Bundles and bundles of auras lay within the bag. It had to be thousands, more money than we'd ever had at our disposal.
While my head whirled around the butt-ton of cash, Dante fished a thick envelope out from the centre of it and handed it over.
My name was written on the front if it in Gareth's unmistakeable handwriting, bringing a lump to my throat as I traced the letters with my index finger.
I teased the seal open, disarming another spell before pulling out a wedge of papers.
The first page was what seemed to be a note, but none of the letters made any kind of sense together. It was gibberish, nonsense, or maybe something designed to be deciphered, though I couldn't see any simple way to do so yet.
I frowned at it, handing it over to Dante and gasping as I found myself looking at a passport. My passport. Except the girl in the picture had long blonde hair and innocence in her eyes and the name and date of birth beside her face wasn't mine.
"What the fuck..." I murmured, staring at the fake document before Dante took it and I found myself looking at another passport with my old photo and another name that wasn’t mine. There were four in all. Four separate identities which didn't match up to me. The next passport held a new identity for our mom and I quickly checked the others to find more of them for her too. Beneath them were birth certificates and then there were train and plane tickets with open dates and destination on them. All paid up with nowhere to go.
"Looks like Gareth was planning on you disappearing, carina," Dante said thoughtfully.
"We'd always planned to leave this place once we graduated but I don't understand why he got the fake IDs," I muttered.
My gaze fell back on the book and my frown only deepened. I'd never seen that before, but I could tell without opening it that it wasn’t something to be messed with. The feeling coming off of it alone was enough to tell me that it was a dark and dangerous thing.
"Let's get all of this out of here," Dante said. "The only people I know who can make fake IDs that good are the Kiplings. Maybe we can get some answers from them and at least if we're back at the academy, we can focus on figuring this out without having to worry that someone, might interrupt us."
I nodded at his suggestion, glad to have the chance to breathe for a little while, let my mind get over the shock of this discovery and psyche myself up to figure it the fuck out.
Dante put everything back in the duffel bag, including the Magicae Mortuorum book and zipped it up tight before tossing it over his shoulder. He took a moment to place a concealment spell over it and once it was done, the bag looked like nothing more than a deep shadow behind him. Once we were down in the dim lights of the club, no one would stand a chance of spotting it.
I pulled open the door to head back downstairs, but Dante's Atlas rang in his pocket before I could even step through.
He pulled it out and cursed softly, glancing up at me apologetically. "I have to take this, bella. It's Mamma and with everything that's going on with Felix at the moment I need to be sure-"
"I'll meet you downstairs," I said, waving off his apology. "I should spend a bit of time catching up with Sal before we go anyway."
He nodded. “I’ll meet you back at the car then,” he agreed and quickly answered the call before I shot away downstairs to seek the old Siren out.
My heart was thundering and I felt like my grief was rising up to swallow me whole once more. Coming back here hurt. And maybe that was a good thing sometimes, but right now I felt like it was tearing me apart.
I forced my mind away from the mysteries of that bag and whatever the hell Gareth had meant by preparing it for me as I arrived outside Sal’s office. I took a deep breath as I tried to calm myself, slapped a smile on my face and I pushed open the door.
She was sitting behind her desk as usual and Petri, the head bouncer, was lounging in his own chair in the corner, staring at something on his Atlas, but he looked up when he saw me enter and smiled broadly. He was a huge guy, thick with muscle and bristly hair which me and Gareth had always joked made him look like he was in his Minotaur form at all times.
I didn't miss the slow trail his eyes took over my body and tried to hide my revulsion to it, but Sal's cackle told me her gifts had allowed her to catch a whiff of it all the same.
“Where’s your friend?” Sal asked.
“He had to go home,” I half lied. Dante would wait for me outside but he wouldn’t be seeing Sal again, so it made little difference. “Family emergency.”
"I see.” Sal exchanged a loaded glance with Petri, but I was too full of my own grief to try and decipher the meaning behind it. “How are you, girl?" Sal asked, pointing me to the chair opposite her which I sank into as she got up and came to sit beside me. "I can feel how much you miss him," she added kindly, seeing straight through my fake smile and cutting to my heart.
"Yeah," I agreed, seeing no point in denying it. "Being back here, I feel close to him. But far away, too."
"We miss you, child," she said softly. "I know that we aren't blood, but I like to think of this place and everyone who works here for me as our own kind of family. We're a collection of forgotten souls who have harboured pains that people like your mate or that friend of yours can't fully comprehend." Her hand landed on my knee and I sucked in a breath as the grief in me sharpened, twisting my heart in a vice and making me feel so unbearably alone for a moment that everything else was pushed from my mind. Fucking Sirens. "I loved Gareth. We all did. We share your grief, understand it. We want to see you thrive and blossom just like he always dreamed you would. Our family is so broken without you, girl. Don't you miss us too?"
I looked at her through waterlogged eyes and bobbed my head in agreement. I did miss it here. I missed the laughter of the girls backstage and the playful chuckles of the bouncers. I missed the music and the dancing and the feeling of belonging without ever being judged.
"Life is hard on people like us, Elise, but you know what makes it better?" she asked and I blinked away my tears so that I could see the kindness in her eyes and feel the truth of her words.
"What?" I murmured, needing that answer more than anything because when my grief consumed me like this, all I needed was a life rope and someone to drag me to shore.
"We stick together. We make each other feel better. And we use those gifts to make other people feel good too."
A hand brushed along my cheek and I turned my head to find Petri perched on the edge of Sal's desk before me, his grey eyes filled with their own darkness.
"Did Petri ever tell you about the way his momma was murdered when he was a boy?" Sal asked softly and I shook my head, my heart aching as I looked up at this man who I'd thought I'd known but who had such tragedy hidden beneath the surface just like me.
"I'm sorry," I breathed, wishing I could make him feel better as his fingertips brushed along my jaw and his gaze flicked to Sal for a moment before finding mine again.
He was in his forties and had always been around when I was growing up. I'd never really given him a close look before, but as I focused on him, I realised he really was attractive despite the gap in our ages. All of that rough, bristly hair which covered his face had hidden that from me and his powerful body was stacked with muscles I hadn't given nearly enough attention to before. His teeth were the most alluring shade of yellow and there was something exciting about the hair which sprouted from the cuffs and collar of his shirt.
I sighed as Sal began to rub slow circles along my back and Petri smiled at me.
"I've found ways to cope with my grief," he promised me. "Ways that make me feel good again."
"How?" I begged, desperation clawing at my soul more keenly than I'd felt since the day that I'd been told about Gareth's fate.
"Let the music guide you," Sal breathed.
I was about to tell her that I couldn't hear any music when I realised that I could. A slow, sultry beat that seemed to come from within my own heart had me closing my eyes as I tried to surrender to it, wond
ering if it really could help me at all.
I tipped my head back slowly, feeling a tingle in my skin that demanded my attention. I pushed my hands into my hair and began to sway to the rhythm of the music, slowly at first, giving in to the strange need in me to move.
"You really think this will work?" Petri asked in a low voice, but I didn't know what he was talking about and I found I didn't care either.
"That girl who sold herself to save her Elysian Mate went for over a million auras," Sal responded, though I fought to even concentrate on the words as I started to sway more, my hands sliding down my body and caressing my skin as heat began to build in my flesh, aching for an outlet. "She wasn't even a beauty. Elise could fetch twice that or more. Rich men always want the unobtainable. Those rings in her eyes just made her priceless."
"Your control will only hold so long as you can keep your Siren Song going though," Petri murmured. "And even then, do you really think she'll just spread her legs for someone who isn't her mate? The stars put them together, it seems like a pretty big risk to take. And what about her mate? He’ll come looking and-”
"We'll cover our tracks," Sal said dismissively. "I can get hold of a potion to wipe her memories of the whole thing. It can all be done before the weekend is up and we can dump her in a hospital for her mate to find. It’s the least I'm owed. I fed her and her brother for years with every intention of keeping the two of them working here once their time came. Now he's dead and she's mated. I’m not just leaving it at that. We'll get what we're owed."
I was swaying more, my hands sliding over my body as the rhythm of the music in my head pushed me to dance and writhe to it, but my flesh demanded more. I needed more.
"I'm still not convinced she won't snap out of it halfway through," Petri growled and I gasped as I felt his hands circle my wrists. "I say we have a test run. The last thing we need is someone paying for her only to have her start screaming during the main event. We need to know that she's fully pliable. Otherwise we'll have some rich asshole after our necks, demanding his money back."
My eyes fluttered open and I looked up at him as the music in my head grew louder and louder, demanding more, making me ache with want and need and suddenly, I wanted his hands on me.
"Fine," Sal huffed. "But make it quick. We need to get some photographs of her for the buyers before we knock her out and this magic is exhausting."
Petri laughed deeply as he slid his hands around my body, his hairy knuckles pushing at my waistband and making me shudder. "I told your brother I'd have you like this one way or another before he died. And I always keep my promises to the dead."
Disgust washed through me pure and potent and I stumbled back, shoving him with my gifted strength so that he slammed into the desk and I staggered away. I opened my mouth to scream as I realised what was happening to me, but the song in my head grew louder, more demanding and I fell still as I fought to remember why I’d wanted to run at all.
Petri cursed as he shoved himself upright and he grabbed my wrist again as I started to dance once more.
My heart was pounding to a violent tune but I couldn't figure out why and as he pushed me to my knees before him I could only stare up in confusion.
Sal's hands landed on my shoulders and her voice whispered in my ear as lust consumed me body and soul.
"Open those pretty lips like a good girl," she said. "Prove that you're your momma's daughter."
Petri stood before me and unbuckled his belt as the song in my head deafened me and I tried to fight off the aching desire to do what they wanted. I wanted it too, I wanted to please him and touch him and-
I dry heaved in my throat as he rolled his fly down, but I was immobilised by the song and lust and drowning in the desperate fog of my thoughts.
A door banged open somewhere and suddenly I was thrown back, rolling across the carpet on a gust of wind until I crashed into the wall.
The song in my skull fell silent, the lust dropping away and leaving horror choking me in its wake.
I scrambled to my knees and looked up to find Dante on top of Petri on the other side of the room. There was already so much blood that the two of them were covered in it as my Dragon swung his fists with every drop of his strength and a snarl of unbridled rage poured from him which made me shiver in fear.
I stood and looked around, finding Sal pinned to her desk, clawing at her throat and turning blue as Dante stole the oxygen from her lungs and slowly suffocated her while he beat the life out of Petri.
I shook my head to clear it of the last of Sal's magic, my mind spinning as I went over everything I’d just heard her say now that I had the mental capacity to understand it.
With a scream of rage, I launched myself at her, wrenching her off of the desk and slamming her against the wall with my gifts so that a crack split the plaster behind her.
My hand closed around her throat and I saw red as I began to squeeze. She struggled to fight me off, her Siren gifts clawing at my mental shields, but now that I didn't have my grief overwhelming me and offering her a way in, there was no fucking way she’d breech them.
"Why?" I screamed at her, fury melding with this aching sense of betrayal that cut me so fucking deep I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop bleeding from it. "You said we were family. Family love each other. Why would you fucking do that to me?"
I was too far gone to even care that there was no possible way she could answer me. No way that she could say anything at all with my hand so tight around her throat and Dante still cutting off her oxygen anyway.
I was shaking, trembling, losing the fucking plot and unsure if I’d ever get a grasp on it again.
Dante's hand landed on my shoulder and he tugged me back gently, murmuring in Faetalian words which I couldn't understand but which soothed my soul.
Somehow, I managed to release her and she fell to the floor at my feet, unconscious or dead, I didn't fucking know or care.
Dante dropped to his knees and pressed a hand to her neck, checking her pulse before healing her just enough to stop her from dying without bringing her around again.
I wanted to ask him why he wasn't just going to let her die but as he turned to look at me, the blind rage in his eyes held me silent. He was covered in Petri's blood, his white shirt stained red and the way he looked at me let me know he'd killed him without me even checking.
Dante took his Atlas from his pocket and sent a message before picking me up, hoisting me into his arms and dropping into Sal's office chair with me curled in his lap.
I nestled against him, my heart hurting in so many ways that I didn't even know how to voice them as I tried to process what had just happened.
Dante held me so tight that I couldn't break because there was no possible way I could fall apart. He pressed his face to my hair, his lips against my ear as he began murmuring to me in Faetalian. I didn’t know what he was saying but it felt like he was speaking directly into my heart.
I wasn't sure how long we sat there but the door suddenly pushed open and I flinched as four men and a woman walked in.
They bowed their heads to Dante and he stood, placing me down in the chair alone and leaving me to curl into the warm spot he'd left behind.
"I want to know everything she knows about Gareth Tempa, Elise Callisto and their mother," Dante snarled and the woman stepped forward murmuring yes Alpha before dropping down before Sal.
I watched as her eyes slowly slid together and she shifted into her Cyclops form before reaching out a hand to heal Sal and wake her up.
Sal cried out in fear a moment before her eyes glazed over and she was lost to the interrogation of the Cyclops woman.
While we waited, my attention was drawn to the men who all kept shooting me interested glances like they were trying to figure me out. They were prowling back and forth around the desk, brushing their hands against Dante whenever they got close enough to his bloodstained form as he stood stoically with his arms crossed, waiting to hear what Sal knew. They were clearly Werewolv
es and the way they kept looking at me was making me squirm. Dante seemed to notice, a low growl escaping him which had them quickly averting their eyes.
Sal finally sagged back, falling out of the hypnosis just as one of the Wolves bound her hands in thick ice, containing her magic so that there was no way that she could even try and fight back.
"Speak," the Cyclops demanded. "And don't try to lie."
Sal looked around desperately, fear coating her expression as she stared up at Dante with fearful recognition filling her eyes and then finally looked to me.
"Did her mother really want to sell her into this work to clear her debts?" Dante snarled.
Sal parted her lips, glanced at me and then frowned. "She was willing to," she breathed.
"So it wasn't her idea?" Dante asked.
"No," Sal spat. "I was owed that girl. Her brother too. It was my charity that kept a roof over their heads while they grew, my food which filled their bellies when Tanya gambled away all of her wages. Using her mother's debts to ensure it was just my way of tying them to me more firmly. I knew they had dreams of running, thought they were too good for this place. But get a whore on her knees a few times and she soon learns that opening her mouth and playing nice is what she's best for."
I leapt out of my seat, rage consuming me, but Dante was faster, wrapping his fingers around Sal's throat and lifting her off of the ground as he let her see the monster in him and my heart pounded as I could only watch on.
Dante hurled Sal down in the chair before the desk and she recoiled as her feet squelched in Petri's blood which was pooling on the carpet. I gave his battered and broken corpse a single disgusted look, but I was pretty sure he’d gotten off easy. Dante’s rage had made his death quick.
"Sign this," Dante snarled and one of the Wolves slapped a contract down in front of her.
Sal tried to protest as she saw what it was, but Dante growled so menacingly that she instantly started scribbling her name.
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