by Skye Malone
“I had my people do some digging,” Katsuro cuts in. “Trawl the internet; make some calls.” He pauses. “It wasn’t you.”
I want to be relieved, but I can’t. Not after what I saw at that factory. Not when the look on Katsuro’s face is making my stomach twist with dread.
“The name she gave us, Penny Campbell? I thought I might have heard it before. It turns out that Penelope ‘Penny’ Campbell was on the news about three years ago—or, rather, her family was. They died in a house fire Penny confessed to setting when she was fifteen. Seems her mother grounded her for cutting off her nine-year-old sister’s ponytail in a fit of pique, and in retaliation Penny waited till they’d all gone to bed and then doused the furniture with gasoline from the garage. Set the fire, locked the doors, and then watched the house burn from across the street while eating a plate of cookies she’d made specifically for the occasion. Killed the whole family: brothers, sister, parents. She was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Florida, where she stayed till Alistair’s people found her. I suppose Linden figured that the already insane—and violently so—will be more aggressive as Touched and therefore more valuable in the pit matches to which they are sent.”
I stare at him, at a loss for what horrifies me more in what he just said.
And for the fact that I set this person loose.
Katsuro looks briefly to Sorcha and then steps farther into the room, letting the door swing closed behind him. “Cait says I can trust you,” he continues to Amar, “and everything I have seen indicates she might very well be right, so that is what I am going to do. I told you both the answer to who we are is complicated, and that was the truth. But it is also dangerous. There are people who will kill us for who and what we are.”
I shiver, remembering the salvage yard.
“You met some of them,” Katsuro says, as if reading my reaction. “The ones who call themselves the Guardians. They worship a warped memory of the powers that ruled this world before the Houses ever existed. They distort the idea of what those forces stood for, what they were.” He pauses. “They distort us.”
“The original Guardians were destroyed,” Amar says. I hear the alarm beneath the carefully controlled tone of his voice. “A thousand years ago, their Council and all their supporters were wiped out. All that exist now are copycats and lunatics.”
“Most of the Thirteen were killed, yes,” Katsuro acknowledges. “But I was not. I survived the rebellion, the Houses’ scourge, and as one of the last remaining members of the original Guardian Council, I have spent the better part of the past millennium working in secret to restore what our betrayers tried to destroy. That’s what you see here. Not those megalomaniacal fools who would only create their own form of the Houses, but the real Guardians, still alive and still fighting after all these years.” He regards us both. “And I would like you to join us.”
I don’t know what to say. I want to claim I don’t know these people, but it’s not true. They’ve repeatedly saved my life. They just got done saving Amar’s.
And if they really want to stop the Houses…
“We are up against a sociopath, a murderer, and a psychic, all rolled into one,” Katsuro says. “And there’s no telling what she’s going to do next. But beyond even that, we have a greater issue. Magic is shifting, as I told you that night in the salvage yard. A convergence is coming, a magical event not seen in this world for a thousand years. Last time, the upheaval it caused gave rise to the Houses. This time, who knows what will occur? But the world is changing. The leaders of the Houses know this. I believe Penny does as well. All of them are searching for any strategy, any resource to give them an advantage amid what is to come. And that includes you two.”
His mouth tightens. “There is hope, however. It is my opinion that Penny wanted you dead—both of you—because you are a threat to her and because you have a role to play in the coming days which she would prefer you not undertake. Now, you could face that on your own if that is your choice. You could run, hide, whatever you deem the best course. We will not stop you. But the convergence is coming and the shift it will cause in this world has the potential for incredible harm. In light of that, I believe that the Guardians would benefit from your assistance to prevent Penny or the Houses from further destroying our world—and that you would benefit from our assistance to keep you both alive.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Amar glance to me and my heart jumps, reading the reluctance I glimpse on his face. He doesn’t want me involved. He’s the one who nearly died, and he’s concerned about keeping me out of the line of fire. “I did this,” I say, not quite looking at him. “I set Penny loose.”
Amar shakes his head. “You couldn’t have known she—”
My eyes find him this time and he falls silent. “I knew something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but—” My heart pounds. I’m aware of what I’m admitting. Katsuro and everyone else is right. I really am like my mother. I have her powers too. “She terrified me. You both saw it. I knew.”
I look up at Katsuro. “I’m in. What do we need to do?”
Katsuro pauses, glancing to Amar. “In that case may I assume—”
“Yeah,” Amar interrupts. “I’m in too.”
Katsuro nods. “Then the first thing we do is simple, and potentially very difficult. In order to stop this revenge Penny has promised, and to keep her from hurting anyone else as well, we have to find her.” He grimaces briefly. “Wherever she is.”
In the small hours of the night, Kyle’s greatest source of comfort was the thought of all the people he’d eventually get to kill.
Ordinarily, anyway.
An angry sigh escapes him and he glares up at the embossed tiles of the ceiling. He’d had Cait. Had that tall, dark, and handsome prick Amar too. The whole thing had been falling into place like a child’s puzzle and then…
Who the fuck had those demons been?
He punches the pillow under his head, trying in vain to make the feathers arrange themselves comfortably. His agents never mentioned Cait had help. Nothing like that, anyway. The Chastain family, sure. A few mercenary wolves as well.
But that…
He shifts on the silk sheets. This has practically put him back at square one. Worse, even. For all he knows, that Legacy bitch will tell that Legacy bastard about the coup, and next thing he knows, Lucretia’s goons will be pounding down his door.
Awesome.
The door latch clicks in the quiet. He freezes for a heartbeat, his incredulity warring with his alarm, and then he’s moving, out of the bed, across the room for the nearest line of shadow to get him the hell out of here.
“Uh-uh,” chides a girlish voice.
He stops. Lights flare to life all around his enormous bedroom and suddenly he finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
A gun being wielded by a redheaded teenage girl.
His confusion grows.
She grins. “Hey there.”
His gaze darts around the room. No one else has appeared. Nothing has changed. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”
The girl chuckles. “Oh, you can do better than that, Kyle.”
He freezes. “How do you know my name?”
“I saw it,” she replies like it’s blatantly obvious. “I see so many things. Like you, helping me.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because I ask you to, silly.”
The words are nonsense. His brow draws down warily. “Who are you?”
“I’m Penny.” Her grin broadens. “How’d you like to rule the world?”
#####
Afterword
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Other titles by Skye Malone
The Demon Guardians Series
The Awakened Fate Series
The Kindling Trilogy
About the author
Skye Malone is a fantasy and paranormal romance author, which means she spends most of her time not entirely convinced that the magical things she imagines don’t actually exist.
A Midwesterner who migrated to the Pacific Northwest, she dreams of traveling the world—though in the meantime she’ll take any story that whisks her off to a place where the fantastic lives inside the everyday. She loves strong and passionate characters, complex villains, and satisfying endings that stay with you long after the book is done. An inveterate writer, she can’t go a day without getting her hands on a keyboard, and can usually be found typing away while she listens to all the adventures unfolding in her head.
Connect with Skye Malone
Website: www.skyemalone.com
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