“True,” he said, looking puzzled as she dodged his logic. “But tell me, do you suspect otherwise? Do you believe it was anyone else but Majum who sent those men after us? And don’t say you think it was a random attack,” he argued quickly with an upraised hand. “They were dressed too well and fought too much like mercenaries to be common street thugs. The entire event was a hit, plain and simple. The only reason they weren’t more successful was because they thought this band would make me an easy target.” He flicked a finger against his armlet, making it ring softly. “That and they didn’t realize you’re a vicious little thing when you get riled up.” He said it with a low growl in his voice, making her smile when he jostled her for good measure.
“You have way too much testosterone for your own good,” she chided him.
“Not my fault. You did this to me, remember?”
“Oh, really?” She made a snort of disbelief, a delicate, sniffy sort of defiance. “Seems to me you came that way. Ready-made.”
“Perhaps,” he relented. “I’m not adjusted to this new way of being entirely yet, though. I feel…” He hesitated, not wanting to upset her but feeling he had to make himself clear. “I feel not entirely right in my own skin. Sort of like being armed with a weapon you’ve never used before and being thrust into battle. It’s awkward and you feel insecure.”
“I see,” she said softly, a frown tugging at her scarlet lips.
“And I haven’t explored the Otherside yet. It’s like a ticking bomb waiting to go off…and I don’t know how to work the detonator.”
Hanna got up from the divan they’d been seated on together, moving out of his embrace pointedly as his words disturbed her. “You’re right, of course. But there’s really no way to explain how to go to the Otherside. It just sort of happens. Once it does, it’s like accessing it automatically from then on.” She turned to cast him a look. “You came very close in the marketplace. I could feel it on you; I could see it. And afterward…” A lavender blush crept over her cheeks as she recalled how fiercely they had taken from each other right there against the front door.
“I know Majum’s type,” he said carefully, changing the topic on her so he could get back to making his point. “I saw enough of it on both sides of the war at home. The man thrives on the pain and suffering of others. He’ll need to be taken care of eventually, Hanna, or you risk him prying open this can of secrets you have here. You should let me do what I do best.”
“You mean sink to his level?” she demanded. “Absolutely not!”
“And meanwhile as you adhere to these precious principles of yours he gets farther and farther under your skin, picking off your family members one by one! You just told me you wouldn’t put it past the man to have your brother imprisoned for months! You think you’re being moral by letting him live? Who knows how many lives he’s ruining with every poisoned breath he takes! Is that morally right?” he demanded.
“Stop it!” She covered her ears, as if it could drown out the conflict of conscience churning through her. “What I speak of is the law! Morality remains ambiguous and open to interpretation, but the law does not!” She turned on him, beautiful fury radiating out of every pore. “I am Master of this House, a law-maker and respected member of this society! I will not resort to back-alley feuding and hypocrisy, no matter how justified!”
“Then you put this whole House at risk, Master Drakoulos,” he railed back at her, lurching to his feet as he whipped her with her title. “You already are a hypocrite! Your entire heritage, your entire House is hypocrisy! Everything you hide is nothing but a lifelong game of cloak and dagger! Men died in that marketplace simply because they saw what we were! Where’s the justice in that?”
“Don’t you dare try and make me feel guilty for protecting myself and my family!”
“I’ll dare that and much more, sweetheart,” he growled at her as the hackles on the back of his neck rose in aggression. “You use that excuse much too easily and much too often for convenience’s sake, but when I suggest something meant to protect your precious family you get all holier than thou on me and act as if you are above it! You mark my words, Hanna, that man is gunning for you and yours and one of these days this balance you try and maintain is going to crack right down the middle! You’ll be exposed for what you really are, which is nothing more than a clever little liar! You justify what you’ve done to me with games of conscience and worded tricks to absolve yourself of guilt, but what it comes down to is I never asked for this! You tricked me and goaded me and connived until you felt your conscience was clear! Well, it’s not! You could have been straight with me, asked me if I wanted to die and be reborn. Taken the risk and been aboveboard, but you didn’t. You didn’t because you wanted what you wanted and fuck everyone else and what they want!”
“No!”
“Yes! Hanna, yes! You think about what you’ve done here as if you gave me choices, but you didn’t give me one real goddamn choice in any of this. I was a slave. I still am! I have no rights, no freedom, no power to even so much as express an opinion counter to your own! Just listen to you! Even now I can feel the thoughts washing off of you in waves! You want to yell at me and say I dare too much. Tell me to shut my mouth and watch my step! Your ‘freedom’ within a prison is a joke, sister. I’m nothing here. Nothing but a means to an end and a stud for the gene pool.”
Jhon growled savagely before turning on his heel to leave her presence. He was so furious, everything inside of him so suddenly coming to the surface, he was afraid for what he’d do in his temper. He left her there, stormed out of the room and into the hallway, nearly tripping over her sister.
“Lover’s quarrel?” she asked archly, raising one of her pointed little brows.
Jhon wasn’t in the mood for her cheek. He turned on her, his face right up in hers with a vicious snarling roar. She jerked back in surprise, banging into the wall behind her.
“You,” he hissed. “You are going to mind your manners with me, you spoiled fucking brat! I don’t care who or what you are, I will beat your ass if I ever catch you disrespecting me or your sister again. That includes your smart mouth and your indiscriminate voyeurism. You think I don’t know you stood there watching us the whole time? I have the exact same senses as you do and while you have the advantage of experience on your side, I have the advantage of knowing how to use all my skills, old or new, to aid me in any and every battle. You will not get under my radar, little girl, so stop trying. And you better keep your smart little ass in line or I will force it there. Do I make myself clear?”
“How dare—!”
“I dare!” he roared again, the utter savagery in the retort shutting her up and forcing her to turn her head aside in submission. “Don’t test me! Do you hear me? I’ve had about all I am going to take from you and from your sister. Both of you are going to get it through your heads that I am no slave and I will not be pushed around! Do I make myself clear?” he demanded.
“Yes,” was all she could whisper. She didn’t even nod her head for fear of his taking the movement the wrong way. She kept her neck exposed to him, making sure he believed her sincerity.
“Good.” Jhon pushed away from her and stormed off to go deeper into the house. Ashanna exhaled in sudden relief and slid down the wall until her butt hit the floor.
She wondered if her sister realized exactly what she had gotten herself into.
17
Captain Sozo was dallying with one of the treasures in Majum’s vaults when the Baron came storming in. It was obvious he was in an unparalleled rage when he drew a short dagger and plunged it into the Drakoulous guard’s eldest brother’s heart. The prison became an uproar of screams and wails, the younger siblings bursting apart at the seams as the brother died in front of them.
Hyde sighed, withdrawing from his victim of the moment and quickly redressing himself. When the Baron wasted valuable resources on a whim like that, it meant things were bad and fun would have to wait.
“What ha
ppened?” he asked his companion.
“That rotten whore!” Majum snarled, his eyes livid with fury and his skin mottled violet because of it.
“Her again?” Sozo asked dryly.
“Again and for the last time! I don’t care what it takes! I’m going to get her and both those fucking treats of hers if it’s the last thing I do! That whole family! First I’ll kill off everything around her, watch her suffer as they die one by one! Then she’ll be the last to go! Killing her is too good for her. I’m going to mutilate her! Cut her up bit by bit over the span of a year!”
By that point every word Majum spoke was being punctuated by rising wails and sobs from those trapped around them. But Hyde couldn’t even take the time to enjoy their distress. The Baron had to be calmed down or he’d take to killing all their remaining leverage.
“So how do you want to start?” Sozo coaxed him, redirecting him from his rage to the cold calculation he knew he would excel at.
“Najir! No, wait, the sister. She is constantly running around in the dark corners of this city. She’ll be easiest to get to.”
“People have tried that,” the Captain reminded his friend carefully. “She’s not as delicate as she looks. The last fight she was in she was the only one left standing. Remember, House Drakoulous trains their family well.”
“Then you do it! Personally. No lackeys, no hires. You’re the only one I can trust to get it right. So you do it, Hyde. You understand? I want that brat hanging on my wall, dead or alive, by the end of this week. Am I clear?”
“Perfectly.”
Hanna couldn’t understand where all of Jhon’s sudden fury had come from. Or maybe it wasn’t really all that sudden. They’d been running on a high of a sort for the past few days, discovering each other and indulging in the passions their inner natures made them crave. Between that and introducing Jhon to the culture he would now call his own, they really hadn’t had a chance to slow things down and take stock. It was a lot of change all at once for him, a lot of sacrifice and adaptation he was being forced into. Clearly, it was taking a toll on him. One that, perhaps, he’d hardly realized himself. He hadn’t yelled at her like that since a day or two after he’d gotten there. She couldn’t remember them arguing once since he’d gone through his metamorphosis. But now he’d more than made up for it all in one shot.
Was he right? Was she being selfish and manipulative? She could easily see how he would think so. She’d orchestrated everything that had happened to him since he’d arrived in her home. And yes, her methods of getting him to agree to going through the change to join her family had not been as aboveboard as she would have liked. In fact, they hadn’t been aboveboard at all.
Hanna bit down on a dark nail as she stared out at the panoramic view of the city. She came to this room to clear her mind, but now it seemed it was difficult for her to think of anything else but the passion she had shared there with Jhon not too long ago. But his passion, it seemed, could run very independent of the rest of his emotions.
Of course, she was quite similar, she acknowledged to herself. She compartmentalized her life all of the time. Her work. Her family. Her relationship with Jhon. Each moved independently of the other. She didn’t see how Jhon had a right to tell her what to do with her family. Couldn’t he see that his bloodthirsty ways could only cause them trouble? As it was, the sighting of the bellcat in the marketplace was bringing undue attention onto their House. They couldn’t afford any more scrutiny! She had taken a terrible risk doing what she had done. Only fortune had kept them safe this far. If he was right and there was someone seeking to harm him or Najir, she would have to keep them both confined to the house. She simply couldn’t take any more risks. And Asha had to return to the country. The farther she was from this mess the better off she would be. She could only add to the trouble.
“My Lady.”
Hanna turned at the familiar address to face her long-trusted servant.
“Najir, what am I doing wrong?” she asked him. “I thought he was growing happy here. Why has he suddenly turned on me like this?”
“He isn’t turning on you,” Najir chided gently.
“He says I forced this on him. He’s chafing at the constraints he has agreed to already!”
“I’m sorry, my Lady, but I don’t think Jhon has ever really agreed to any of this.” Najir paused thoughtfully. “You mistake him for me, I think. While we are both of warrior stock, Jhon is a leader. It is in his blood to take charge of things and to fight his way through them until he achieves his objective. You expect him to act and react as submissively as I have done, but he and I are very different. You cannot forget that. He chafes at being subordinate, Hanna. It is not in his nature.”
“Every soldier is a subordinate in some way,” she argued.
“He can take orders, but in the end he is used to directing how those orders are carried out. You cannot manipulate him like a game piece telling him to do this and that, yet expect him to be silent in return. He’s a tactician, experienced and with much to offer. Did it ever occur to you to listen to what he has to say?”
She snorted. “No more or less than I would listen to you, Najir. The difference is you are familiar with this world. He is here but days and thinks he knows enough to overrule what I say and do!”
“And yet you know him only days and think to overrule what he says and does without knowing more about him.” Najir shook his head. “You’ve taken total command of a weapon and yet know nothing about it. Its balance, its power, its limits…none of it.”
“Uh! What is it with you men and your weapon analogies!” she demanded in disgust. “Why must it always be about war and death and fights!”
“You live in this society and have the nerve to ask that?” Najir queried gently. “You know full well this peaceful surface the Houses show to the cities is a farce! Ours is not the only House that has secret enemies trying to undermine it. The Feuds are too deep running. A law made only eight years ago doesn’t change things as instantly as it is made. If anyone can appreciate how slow change is to come, I would think it would be you.”
“Slow and interminable!”
“And you think you suffer for it? There is no law against slavery, Hanna. It is still legal and allowed socially—in fact it is an economic constant—yet when was the last time people like you, people who don’t believe in it, stood up and said so? You are a voice of great power in our society; you could initiate remarkable change, yet you have never once spoken of it in Chambers. Why is that? Are you afraid you would then have to sign away all your rights to me and, now, to Vejhon? If not for the slave trade, you and your family could never hope to find those who are like Jhon to come and free your siblings. Is that why you have never made a single stride at abolishing the trade?” Najir held up a silencing hand when she tried to choke out a reply. “You see, Hanna? Neither one of us can stand here toe-to-toe with you and point out the flaws in your thinking without you taking offense and thinking you are above the reproach of mere slaves.”
“Najir!” she gasped, horrified he thought these things of her. They had been the best of friends for so long! How could he think such terrible things of her?
Because they were true.
The touch of icy cold realization that flowed through Hanna made her shiver with terrible chills. They were right! They were both telling the truth of it! With all the power she had at her fingertips, both in and out of the COM, what was she doing with it? Oh, she did her part in ending the Feuds and making very important laws; she couldn’t undersell herself on that point. But on such a critical issue that touched the hearts and lives of two men she professed to care about? In all of this time as she had tried to use them both to make life better for herself and for her family, had she ever once done anything to try to make life better for them? Giving them a home, clothing, food, and comfort was not enough. In fact, it was a right that all people deserved. The right to walk free, the right to defend their lives, the right to have opinions of
their own: they had none of it and she, for all she was a prisoner of her own genetics, had more freedom than any slave on the planet could even dream of. It wasn’t enough to simply refuse to attend auctions. She had still kept an ear out, always hoping for that special slave, for a slave like Jhon.
Tears welled in her eyes as she realized that desire in and of itself had created the market for a man like Jhon to be stolen away from everything that had mattered most to him. It had created the situation he now found himself in against his will. Even one was one too many.
“Oh no,” she squeaked out in horror, her entire face ravaged with the realization of what she had done…and what she hadn’t done.
“Easy,” Najir soothed her softly, instantly hating to see the pain and obliteration in her eyes. Instantly knowing that a heart as well meaning as hers would suffer great pain at such harsh realizations. And for all he wanted her to see the light of her own wrongdoings, he would not ever wish her any pain.
“Don’t coddle me!” she snapped at him as tears dropped onto her cheeks in little rushing rivulets. “Don’t tell me it’s okay!”
No wonder Jhon had yelled at her as if she were the most hateful of creatures! She was all that and more. She was everything he had accused her of.
Pushing away from Najir, unable to stand the compassion and tolerance in his eyes, Hanna ran away to find the one man she knew would always tell her the truth of the matter and not comfort her when she clearly didn’t deserve it.
Jhon was fighting his way through his anger, literally. He had gone out to the training grounds to round up a few of the guards. One of the beauties of the armlet that was supposedly keeping him in check was that it would allow him to train and keep fully practiced, so long as he meant no ill will toward his opponent. So, those who were fighting against him saw nothing out of the ordinary in his ability to beat them into the ground. They just assumed his intentions were well meant and that his band would keep him from doing any real harm whether he was armed or not.
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