Thrall

by Jennifer Blackstream

  Peasblossom darted in again, and I caught a flicker of light off the silver needle-sword she held in her grasp. Asher didn’t bat her away. He let her come, and I had the unpleasant thought he probably enjoyed the penetration of the rapier-like point through his flesh. But it was only an assumption. Because Asher didn’t look happy.

  He looked furious.

  I swept a hand up, a spell ready on my lips. But however brief, Asher’s strangulation had roughened my throat, and my words rasped out in an unintelligible mess. Asher closed the distance between us, grabbing my throat and slamming me back into the building.

  “You said you would call me.” His tongue flicked out of his mouth, not close enough to touch me, but more as if it had a life of its own and it was angry too. “You went inside after the werewolf mercenaries. You did not call me. You—”

  Asher’s sentence ended on a sound somewhere between a grunt and a gasp. I rolled away, using the wall to push off, putting as much distance as I could between me and the goblin. I whirled to find Scath, in feline form, on top of Asher. The goblin lay on the ground, and Scath had her giant black paws pressed into his shoulders, claws digging into his flesh to hold him pinned. Blood seeped from the wounds, and Asher writhed. Not entirely in pain.

  This was a perfect opportunity. It was always best to bargain with a goblin when he was in a good mood.

  “You.” I let the word burn my throat on the way out, filling it with loathing. I stalked over to Asher and stood over him. “You would dare to attack me? You would ask something of me?”

  Asher rolled his shoulders, a movement that had to hurt with Scath’s claws buried in his body as they were. “Something has changed.”

  “Oh, something has indeed changed.” I pointed back at the casino and gritted my teeth. “Do you know who was in there? Who I saw?”

  Asher shook his head. Another shoulder roll.

  “It was the very telekinetic who nearly killed my familiar. Who held her in a ball of energy and crushed her wings. She’s only just starting to fly again. She’s barely back in the air for a day, and you would stand there and make demands of me, knowing you failed me?”

  I was exaggerating, but he didn’t need to know that. “If you and your brothers were as deserving of my attention as you insist you are, then I would not have come face to face with that vile woman again.”

  Asher looked at me as if double-checking I was who he’d thought. His red eyes twitched as he took in my expression, slid his gaze down my form, reading my body language. “You would have had us kill them all?”

  Warning bells went off in my head. It was on the tip of my tongue to say yes. I had to swallow it back. I had wanted them dead. No. Not all of them. Just her. Just the one who’d left my pixie lying broken in my palm.

  “You will make it up to me,” I said softly.

  “And how will I do that?” Asher lowered his voice too, making our conversation feel more intimate than it should have been.

  “Stavros is dead and the Sanctum is working for Detective Stafford. Why?”

  Asher frowned. “What?”

  I held a hand over his body. Blue energy crackled around my fist, then became searingly bright. Like thin bands of lightning. “Don’t try me. You run this place now, and the Sanctum were here. Here in Stavros’ old office. You can’t tell me you don’t know anything about it.”

  “After Stavros died, his minions wandered,” Asher said slowly. “They remained here for a time, but left when things got more…fun.” He shook his head. “But they wouldn’t work for Stafford. No one here would work for him. He has neither the power to force them, nor the wits to manipulate them. He’s a joke.”

  “What about Nikolaos Sideris?”

  “Who is he?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “If I think you’re holding back, I’ll tell Scath to take her claws out for the rest of the interrogation. She can hold you down with nice, soft paws. Nikolaos Sideris was Stavros’ business partner.”

  Asher made a sound in his throat, somewhere between a whine and a growl. “I don’t know him. Not everyone is welcoming of goblins. Stavros limited our participation here when he was alive. He certainly never discussed the ins and outs of his business with me.” He paused then.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Where is this business partner?” Asher asked.

  “And why would I tell you that?”

  “Is he here? In this country?”

  “He is,” I said slowly.

  “But he wasn’t,” Asher clarified. “Not when Stavros was here. Or else, there was a delay in his notification of the wizard’s death?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  Asher flexed upward, but I couldn’t tell if he was actually trying to sit up, or if he just wanted to force Scath’s claws deeper. I suppressed a shudder.

  “This was Stavros’ business, but after he died, there was no one to stop us from taking over. If he had a business partner, either he didn’t know about our involvement, or he didn’t care.”

  “You sound like you know which.”

  “I’ve heard rumors that another fight club is opening nearby. Bigger than this one. Very high society.”

  I snorted and Asher arched an eyebrow. “That amuses you? That high society would soil itself with the likes of a dirty fight club?”

  “Oh, no,” I said, barking out a laugh. “I absolutely believe high society would enjoy watching those they consider beneath them beat one another bloody.”

  Asher grinned, revealing sharp teeth. “I hear this club isn’t just beating your opponent bloody. They fight to the death. Every. Time.”

  Chapter 16

  “What’s going on?”

  I turned at the sound of Liam’s voice, letting the spell in my hand dissipate. The alpha’s long strides ate up the ground between us, and with every step he seemed to focus more and more intently on the goblin lying pinned on the ground.

  I stared at Liam without really seeing him, Asher’s words echoing in my mind.

  “To the death. Every. Time.”

  “Shade, what’s wrong?”

  “To the death,” I said out loud.

  Liam’s blue eyes narrowed. “What?”

  I pointed down at Asher. “The new fight club. He said it’s to the death.”

  “Stop saying ‘to the death.’” Peasblossom had apparently finished her fortifying honey packet and popped out of my waist pouch while I was distracted. She flitted up and grabbed a lock of my hair and wrapped it around her like a black cocoon. “You’re giving me the creeps.”

  Liam gestured behind us to the parking garage. “They fight to the death there too.”

  “Not always,” Asher grunted, his voice strained. “Goblins want pain, not death.”

  Scath pulled her claws free from Asher’s flesh, drawing a groan of protest from the goblin. Blood welled in the wounds, peeking through the tears in his T-shirt. Blobs of blood pushed out in fat red droplets as Asher stood up, facing Liam with the hopeful look of a masochist who sensed a big man with a short fuse.

  “I was asking Asher about the sideshow.” My thoughts raced ahead of my words, making my speech sound halted and clumsy. “He said he’d never heard Stavros had a business partner, and he doesn’t know anything about Nikolaos Sideris. After Stavros died, there was no one to supervise the club under the parking garage. So if Nikolaos was in town, either he didn’t get here in time…”

  “Or he decided to start fresh and just let this one—”

  “Go to the goblins,” Peasblossom supplied.

  “Right.” Liam rolled his shirtsleeves a little higher, baring more of his arms so I could see the muscle sliding beneath suntanned skin when he flexed his fingers into fists. “You’re saying he started a new club. Where?”

  Asher’s crimson eyes flicked in my direction, glancing down briefly at my neck. I steeled my will not to squirm at the thought of the mark he’d see there. The one his tongue had left behind. Ew.

  “Like I said, they don’
t allow goblins. I don’t have an address.” He paused. “But you could ask Katie.”

  “Katie’s involved?” Liam asked.

  Asher nodded, idly digging a finger into one of the wounds in his shoulder. “She’s real secretive about it. But Rafe is a werewolf, so, you know, huge gossip.”

  I pressed my lips together, trying desperately not to look at Liam lest the hysterical giggle escape. Peasblossom felt no such restriction and openly guffawed from under my hair.

  Asher shrugged. “I know someone I could ask. I don’t have any interest in a fight to the death, but anyone with the confidence to get into a fight like that is someone we keep an eye on. I could help you find it.”

  “I’ll go with you.” Liam nodded toward his vehicle. “I’ll drive.”

  “I thought you were going with Arianne?” I pointed out. “To question Toby and Kurt?”

  Liam started to say something, then shut his mouth. Together we looked back toward the broken front doors of the casino where the sorceress stood waiting for the New Moon transport van to arrive. She looked at us, but made no move to communicate, or come out of the building. I had the uncharitable thought that the background somehow fit her. The dream sorceress standing in a building straight out of a nightmare.

  “We’ll go afterward,” Liam suggested. “After the interrogation.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t like the look on Stafford’s face when he disappeared. If Asher’s right about his reputation here, then I don’t think the Sanctum would be following his orders willingly. If Moghadam is right, and Stafford was trying to blackmail Nikolaos…”

  “You think Stafford forced Nikolaos to order the Sanctum to obey him?”

  “I think it’s a possibility. And if it’s true, then the closer we get to Nikolaos and his secrets, the less he’s going to care about whatever Stafford may have to say. He could be in trouble.”

  “Serves him right for getting in over his head,” Peasblossom said.

  Liam pulled his cell phone out and dialed what I assumed was Stafford’s cell phone number. After holding the phone to his ear for less than ten seconds, he shook his head and ended the call. “Stafford’s phone is off.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “And I’ll find him.”

  “He said Katie knows about it,” Liam pointed out, jabbing a finger at Asher. “Let’s ask her first.”

  “You think she’s still in there?” I asked doubtfully. “After what Arianne did? If she’s smart, she’s going to make herself scarce until we’re gone.”

  Liam didn’t want to admit I was right. So we went back into the club and looked around. Katie and Rafe were gone, and if anyone knew where they were, they weren’t saying.

  By the time we got back outside, Blake and Sonar were there with transportation for the werewolves. Blake crossed his arms when he saw me. Despite the dark brown beard that covered the lower half of his face, there was something about his expression that reminded me of Mrs. Diver’s face when she saw one of the children she considered a “bad influence” headed into her yard to ask if her son Peter could play. Unlike Mrs. Diver, it wasn’t Blake’s place to second-guess who his alpha associated with. But he didn’t go out of his way to hide it either. Sonar, his partner, was in wolf form, wearing her German Shepherd glamour that let her pass as an ordinary police dog. She didn’t look at me at all.

  Liam paced back and forth, stopping only to glare at Asher, or stare at Arianne as if trying to convince himself he could trust her to interrogate the mercenaries on her own. The sorceress stood there, silent and serene. Waiting.

  “I’ll have Scath and Peasblossom with me,” I said gently.

  “What about the Sanctum shifter that ran out?” Liam asked suddenly. He looked at Scath. “Did you see him?”

  Scath let out a soft chuffing sigh that told me her answer wasn’t simple enough to give with a nod or shake of her head in feline form. I braced myself as she began the shift back to human.

  The process wasn’t nearly as smooth as her shift to feline form, or Liam’s shift in either direction. It looked painful, all breaking bones and undulating skin. Violent enough that if I watched her do it, I could swear I felt it too. One day I would get the nerve to ask her why her shift to cat form was so fluid, so magical, but her shift to human form looked monstrous and agonizing. I looked away to give her some semblance of privacy.

  Asher openly stared.

  “I had him,” she rasped as soon as she had the ability to speak. “But I let him go when I saw him strangling Shade,” she said, gesturing at Asher.

  Liam’s gaze locked onto the goblin and he took a step forward, seemingly before thinking about it. Asher, in true goblin fashion, also took a step closer to Liam.

  “You tried to strangle her?” Liam asked, his voice deeper than before.

  Asher tilted his head. “I was angry. I’m better now.”

  “Helping or hurting?” I demanded. I turned to Liam. “Look, the bottom line is we have two things that need doing. Someone needs to sit in on Arianne’s interrogation. You’re right, there needs to be a witness who’s not married to a suspect. But we also need to find Stafford. We need to know what he was blackmailing Nikolaos over. Nikolaos could be the Emperor, and Stafford could have proof. Either way, he obviously knows more than he told us. Either he’s a stupid witness, or he’s smarter than anyone gives him credit for, and he may be higher up the food chain.”

  “Not likely,” Asher muttered. “If I tripped and killed him by accident, I still wouldn’t eat him.”

  We all turned to look at the goblin then.

  “Eat him?” Blake asked.

  “You are what you eat,” Asher said with a straight face.

  I let that one go. Mostly because if I pursued that conversation, it would be that much harder for Liam to admit it was best to split up.

  “Fine.” Liam looked at Asher. “If anything happens to her, I’ll make your death quick and painless.”

  Asher blinked, looking genuinely taken aback. “That was uncalled for.”

  I unzipped my waist pouch and got a clean set of clothes for Scath from Bizbee, and we waited for her to dress before heading off.

  We had to take a cab, because Asher didn’t have a vehicle, and I couldn’t drive Liam’s official vehicle without risking trouble if someone saw me. I’d pointed out that I was more than capable of disguising myself to look like a cop, but that suggestion made Liam look like he’d swallowed a worm, so I let it go.

  The cab ride to our destination didn’t take long, and when we arrived, I spent a solid minute staring out the window.

  I try very hard not to judge. I know better than that. But we all slip every once in a while, and for me, today was that day.

  Asher did not lead me to a dark tunnel under a bridge. He didn’t lead me to a warehouse with broken windows, or a house whose yard doubles as a garbage dump. In point of fact, the building he directed the cabbie to was not only above reproach aesthetically, it was also a house of morals. Or to put it another way…

  The state prosecutor’s office.

  Asher led me into the parking garage. For a split second, the smell of concrete, leaking oil, and lingering exhaust fumes triggered a sensory memory, and I felt myself falling. I had a moment of disorientation as my brain tried to convince me I was plummeting back into one of the dreadful arenas at Fortuna’s Stables.

  Asher snaked an arm around my waist to steady me, and every muscle in my body tensed at once. His hand spread over my ribs, his fingers higher than was gentlemanly. Magic pulsed in reaction to my sudden outrage, and I half expected the next breath I took to glitter in the air between us.

  “Let go,” I said softly.

  Asher leaned closer. “You looked like you were going to fall.”

  “And now I’m all steady. Let go.”

  Asher sighed, but dropped his arm. “If you were a lady, you’d have slapped me.”

  “But I’m a witch, and I knew you’d enjoy it.”

  That
made him grin, and I regretted the banter immediately as I got a glimpse of too-sharp teeth. Goblin teeth weren’t sharp like a vampire’s, or even a werewolf’s when they were between forms. They were sharp and jagged, uneven as if they were broken.

  And more often than not, they were.

  “I know he did not just try to put the moves on my witch.” Peasblossom’s voice was faint, as if she was truly shocked at Asher’s audacity.

  Scath didn’t say anything, but she did glance between me and Asher, as if entertaining thoughts she didn’t want to share. I scowled at her on principle, then shuddered. I did not want Asher to flirt with me. Not when pain was such a huge part of pleasure for a goblin. Scath shrugged and reached down to pet Majesty.

  The kitten had been unbelievably well-behaved. So much so, I’d forgotten about him more often than not.

  I made a mental note to be more paranoid.

  Asher fished a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a number I assumed went to one of the offices in the building.

  “It’s Asher. I’m in the usual spot, do you have a minute?” He listened, then nodded. “See you soon.”

  “Who was that, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Ms. Barton. She’s a prosecutor I’ve worked with.”

  “Worked with?”

  Asher scratched at a healing cut above one eye, scraping away the scab until fresh blood welled to take its place. “Does that surprise you?”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it. “It does. I’m sorry. I guess I… Well, I didn’t know what you did. Professionally, I mean.”

  “You never asked.”

  “What do you do?” Scath asked.

  She sounded a little annoyed, and I wasn’t sure if it was at Asher because he wasn’t offering the details, or me for not asking. From what little I knew about her, I guessed the latter.

  “According to Ms. Barton, not only do lawyers occasionally work with dangerous clients, but they themselves are very competitive. Not every man here is pleased to be shown up by female coworkers. Her friend runs a self-defense studio. Ms. Barton arranged for me and some of my brothers to work there as sparring partners.”