by SM Reine
This death had been coming ever since Marion had been born.
Marion gazed upon Metaraon’s cruel eyes, so similar to her own, and she ached for the father she would never know.
Father, she whispered into Leliel’s mind.
Metaraon reached for her with one hand. Daughter.
Sudden, powerful fear bucked through Leliel.
“Get out of my head!”
It wasn’t Leliel’s scream that finally exorcised Marion from the angel’s memory. It was a sudden shock of electricity in Marion’s physical body.
She crashed back into her own mind. Her eyes flew open.
Marion was flat on her back in the orchestra pit. Leliel was hunched beside her, tears streaming down her cheeks, magicked wings drooping. The knife was on the floor between them.
Another shock of electricity.
It originated from the wound in Marion’s belly. She gripped it with a groan. Fresh blood spurted between her fingers.
Leliel lifted her head at the sound of Marion’s cry. Her eyes fell on the knife.
The angel seized the hilt. Before she could lift it, a boot slammed into Leliel’s wrist, pinning her hand to the ground. Marion’s eyes tracked up the booted foot crushing Leliel’s hand to a muscular leg, narrow hips, and chiseled features.
It wasn’t Luke, but an unseelie prince with blue-black hair and coppery skin.
“Princess,” Konig said. He clutched a fistful of sidhe magic, which pulsed in time with the healing magic that she felt in her stab wound.
Konig was healing her. He was saving her.
Marion passed out.
19
“There we go, sixteen thousand.” Brianna counted out the last of the hundred dollar bills and dropped them next to Luke’s sniper rifle. “Gimme your pinks.”
Luke wasn’t listening. He was watching the screens hanging on the outside of the United Nations building, which had showed Secretary Friederling’s face until twenty minutes earlier. He had introduced Marion, stepped off stage, and then…nothing.
Marion still hadn’t taken the podium.
The crowd gathered outside the UN were getting restless—what few of them remained after Charity’s attack. Most had fled at first, but some had returned after the revenant’s arrest to watch the rest of Secretary Friederling’s speech, and probably to watch Marion’s too. But she wasn’t there.
“Hello, pay attention,” Brianna said, waving a hand in front of his face.
He jerked back. “What?”
“Sixteen thousand for your pickup,” Brianna said. “I just need you to sign the title over to me, please. That way I don’t have to spend as much time at the DMV. I’ve got way better things to do than that.”
Luke didn’t bother counting the money to make sure it was all there. He signed off on the paperwork for the sale of his pickup and shoved it back at Brianna. “That’s too much. It might be only three years old, but it’s over ninety thousand miles.”
“And in pristine condition, thanks to your mechanical skills and anal retentiveness. Bet you I flip it for twenty grand.” Brianna plopped onto the roof beside him. She folded the title and stuck it inside her jacket. “You’re going to need the money if you want a complete do-over on your identity again. That doesn’t come cheap.”
He made a noncommittal sound. Luke wasn’t short on money. He’d been smart. Kept a lot of it in cash. He didn’t even need to access his bank accounts in order to be set for the next ten years—more than enough time to get established as a new person.
Sixteen thousand wouldn’t hurt, though. And the pickup had been his baby.
His eyes wandered to the screens again.
Still no Marion.
“Something’s wrong,” he said.
“Yeah, you’ve blown your identity in a big way,” Brianna said. “Your sketch is floating around. It’s a bad drawing, sure, but Rylie will figure out who that drawing represents once when she talks to Marion long enough.”
That was true. And Rylie was an Alpha werewolf, so if she knew to go looking for Luke, all it would take was putting her wolfish nose to the ground to seek him out.
“Pack up the sniper rifle so we can go,” Brianna said, snapping her fingers impatiently. “We’ve still got about a million pages of paperwork to do before you can start over again. It’s worse than getting a mortgage.”
His eyes snapped to hers again. “Sorry. Distracted.”
She glanced at the empty screen hanging on the side of the UN. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I see that.”
He began to disassemble the sniper rifle as Brianna took out her cell phone.
“Do you want a total reboot?” she asked, tapping out a text message to one of her contacts. “Licenses, degrees, and insurance under your new name, new bank accounts…? And I bet you’ll want a glamour for a facial change since your sketch is going around. We should have asked Charity where she got hers. It’s awesome.”
“Sure, I’ll take one of those,” he said distractedly, shoving the pieces of his rifle into a duffel bag.
Why wasn’t Marion on stage? Had the Autumn Court gotten to her?
He zipped up his bag. He stood.
“Where should I have all your paperwork sent?” Brianna asked. Her expression was innocent, but he knew that she wanted to know where he was going to settle down. She was too nosy to let him vanish a second time without keeping tabs on him.
The curtains on the stage moved, and a random OPA agent stepped up to the podium. He apologized. He said that the keynote speaker had been delayed.
Even on video, Luke could tell that the OPA agent was lying. The flush in his cheeks and racing pulse just under his jaw spoke volumes.
Something had happened.
Who cared if Rylie smelled Luke around? He was about to vanish again, even more completely than he had thirteen years earlier. He couldn’t abandon Marion like this. Not when she needed help.
“I’ll meet you at the Roasting House in an hour,” Luke said. It was Brianna’s favorite coffee shop in New York.
She stood too. “Don’t tell me you’re going in there. Rylie will smell you. You’ll get caught!”
“Thanks for your help,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”
And he jumped off the side of the building.
* * *
Marion awakened to the sensation of pressure on her belly. She groaned and tried to push whatever was resting on top of her away.
“Hold still, I’m almost done.”
Her eyes popped open. “Konig?”
The unseelie prince kneeled over her, the violet shards of his eyes warmed by concern. “Hold still, princess. You’ll make it worse if you move too much.”
She lifted her head to look down. Both of his hands were pressed to her stomach where Leliel had stabbed her. Not only had the wound closed, but the blood was evaporating, leaving her flesh and shirt clean. “Oh my gods. How…?”
“You have the Alpha to thank for your survival,” Konig said. “I wouldn’t have been capable of responding so quickly if she hadn’t rallied her security to close in on your position. As soon as we saw the attacks outside, we knew you must have been close, and she immediately deployed her entire team to search for you.”
Konig helped her sit up, and Marion saw a middle-aged blond woman standing behind him, conferring with the black-clad OPA agents who had chased Marion through the building. Her heart leaped with anxiety until she remembered she was allowed to be there—nay, one of the key speakers.
The blond woman wore a nude-colored skirt suit and carried her heels in one hand, as though she’d been running. Her hair was a frazzled mess, cheeks pink. This was Rylie Gresham, Alpha of all of the North American shapeshifters, and arguably the most politically powerful preternatural alive. Marion had seen her author photo on the autobiography.
Rylie shot a dangerous warning look at Marion.
“Did I make her angry?” Marion whispered to Konig.
“You could say that,” he said
.
Magic jolted through the ballroom. Leliel was surrounded by another ring of guards, who had her contained with a circle of power. It didn’t look necessary. The angel wasn’t fighting them. She also wasn’t crying anymore.
Marion stood gingerly, checking her abdomen. There was only a one-inch patch of cold on her belly where Konig’s hands had been. “You healed me.”
“Of course I did,” Konig said. “What did you expect?”
She’d expected him—and the entire Autumn Court—to kill her.
Rylie stepped away from the guards. She picked up her pace, and by the time she reached Marion, she was practically running.
She yanked Marion into a hug so powerful that it felt like every bone might break. This woman was irrationally strong, so much stronger than a person her age and size had any right to be, as though the power of a dozen bodybuilders had been folded into her slight figure.
Rylie seemed to think that she was close to Marion. Hugging-to-death close.
Marion gave a tiny squeak. “Pain.”
“Sorry, sorry.” She eased up the pressure enough for Marion to breathe. “Where have you been?”
“Um…here, at the United Nations? Since about twenty minutes ago?”
“Why didn’t you call me? I could have escorted you to the stage without having to deal with…” Rylie shot a look at Leliel. The angel responded with a serene, chilly-eyed glare over the shoulders of the OPA agents.
“I didn’t know that calling you for help was an option,” Marion said.
“I mentioned that you were friends with the sanctuary shifters,” Konig pointed out.
Had he? Marion couldn’t remember. Even if he had, she wasn’t certain that she would have acted on the information.
“Forget about that,” Rylie said, flapping her hands as though to dismiss the prince. “Where were you before twenty minutes ago, Marion? And don’t you dare tell me something facetious like ‘the street outside.’ I have been worried sick about you for weeks. You go missing like this without telling anyone where you’ve been, without making a single phone call—”
“She was abducted,” Konig said.
Rylie gave Konig an are-you-kidding look. “Marion can speak for herself.”
“I can’t,” Marion said softly, “because I don’t remember anything since waking up in California a few days ago.”
The Alpha’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly so,” Konig said. He gave her a brief explanation of the week’s events: Marion’s appearance in Ransom Falls, her attempts to get home, and her brief visit to the unseelie court—along with the Onyx Queen’s failed attempt to restore Marion’s memory. He didn’t mention the doctor. Marion knew, with nauseating certainty, that Konig was angry she’d left with Luke.
“Memory loss,” Rylie finally said. “I can’t believe someone got you with an attack like that.” It was sort of nice to know that the werewolf Alpha had such faith in Marion. “And you still don’t remember anything?”
“I don’t even know what speech I’m supposed to give in, um…” Marion glanced up at the ballroom’s grandfather clock. “Fifteen minutes ago.” At least she hadn’t been unconscious for long.
“Interesting.” Rylie dropped her shoes and stuffed her feet into them. “Let’s see about fixing that, shall we?”
She marched over to Leliel.
“Don’t look at me,” the angel said with unsettling calm. “I had nothing to do with her memory loss. Only the tragically unsuccessful attempts to kill her.”
Marion’s jaw dropped. “You’re confessing to my attempted assassination? Right now, in front of all of these witnesses?”
“Of course she is.” Konig held Marion a little tighter. “There’s literally nothing that we can do to punish her over that. She has immunity.”
“Immunity?” Marion whirled on Rylie, looking for confirmation that this ridiculous claim couldn’t be true.
Rylie sighed. “Everyone has immunity for the duration of the summit. In any case, angels can’t really be detained for long unless the ethereal faction helps us hold them…or unless you do it with your magic, Marion.”
The magic she still couldn’t remember.
“It’s a shame, isn’t it Rylie?” Leliel asked. “You must be itching for a chance to detain me after all these years. So close, yet so far.” Yet something was shimmering over Leliel’s mind—some truth she was trying to conceal. Marion peered into Leliel’s skull, trying to extract details, but Leliel stared back without revealing anything.
“You’re taking the blame for this to protect somebody specifically because angels can’t be punished,” Marion said softly.
The angel’s eyes gleamed with cruel amusement. But there was surprise skimming over her thoughts. Marion was onto the truth.
Leliel hadn’t placed the bounty.
“Pray tell, daughter of Metaraon—whom would I protect?” Leliel asked.
Luke had believed it was the Autumn Court, but Marion couldn’t exactly accuse Konig’s parents while he stood beside her. Instead, she asked, “If you placed the bounty, then why were so many of the assassins sidhe?”
“Sidhe don’t have a support system on Earth the way that most gaeans do,” Leliel said. “If they want to live outside the courts, they need money. Becoming hired guns is better than getting real jobs. They’re too prideful to become wage slaves.”
“Heather Cobweb is an employee of the court, and she attacked me too,” Marion said.
Konig cleared his throat. “She attacked the man trying to abduct you. She was trying to save your life.” He smoothed his hand down her wavy hair. “Surely you don’t think that my kingdom would have been out to get you, Marion.”
“I don’t think you’d ever hurt me,” she said, clutching his hand.
And that was true. Marion didn’t think Konig would try to hurt her.
Rage and Violet, on the other hand…
Marion turned to Rylie. “What do we have to do to keep Leliel in custody until we have more opportunity to investigate? She already confessed to trying to kill me.”
“We can’t do anything,” Rylie said. “There are laws around the summit. Magical laws, which you established. They’re firm.”
“I could take care of Leliel outside those laws,” Konig said threateningly, magic shimmering over his copper flesh.
“Don’t burn your bridges with me, princeling,” Leliel said. “Marion is still going to deliver the speech recommending the angels take the Winter Court.”
Marion’s eyes widened. “I am?”
“Absolutely. If you don’t agree to give us the Winter Court, we will take it. We may very well carve our route into the Winter Court straight through Myrkheimr.”
Konig’s magic lashed hard enough to make his wind gust through the ballroom. “I’d like to see you try.”
Marion winced. She definitely did not want to see Leliel try any such thing. “You told me yourself that there aren’t many angels left. Would you really wage war against factions as big as the sidhe?”
“At least if we fight and lose, we’ll be extinct faster. The alternative is watching our loved ones die out over the centuries to come.” The fervor in Leliel’s words was frightening. “I don’t think we’ll lose, though. Even two dozen angels could decimate the sidhe armies.”
Marion turned to Konig, looking for some signal that it wasn’t true.
She saw in his grim anger confirmation that Leliel was right.
“You’re due to give your speech shortly, daughter of Metaraon, Voice of God,” Leliel said. “You will give the speech I wrote if you want to prevent war. And I’ll have won whether you’re dead or alive.”
Marion felt sick all over.
“We may not be able to arrest you, but we can eject you from the UN for now,” Rylie said.
Leliel lifted her chin. “Hardly. I lead the ethereal delegation.”
“Marion leads the ethereal delegation because you named her speaker.” Rylie turned
to the OPA agents. “Please show Leliel out.”
Leliel didn’t need to be manhandled. She glided away in the custody of security, shooting one last smirk at them over her shoulder. Marion watched the angel go, surrounded by the remaining guards and feeling numb. Despite the size of the ballroom, she felt like she was suffocating.
“You think that the Autumn Court is behind the bounty, don’t you?” Konig murmured under his breath, ensuring only Marion would be able to hear him.
Guilt wriggled through her stomach. Her probes about the sidhe assassins hadn’t been subtle. “It’s just that Oliver Machado—the human witch who found me in Ransom Falls, who summoned assassins to kill me—was using unseelie magic. As in, magic that you guys keep locked in the library. How else could he have gotten that if someone important in the Autumn Court didn’t give it to him?”
“The unseelie of the Winter Court used to have human allies among the triadists,” Konig said. “That’s a church of witches who worship the new gods.”
“So you think the Winter Court is trying to kill me too?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But what I do know is that it’s not me, nor is it my parents. If you had doubts, you should have asked me so that we could figure it out—you and me, together.”
He was right. Her cheeks burned hot with shame. “I’m sorry.”
Konig gathered her into his arms. “This is all my fault, princess. You’d have remained under my protection in Myrkheimr if I hadn’t picked a fight with you. I’ve been afraid I’d lose you. It made me act like…” He shook his head. “Not like the prince you deserve.”
She gazed up at the sculpted lines of his face. “I read your article about me. What you said was so sweet.” And he’d said it after she had fled from Myrkheimr with Luke Flynn. “I think I don’t deserve you, especially if you think this behavior is your worst.”
“Then let’s be undeserving together,” Konig said. “Never leave me again.”
“She’ll have to leave for at least five minutes,” Rylie said lightly as she hurried back from the doorway, through which Leliel had just vanished. She ran her fingers through her hair, tidying it up. “Unfortunately, Leliel was right about one thing. You have to give your speech, Marion. The summit is counting on your guidance. Everything will fall apart if you don’t get on stage.”