by Jane Kindred
Carter laughed softly into the phone. “You’re quite out of your league, you know. This isn’t the kiddie pool you’ve waded into. There are sharks in these waters, my dear.”
“I didn’t come here to play who can throw more shade.”
“Why did you come here, sweetie? Just missed me?”
“I want to know what business you have with Laurel Carpenter.”
Carter touched his finger to the end of his nose. “Ah. Direct hit. I see I’ve struck a nerve. Am I not allowed to have whatever visitors I choose?”
“I don’t care who visits you, Carter. I just care why. Why Laurel Carpenter? How did you get in contact with her?”
“Laurel is a sweet girl with a tender heart. She visits me because she’s kind and she hates to see any sort of injustice done.”
Ione knew she was letting him manipulate the conversation, but she couldn’t ignore it. “What injustice have you suffered? You murdered four people in cold blood. That we know of.”
“Did I? Or did you and your sisters conspire with Rafael Diamante to frame me—using necromancy against me to force my confession? Which makes more sense—that a respected attorney such as myself would randomly kill four people I had no connection with for no apparent gain? Or that a spoiled rich boy who paid for magically enhanced sex lost control and strangled a hooker, tried to cover it up by offing his own apprentice, and then killed another hooker he’d knocked up? After he’d gone that far, it’s not much of a leap to imagine he’d had enough of his politician father and poisoned the old man to get his inheritance sooner.”
“That’s a lovely story. Too bad it’s a complete fabrication and you’ve already confessed and pleaded guilty to all four crimes in a court of law.”
“That’s your story.”
“And it was your story, too, and everyone’s already heard it. Stop playing games and tell me what you want with Laurel.”
Carter sighed and looked as if he might hang up the phone but seemed to think better of it. “Do you know she has Phoebe’s eyes? I hadn’t noticed it before but now that I look at them, lovely Laurel has that same periwinkle blue that turns almost violet when she’s passionate about something. Deeper skin tone, which makes it much more striking, but really the resemblance is rather uncanny.” Carter smiled at Ione’s scowl. “You know, don’t you? You’ve worked it out that Laurel is your sister. That your father sowed his seeds in more than one fertile field to make sure he was able to pass on what he carried.”
“You’re suggesting Laurel inherited the recessive trait.”
“I’m not suggesting it, I’m stating it. All three of your father’s illegitimate children possess it.” There was no way to know if anything Carter said was true. Ione filed the information away for later.
“And you think you can get your hands on Laurel’s blood and use it to regain your power.”
Carter laughed. “I don’t need your silly little strain of demon blood to regain my power.”
Ione’s breath caught in her throat as Carter’s hand turned in a gesture similar to the one she’d threatened him with. He didn’t have any natural power. It was one of the reasons he’d been so covetous of Rafe’s. Once they’d bound him from Covent spell-casting, they’d rendered him harmless. Or ought to have. He couldn’t possibly have the power to cast a hex with will and thought the way Ione might. Her amulet would protect her if he tried, but it was bad news if he was able to do it at all.
Carter paused and narrowed his eyes at her before lowering his hand and sitting back to observe her with calculating interest. “Laurel is helping me in a much more practical way. In fact, she’s already helped me immensely.”
Ione hated that she’d walked into his trap, allowing him to lead the conversation, but she had to know. “How has she helped? What do you mean?”
“You’ve seen how she’s helped. Have you been enjoying my little presents?”
She wasn’t going to let him get a rise out of her. “Exactly what is this vendetta against me about, anyway? All I did was believe your lies. It was Rafe you couldn’t win against. I’ve done nothing to you.”
Carter’s blue eyes darkened through the glass. “Ah, but that’s not quite true, is it, sweetheart? You’ve been meddling in my affairs. Throwing glamours all over town. It wasn’t enough for you to let them slander me and put me behind bars. You’re trying to ruin more innocent men because of their connections to me.”
“Innocent men? They’re running a prostitution ring right under the noses of the Sedona Police Department!”
“Nothing wrong with a little free enterprise.”
Ione’s fist curled around the phone. “Well, I’m going to make sure they aren’t operating their little enterprise with anyone who can’t consent. I’m coming after the source of your power. However you’re doing it, I’m going to stop you.”
“Do you sincerely believe you’re any kind of a match for me?” The corner of Carter’s mouth lifted in a sneer. “You may be good in the magical makeup department, but when it comes to real, potent magic, your silly little glamours aren’t going to cut it.”
“What power do you have?” The words were scoffing, but she was starting to think he wasn’t bluffing.
Carter smiled and leaned closer to the glass. “How was your sleep last night? Or should I say, how was Phoebe’s sleep? And those clever twins... I imagine they didn’t get much of it.”
Ione pounded her fist on the counter, earning a frown from the guard. “How, dammit? How are you doing it?”
“How did I do it before? With the power granted me by the guardians of Mictlan. With the bones of the dead.”
“No.” Ione gripped the receiver. “You couldn’t possibly—”
But Carter had hung up the phone. He gave her a sweeping bow and blew her a kiss before turning to be escorted back to his cell.
What the hell had she accomplished? Nothing at all. Carter had gotten the best of her. He’d controlled every moment of that conversation, giving her only the information he wanted her to have, making sure she left there more agitated and worried than when she’d arrived.
Ione waited impatiently to be buzzed back out to collect her things. She’d promised to call Phoebe as soon as she’d finished to let her know she was okay, and she’d had to leave the cell phone in a locker. Funny how the device she’d scorned now felt like a necessity.
As soon as she had the phone in her hand, her notifications flashed, showing more text messages from Dev. God, did the man never give up? She ignored his messages and texted Phoebe as she walked out the door—and collided with a man coming in.
Ione opened her mouth to apologize and stared up into the face of Dev Gideon.
Chapter 16
Ione’s borrowed features were flushed as she gaped up at him. “Oh...aren’t you...? You’re the Covent...what was it? Assayer?”
The fact that she seemed intent on maintaining her charade made him irritable. “Before you embarrass yourself, let me just state that I’m perfectly aware that it’s you, Ione. Your leather alone would have given it away. Besides, Phoebe told me you were here.”
Ione’s blush turned a shade pinker. “Of course she did. What are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same.”
“I thought Phoebe told you.”
“Yes, I know what you told Phoebe, that you intended to find out what Lorelei Carlisle’s—or rather, Laurel Carpenter’s—connection is with Carter Hamilton.”
“And?”
“And...” Dev paused. If he told her he knew she’d threatened Carter with magic, he’d have to explain how. And explaining that he’d used Kur’s magic to conceal himself from detection and eavesdrop on her conversation just now—magical practice definitely not sanctioned by the Covent—would deprive him of the moral high ground. Not that he really had
it in the first place, but neither was he ready to relinquish the illusion that he did.
Ione was eyeing him shrewdly through those blue-gray eyes.
“And I couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t more to it than that.”
“What more would there be to it? What are you insinuating?”
“I’m not insinuating anything, but it is part of my mandate to determine your involvement in Carter Hamilton’s oath-breaking.” He regretted the words as soon as he’d uttered them. He’d have done better to simply say he was jealous. Lord, was he jealous?
There was no mistaking the expression on Phoebe’s features. The outrage was purely Ione’s.
Shoving her phone inside her jacket and zipping it with a jerk, she brushed past him without a word. The helmet was already on her head when he caught up to her. She ignored him and got on the bike.
Dev watched her go with a sigh. It was just as well. He had no idea what he was going to say to make up for shoving that large of a foot into his mouth.
He contemplated using Kur’s magic once more to slip inside and beat the information out of Carter Hamilton, but that would get him nowhere. He’d be playing right into the neutered necromancer’s hands. He also had the nagging suspicion that the necromancer might not be as impotent as the Covent believed. Hamilton’s boasts about having his power restored notwithstanding, there had been a moment as Dev had paced behind Ione while she sat before the glass barrier when Hamilton had seemed to look right at him. If he’d been able to detect the magic Dev was expending to keep himself hidden, he clearly had some kind of magic of his own.
Heading out of the prison complex in his rental, Dev caught up with the black-and-red Nighthawk after just a few blocks. He stayed a few car lengths behind Ione all the way back to Sedona, worried she’d be distracted by her anger—at both him and Hamilton—but she drove with careful precision.
He wasn’t sure if she’d caught on that he was following until they’d turned onto Highway 179 from the interstate just before dark. The traffic was light and Dev’s rental car was a dead giveaway in the burnished glow of the vanishing sun against the magnificent rocks.
Ione pulled onto the shoulder and got off the bike. When Dev followed suit, she yanked off her helmet, shaking off the glamour as she shook out her hair—no longer Phoebe’s dark brown but the ombré russet fading to chestnut that mimicked the setting sun.
Dev turned off his engine and stepped out of his car. “Ione—”
“Don’t you talk,” she ordered as she stalked toward him. “You’ve forfeited your right to make excuses or give me any more of your lame apologies. I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen.”
She stopped in front of him, legs apart and boots planted firmly in the dirt, and glared up at him in a way that made him sure she was actually expecting him to say something, after all, though he had no idea what. Her cheeks were bitten by the wind and there was fire in the green of her eyes. He wanted to kiss her. He was equally certain she’d deck him if he tried.
“Okay,” he offered finally. It seemed to be what she’d been waiting for.
“You don’t get to come marching in here—into my town—from your fancy London Coventry to judge my actions. I don’t care why the Covent sent you and I don’t care what the Covent thinks of me. The Global Conclave can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. I did what I had to do to keep my family safe and I’d do it again. I will use whatever magic I have at my disposal to keep Carter Hamilton and his cronies from enslaving and trafficking any more shades and to keep him from harming my sisters or my coven.”
She stepped closer and Dev had to resist taking a step back. “So you listen to me carefully, Mr. Gideon. I had nothing to do with what Carter did. I abhor everything about what he did and I am mad as hell that he did it in my temple. And if you can’t see that, if you can’t understand that, or if you so much as stumble into my path as I defend myself and mine from his attacks, you can expect me to treat you with the same contempt as I would him. So if that’s what you intend, why don’t you go write up your little report, tell the damn Conclave that I want nothing more to do with their rules, and get the hell out of my town.”
Dev waited, following the furious rise and fall of her breath. “Are you...should I speak now?”
Ione flicked her dark brows upward as if daring him to try.
He cleared his throat. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve made a complete cock-up of everything since the moment I arrived. I keep trying to do the right thing, to follow the rulebook and stick to the straight and narrow, as it were, because this job is very important to me. It’s my first assignment as an assayer, and I came here fully expecting to be exposed as a fraud who had no business taking on such an important role—and exposed for what I carry inside me. So I’ve tried to set aside my personal feelings for you, to do my job and to be rational. And in the process, I’ve treated you shabbily, and I’m sorry.”
Ione’s green eyes blinked at him with confusion, as though he’d been speaking in a foreign language. “I... What?”
“Sorry, was that another lame apology? I promise to keep trying until I get one right.”
“Are you mocking me?”
“Absolutely not. I had plenty of time to think on the drive back and I realized that continuing to treat you as some kind of a suspect was grossly unfair. You’ve proved to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that you couldn’t possibly have been Carter Hamilton’s accomplice. Even if everything you’d done and everything you’d said since my investigation began hadn’t already assured me, the way you handled Hamilton today has made it perfectly obvious.”
Ione stared at him for a moment, the fire of indignation rekindling in her eyes, and Dev couldn’t figure out what he’d said. “How do you know how I handled Hamilton today?”
Dev blinked and this time he did take a step back, carefully, out of range of a possible swing of her fist. “I...oh, bollocks.”
“Were you spying on me?” Ione followed his step, keeping the barest of space between them. “Did you actually use unauthorized magic to eavesdrop on my private conversation?” He couldn’t help fixating on her nails as they dug into the strap of her helmet. “You’re absolutely unbelievable. Did you really think you’d catch me conspiring with my necromancer lover to spring him out of prison so we could go on a murderous magical spree?”
“No, no.” Dev held up his palms in a gesture of surrender. “That came out all wrong.”
“So you didn’t use magic to sneak into the prison with me and listen to every word I said to Carter Hamilton, without my knowledge, to see if I was secretly in collusion with him.”
“Well, I—”
“You complete wanker. I can’t believe I actually thought you were a decent person for a moment, that I actually entertained yet another fake apology from you.” She shoved the helmet back on as she turned to stalk to the bike.
“Ione, wait.”
“Drop dead.” The visor snapped down over her words.
Thick dust bloomed up around him as her wheels spun in the dirt while she whipped the bike around. Dev had to jump out of the way, rubbing dust out of his eyes, as she barely missed him on her way back onto the highway. He felt Kur moving restlessly inside him, pacing and growling in rebuke of his stupidity. The demon didn’t care for having been the tool Dev had used to pull the stunt that had angered Ione.
Dev considered slinking off like a coward, but he could tell Kur was having none of it. With a sigh, he got back in the car and drove to Ione’s place. She’d already driven the bike inside the garage and parked it before he pulled into the drive, but she came outside at the sound of his car and stood in front of her door, arms folded like one of the bouncers at that pub she liked.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Ione’s tone was sharp and biting as Dev got out of his car.
�
�Preparing to present the next lame apology, it would seem.”
“Well, I don’t want it. So get back in your car and go away.”
Dev folded his arms, echoing her stance. “Wouldn’t you rather just get good and mad at me and let it all out? Take a swing at me or something? Wouldn’t that be more satisfying than sitting in your house by yourself stewing about what an arse I am?”
Ione’s body language and expression didn’t change. “Do you think this is endearing in some way? Do you think you’re being cute?”
“Not in the least. I was prepared to take my lumps and go home, as you suggested, but Kur, it seems, would have it otherwise.”
A tiny ripple of reaction flickered across her face. “Kur would. You’re trying to tell me that you’re standing in front of my house behaving like a sad little stalker because your demon made you do it?”
“Well, in a word, yes.” Dev unfolded his arms with a sigh and put his hands in his suit pockets. “Kur has a way of making me miserable until he gets what he wants—indigestion, gas—I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, I give the demon what he wants when it’s at all convenient, and particularly when it coincides with my own needs and aims. And it seems he’s taken a liking to you.”
“A liking.”
“Yes. I’ve never known him to be partial to anyone else but he’s left me with little doubt that he’s grown quite fond of you.” Dev allowed himself a brief smile. “As have I, as a matter of fact. And, as it happens, it was Kur’s innate magic I exploited in order to effect my stupid stunt at the prison, and he’s rather displeased that I’ve dragged him into the doghouse with me. So to speak. If I’m on the outs with you, so is he, and he doesn’t care for it.”
Ione was tapping her foot with irritation, but at least she wasn’t glaring her own brand of dragonfire at him for the moment. “So you’re appealing to my fondness for the dragon. That’s how you expect to somehow get back into my good graces, by trying to make me feel guilty for upsetting Kur even though you’re the one who did it?”