When he was young, he had watched Red from afar trying to dissect who he was and how Thorin might win his affection. Should he be more like Mad? The warrior, the dedicated grandson? The kind of man who swung a sword first and asked questions later? Or Dae who could trick anyone, mortal or immortal, with a clever illusion? Or even Poe, whose callousness had won him a place among centuries’ worth of monarchies?
Thorin had tried on all of his brothers’ strengths and found them chafing. He was not like them. In fact, he was unlike most djinn he knew.
In his most lucid moments, he felt like he had a duty to the world and to the mortals who inhabited it. He wanted to make a difference. He might have been a fool to fantasize about it, but he wanted to save the world, sometimes from itself. Sometimes he felt like he was the only man for the job.
But in his darkest moments, when on the other side of the smallest slight, the rage told him he was better than all of them, they were inconsequential. Why not destroy those who were weak if he had the ability to do it?
If Red could admire any part of him, it would be the strength that came with the rage, the disregard for those who were less, but Thorin had never had the ability to control it and in Red’s eyes, that made it a weakness.
So he had long ago resigned himself to being Red’s least favorite and that often meant being excluded from the important conversations. Especially when they happened in Red’s War Room.
Thorin caught the tail end of a conversation between Dae and Red from the interior room. Dae was asking again if they could call Red’s psychic, Cassie, and Red was (again) denying him.
“If she knew something,” Red said, “she would write.” Then he added, sounding irritated, “Or call.”
“I didn’t know it was her,” Dae said. “Besides, she helped me navigate the situation with Poe and Willa. I might not have been so forgiving with him if she hadn’t warned me.”
Red said nothing.
Thorin took a breath and entered the room.
There were no windows here and only one door. Like the cellar, the War Room was soundproof and impervious to most magic.
The room was small for Red’s standards, but large enough to house a giant round table, the top of which had been painted with an old map of the world. Thorin had a vague memory of seeing wooden peg men and wooden ships laid out on the map as Red plotted one war or another with Mad at his back.
Now, as Thorin came inside, Red looked up from his place at the head of the table. His chair was larger than the other nine that surrounded it, with a back carved from Black Forest oak. It depicted a pivotal battle scene in the Hundred Years’ War.
Dae paced along the far wall where zoomed in maps of England and New England were tacked to the wood.
“What’s this about?” Thorin asked though he was afraid of the answer.
Red stared at him, unmoving and unblinking in that eerie way of his. Even though he’d lost his djinn power to Ashley and now was completely human, he still seemed other.
“Tell him,” Red said to Dae though he never took his eyes off Thorin.
Dae clicked open his lighter and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply before answering. “We’re on notice by the Conclave.”
Trepidation turned his blood cold. Thorin swallowed hard. “In regard to what?”
“Where do I even fucking start,” Red snapped. He shoved his chair back. The legs groaned against the hardwood. “You nearly tore apart a djinn in full view of dozens of witnesses. Then you went against my direct orders to leave your mortal to her own mistakes.” He came around the table. Thorin steeled himself. “And to make matters worse, just hours later you killed the same djinn you threatened, in our own house!”
Red stopped a foot from him. He was several inches shorter than Thorin and not nearly as bulky. And now Red was human. Thorin could break him in two and still he shrunk in on himself like prey into a hole.
“You are an embarrassment,” Red said. “You’ve put our entire family at risk because of your recklessness.”
“Red,” Dae said. “I don’t think we need—”
Red whipped around to face Dae. “I don’t think I asked for your opinion.”
Dae shut up.
Where was Poe? Poe always had Thorin’s back. On the list of Least Liked by Red, Poe ranked nearest to Thorin.
“I can fix this,” Thorin said, not that he believed it. He was as much trying to convince himself as he was Red.
How could things be so good and so bad at the same time?
All he wanted to do right now was return to bed and to Lola and forget about all of the conflicts currently festering in his life.
Lola made him forget.
She made him feel something he had never felt—accepted and whole.
“All right,” Red said. “So what’s your strategy?” Sarcasm hung on his words.
Thorin didn’t have an answer. Red snorted and turned away.
“Adonis tried to kill me first,” he argued. “He came here with a runed blade. He came to our house.”
“Sorry brother,” Dae said, “but Rose and Lola were the only witnesses to that and Lola was unconscious. You think Rose will back you up?”
Thorin clenched his teeth. “Lola being unconscious should say enough.”
“Mortals don’t factor into djinn law unless they’re marks or caelis,” Red pointed out.
Dae’s cell phone beeped. He checked the screen and winced. “It’s Poe. Conclave representatives just arrived.” He put the phone back in his pocket and took another hit from the cigarette. “Now what?”
Red crossed his arms over his chest. “You invoked?” he asked Thorin. “You smell like you are.”
For some reason, that made Thorin even more self-conscious like making a deal with Lola had been more reckless than killing Adonis.
Heat flamed through his cheeks. “Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do—”
“You will tell the council representative that you had just made a deal with Lola,” Red said. “Angry that you’d insinuated yourself in the middle of hers, Rose came looking for revenge and brought on physical harm to your mark before you could come to her aid. When you stepped in the middle, Adonis attacked and you countered. Enough of that is true that if pressed in cross examination, Rose will admit as much.”
“And what if they bring a psychic? A powerful one would be able to read the room. And if they somehow managed to find someone with an ability to read like Cassie did you? The whole plan falls through.”
Red tsked. “There are no psychics as powerful as Cassie.”
No wonder Red seemed to have fallen so hard for her. If there was anything Red respected, it was power.
“Okay, fine,” Thorin said. “I’ll be sure to tell all the lies and truths you’ve schooled me to tell.”
Red sat back in his throne. “Go on, then.”
“You’re not coming?”
Dae stubbed out the cigarette in an ashtray. “We don’t want the Conclave seeing Red yet now that he’s…well…transformed.”
“Right.” Thorin turned for the door. “We wouldn’t want the entire world to know just how far the great Fredrick Blackwell has fallen.”
From his throne-like chair, Red visibly bristled.
If he could get in any last digs before his life imploded, Thorin was glad to have that one.
Chapter 32
LOLA
“Where are you?” Lola asked through the phone.
“In the kitchen,” Ashley answered.
Lola wasn’t sure how immortal djinn men managed to communicate with each other in a house the size of Blackwell House, but Lola was totally cool with relying on the advantages of 21st century technology.
Lola made her way down the back stairwell and found Ashley at the kitchen island snacking on apple slices and almond butter. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders and shone auburn in patches of sunlight streaming through the window over the sink.
She wore a pair of cut off jean shorts and
a white tank top. She looked ready for a summer picnic.
When seeing Lola and probably the panicked look on her face, Ashley frowned and set aside her plate. “What’s wrong?”
“I…well…I don’t even know where to start.” A half hour ago, her biggest news was that she’d found out she was Thorin’s caeli.
That had happened, hadn’t it?
Maybe it’d been a dream.
But now…after Mad’s warning? She thought if she started anywhere, it should be there.
“Do you know anything about Thorin’s past? Something that happened in Northumberland I think it was?”
Ashley turned the bar stool and leaned into the marble countertop. “Hmmm…maybe? The place sounds familiar, but I’m not sure it’s because of Thorin. I know more about Dae and Red’s histories than I do Thorin’s. Why?”
Taking Mad’s second warning seriously, Lola lowered her voice as she relayed what Mad had told her. “He said to look up Walwick village in 1644 which is exactly the same year Thorin cited for the break up between him and Rose.” Her heart was hammering in her ears and her breath was coming too quickly.
Calm down.
This probably isn’t as big a deal as you’re making it.
A lump formed in her throat. But what if it was?
Ashley popped the last apple wedge into her mouth and took care of her plate. “We can solve this mystery right now. The house’s library has a card catalogue system. We’ll start there.”
The doorbell rang in the far reaches of the house as Ashley led Lola to the library.
“Are they expecting guests?” Lola asked.
“Not sure. Dae said there was some business they had to attend to, but I don’t ask questions unless I’m really, really curious and today I wasn’t.” She shut the library’s pocket doors behind them.
Along the far wall was a large piece of furniture with hundreds of little drawers. Lola recognized the card catalogue system, of course, but she wasn’t all that familiar with how it worked.
Thankfully Ashley was.
“I’ve spent a lot of hours in here since meeting Dae,” Ashley said. “More hours than I can count. Can you believe there are first editions of Frankenstein and Dracula and The Iliad? Just sitting on the shelves catching dust! It blows my mind.”
She pulled out the drawer labeled European History – 1600-1699 and started rifling through the yellowed cards. “Why do you think Mad told you to look this up?”
Lola shrugged. “Probably so I’ll disappear. He thinks I complicate things for Thorin.”
“Oh, I totally have to disagree. Thorin has been happier since he met you. Even I can tell that and I barely know him. This one might be promising. H32 is the shelf number. That’s over here.” She flitted away and Lola followed on her heels.
“From what I’ve been able to tell so far, Mad is extremely overprotective of the family and his brothers,” Ashley said. “He takes after Red in that he does things that seem kinda jerkish, but he’s usually doing it for good reasons. That’s where he differs from Red. Red reacts based on strategy. Whatever course will get him the results he wants—namely protecting the family dynasty—that’s what he’ll choose regardless of who it hurts.”
“You should write a guidebook on Blackwells,” Lola half teased.
“I wish I had one to read. It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Ahh-ha.” On her tiptoes, Ashley pulled a black leather-bound book from the shelf. The cover was stamped in gold letters with History of Northern England in the 17th Century.
When Ashley set the book on a work table, the cracked spine automatically flopped open from so many years of use. The air immediately smelled of musty paper and dust.
Ashley flipped to the back to the index and dragged her finger over the small faded text until she found several entries for Northumberland. “There,” she said. “Walwick village—” She snapped her eyes up to Lola’s. Her mouth formed a delicate O.
“What?” Lola sidled up to Ashley and read the entry for herself.
All of the blood drained from her face.
The words blurred on the page.
Northumberland, 1644, Walwick Village Massacre.
“That can’t be it,” Lola said.
But she knew it was.
The village name was correct. The year had been cited by both Thorin and Mad.
Ashley bit her bottom lip, then, “Do you want to read it?”
Numbly, Lola nodded.
Whatever it says, it doesn’t necessarily change anything now. It happened several hundred years ago.
When Ashley found the page, she canted the book to give Lola a better look. There was an illustration on the left hand page. It depicted thatched roofed houses in flames. A village square. And a monstrous man in the center tearing the limbs from a screaming villager.
Surrounding him in the dirt were several corpses torn apart limb by limb.
Tears streamed down Lola’s face before she realized she was crying. She quickly swiped them away.
“This can’t be true,” she said, but the look on Ashley’s face said otherwise.
“There must be an explanation,” Ashley said.
Lola’s stomach knotted. Her ears were ringing.
There was an explanation. Thorin thought he was protecting Rose from something, though what, Lola didn’t know. Rose was immortal just like him. What did she need protection from?
But to go this far? To kill people?
Fear turned her stomach.
Hadn’t she been worried about this kind of thing all along?
She wanted to find a reason. But—no, she wanted to find an excuse. Something to absolve him of the guilt because he was her soul mate. She his caeli.
All these years she’d fought against her DNA. And the whole time her fate was already sealed.
The Fates, wherever they were, whoever they were, were probably laughing their asses off at her expense.
How could she tell Thorin now that she was his caeli? If they did that whole binding thing that Ashley had told her about, Thorin would be ten times stronger than he was now. He would be unstoppable. He…he could destroy a city. A world. Whatever he did with that power, she would be just as guilty as he was.
“Lo?” Ashley said.
“I…I should—” Lola slapped her hand over her mouth and raced to the nearest trashcan. She braced herself on the edges and vomited.
It was so much worse than she ever could have imagined.
She hadn’t fallen for an asshole or a douchebag or a controlling, lying bastard.
She’d fallen for a monster.
Chapter 33
THORIN
When Thorin walked into the front parlor and saw who the Conclave had sent, his heart sunk.
Rievold Kron III.
Riev hated the Blackwells just as much as the Northman did.
In fact, the Kron djinn were unspoken allies to the Northman. The fact that the Conclave had sent a biased party to deal with this was a slap in the goddamn face.
Beside Thorin, Dae tensed. Behind Riev’s back, Poe made a face like, the fuck we do now?
Riev hadn’t come alone either. He’d brought his right-hand, Lucas Valcar, the son of a reaper. While Lucas was much younger than the djinn in the room, he had already made a name for himself as being ruthless and bloodthirsty. Such was the way of reaper progeny. They thrived on death and destruction. Thankfully though, while it was harder to kill them than a djinn or vampire, they never lived as long. Their lifespan was closer to three hundred. Lucas had been around the last hundred or so years. His exact birthdate was unknown.
Thorin crossed paths with him once in the 40s in a hospital in France. He couldn’t cull souls like a reaper could, but he gained power from suffering and during World War II, a hospital was like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
“Riev,” Dae said as he came around the leather sofa. “What a pleasure to see you. It’s been too long.”
“Not long enough,” Riev said. He sat in the crook o
f the matching sofa, his long arm spread over the sofa’s back. Lucas sat to his left, his hands clasped in his lap.
Both wore tailored black suits and matching charcoal ties.
One thing could be said for the Conclave—they weren’t ostentatious.
“I don’t want to be here as much as you don’t want me here,” Riev said. “Let’s skip the pleasantries and get down to business. It was reported Thorin attacked Adonis Northman in the Blackbird two nights ago and then killed Adonis yesterday in this house without provocation. Is that true?”
Dae snorted.
Thorin sat across from Lucas and propped his elbows on his knees trying to portray casualness. He could already feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins. The witch disc was warm at his sternum.
“Northman djinn came here looking for a fight,” Thorin said.
“They’re still bent out of shape about our claiming the territory north of here,” Poe said. “Northman have no care for progress. They like to remain firmly in the past, caught up in the noose of revenge.”
Riev ignored Poe and said, “Let’s start with the Blackbird.” Elbow on the sofa’s arm, Riev cupped his chin in his curled hand. “Did you attack Adonis there?”
“He threatened someone,” Thorin argued.
“Who? One of your brothers? A mark? Your caeli perhaps? A member of your sacra familia?”
How could Thorin accurately sum up Lola’s importance to him when she was only mortal? And not even his caeli?
“Lola St. James,” Dae said for him. “She’s a family friend. An important member of our inner circle and Adonis knew it.”
Riev moved on. “Why did you go to the Blackbird?”
“Rose Northman,” Thorin said. “She’d insinuated herself into Lola’s life under false pretenses and threatened her earlier in the night.”
“And Northman aren’t allowed in Blackwater. We’ve made that clear.” Poe sat in the wingback chair on Thorin’s right side, bringing with him the strong scent of a pine forest. When a djinn was caeli-bound, every other djinn knew it. It wasn’t something easy to explain, the knowing, but Thorin experienced it by the shift in the air. The hair on his arms lifted just slightly around his brothers now.
One Mark: Steamy Friends to Lovers Paranormal Romance (Blackwell Djinn) Page 16