ... My throat tightened, and I pressed my lips to his, opening for his kiss, allowing him inside, into my heart, into my mind, into my soul. My energy surged up to meet him, stronger now that Seb was free, laced with ether and light. It spilled into him, caressing, healing, nurturing.

  Valance groaned into my mouth, his hands skimming up and down my back to finally cup my ass and lift me up into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist, and then my back was pressed to the tiles.

  Wait. He was hurt. I tore my mouth from his. “Babe, you can’t.”

  Even though the eager throb between my thighs said, heck yes he could.

  He devoured my face with his gaze, and then pushed into me, stealing my breath and coaxing a cry of pleasure from my lips.

  “Your wound?” My words coasted a moan.

  “You healed me,” he gasped into my neck, hips pumping. “Fuck, Wila, just let me ... fuck.”

  The rest of the words didn’t need to be uttered; the sentiment was in the clawing, desperate act, the knowledge that we’d faced death and survived, that we’d almost been ripped apart but clung on to each other.

  Scales flaring to life and melting in waves, we took what we needed from each other, because, dammit, we were alive, we’d made it out of the Everdark, and we were alive.

  An hour later, I walked into my bedroom to find Valance fast asleep in my bed. The duvet was tangled between his legs, and in sleep, his proud features were soft in the moonlight.

  “He’s been in a lot of pain,” Seb said from the window seat. “But he’s sleeping deep now.”

  Seb’s form seemed to soak up the silvery rays spilling into the room; it glittered in his hair and caressed his profile lovingly.

  “Are the others settled?” he asked.

  “I’m sure you know the answer to that better than me.”

  A slight smile tugged at his lips. “Noir, Amber, and Tay have taken the fourth floor. Quinn has commandeered the sofa in the lounge. They are all either asleep or falling into slumber.”

  “Have you seen Leopold?”

  “He went out,” Seb said. “He’ll be back. But he likes to prowl.”

  “Hound stuff?”

  “Possibly. I can’t get inside his head too well. It’s always shifting and changing like a maze.” He sounded intrigued.

  “Is this what you used to do? Listen to the lives going on around you?”

  His shoulders tensed, and the moon slipped behind a cloud, casting his face in shadow. My chest felt heavy and empty at the same time, but these weren’t my emotions, they were his—his weight to bear, his emptiness. The moon winked back into existence as his lips parted to answer my question, but there was no need. I’d already felt his response.

  “Budge up so I can sit too.” I padded over and joined him on the ledge, tucking my legs to the side to fit.

  He was dressed in a white shirt and loose white pants today. Did that mean his mood was sunnier? The shirt had a wide neck, exposing his collarbones and breastbone and a mark I hadn’t seen before. It looked like an infinity sign but was nestled in a circle.

  I ran a finger across it. “What’s this?”

  He looked down, brow furrowing. “My breastbone? Are we having an anatomy lesson?”

  “No, the mark, you idiot.”
r />   He blinked at me. “I don’t see a mark.”

  But it was there, looking right at me. “Well, that’s weird.” I pulled out my phone and took a picture of it, but when I checked the picture there was no mark. “Okay, I must be going insane.”

  “What does it look like?”

  I met his gaze. “You believe me?”

  He snorted. “It would be a pointless thing to lie about, wouldn’t it?”

  True. “It looks like an infinity symbol but it’s in a circle.”

  “Well, if it’s important, I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”

  There was a comfortable beat of silence. “Are you going to drift?”

  He shrugged and then tucked in his chin and arched a brow. “I may just stay awake and watch you sleep.”

  “Okay, that should have sounded creepy, but coming from you, it’s kinda comforting.”

  His lips twitched. “I’ve been contrary, haven’t I?”

  “Yep. But it’s cool. I get it.”

  “But tonight, with everyone here under the same roof, the darkness doesn’t seem so strong.” He raised his gaze to lock with mine, and there were a million stars in those turquoise depths. “Tonight, I don’t hate you.”

  The weight that had settled on my chest lifted. “Good to know.”

  He leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. “Remember these moments when the darkness is strong. Remember me and don’t give up.” His voice was a confidential whisper laced with desperation.

  In that moment, he was no longer a powerful ether-being, he was the vulnerable boy who’d been taken from me. I reached up to grasp the back of his neck. “I’ll never give up on you, Seb. I promise.”

  He pulled back, his expression shuttering. “Get some sleep, Wila. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

  “Are you really just going to sit here all night?”

  “Why, does it bother you?”

  I glanced at the bed, at Valance sprawled across it. “Yeah, it bothers me that you’ll be sitting here in the cold while I’m snuggled under the duvet with Valance.”