“I spoke to Lorelle,” she said, trying to distance herself from the thoughts racing through her.
“What did she say?”
“It’s true that her husband sold her to the Bascadors. She said The Council knows what is happening to the breeds.”
He nodded, resignation wrinkling his forehead. “Did you get details about the floor schedule? What about the duty staff? Finding a gap in coverage will be our only opportunity to get her out.”
“She’s not going to leave.”
“Why would she want to stay?”
Thora recalled Lorelle’s vacant expression as she spoke of what life held for her regardless of if it were in or outside The Sanctuary walls.
“Because for each breed who finds a devoted mate, there are others who are left no other choice, whether it is within The Sanctuary walls, or in Oozara. At least here she never has to fear starvation or homelessness.”
“You sound as if you agree with her decision,” he said.
“It’s not my place to agree or not, but it is a choice I’ll face myself one day.”
“Don’t say that,” he ordered.
“What do you think will happen in two years when I reach twenty-five? Do you imagine they’ll simply let me stay?”
“I wouldn’t let them force you to choose.”
“And will you bring your mate with you? Will Sophie help argue my case?” Bitterness seeped through in her words. “Rape, slavery, hopelessness is all that is left for those of us who don’t unite, and like Lorelle, some will face it regardless.”
“What would you have me do, Thora?” he asked, his arms lifting to the side. “On the surface, Amadeus is acting independent of The Council, violating the Peace Treaty. In reality, they do nothing to stop him because they are the ones to benefit. Our only chance is to storm The Summit. It is broadcast to the entire faction. We need every Fae, witch, and breed to see what is happening here.”
Garrett shoved a hand through his hair, mussing it to look like he'd just woken.
“Exposing their deception is the only way to stop them.”
“What if it doesn’t work? If The Council decides this is the way it will be?”
“They won’t.”
“You have much faith in a group of Fae who have done nothing to uphold the vision Tatiana had for The Sanctuary.”
“Not faith in them,” he said. “Faith in their greed.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they don’t cooperate, they will be deemed in violation of the treaty, and their individual Atern Depository accounts will be frozen. With an angry Grand Coven after them, they’ll be in desperate need of atern. They will essentially run out of life if they refuse to make changes.”
How depressing that the only way to force The Council to honor the treaty was to threaten them with death. But it made sense. The Fae Council members had shown they couldn’t be trusted any more than Amadeus.
“So, we wait then,” she said, defeated by the practicality of the plan.
“We wait.”
“And you unite with Sophie.”
He didn’t say anything, though, by the tightening of his jaw, she suspected he wanted to.
“If I hear from Lorelle, I’ll let you know,” she said.
She turned to the door, but he reached out and brushed his fingers across the back of her hand.
“In the atrium… I was wrong to speak to you like that,” he said. “I was frustrated, and took it out on you.”
His fingers slipped between hers, then drew back as if the movement had been involuntary.
“What do you want from me, Garrett?”
“Nothing. Everything.”
She twisted away from him, forcing him to release her. Her head shook, sending the wild curls that had slipped free from her braid cascading around her face.
He moved in close behind her, not touching, but letting her feel the heat of his presence.
“I made promises to so many people. To protect the breeds, to serve The Council, to unite with Sophie. All of them before I even knew you existed.” His warm breath on her neck sent shivers rippling through her.
“I’m not asking you to break them. Not anymore.”
“I know you’re not,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could.”
His lips tickled the sensitive skin just below her ear, and her head dropped to the side, giving him better access.
His hands rested on her hips, and she leaned back in to him, her willpower all but gone.
“Every time I see you, all I can think of is how beautiful you looked lying on my bed,” he whispered. “How it felt to have you under me.”
Garrett’s hold on her hips tightened as his hips thrust forward. She moaned and let her hips push back at him.
She slid her hands over his, holding them there for a moment before guiding them under her shirt and up along her ribs to the undersides of her breasts. He didn’t need further encouragement. He cupped her breasts and let his thumbs pass over her nipples in small circles. She arched her back, and he pinched the tightened buds, gently plucking them.
“Harder,” she said, and he responded with sharp tugs that went right through her, and her pussy quivered in excitement. She reached back and wove her fingers through his hair. The position arched her back, thrusting her breasts in to his palms.
He groaned and let go of her to grip the bottom of her shirt. He pulled the material up and over her head, tossing it to the side. She turned around and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his head down. Her lips found his, and she pressed her tongue in, joining his in an erotic dance.
Thora stepped forward, forcing him back until they collapsed on the bed. She spread her legs, letting them fall on either side of his, and rose on her knees just enough that she could settle herself on him. Through their clothing, his sex strained to reach her, and she rocked on him, the friction sending a shock through her. His hands gripped her hips again and helped her move.
He let go of her and rolled over, so she was under him. His groin surged forward twice in time with his tongue in her mouth. Then, suddenly he was gone; ripped from her before she had a chance to process what was happening.
He pushed off the bed and paced the length of the room. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
“Then why did it?”
Garrett sighed and rubbed his hand along the back of his neck as he continued to walk.
Thora swung her legs over the side of the bed and pulled her shirt on, ignoring her achingly tight nipples and the pulsing between her legs.
“What did you come here for, Garrett?”
“I needed to see you. To talk to you.”
He had the ability to consume her whole if she let him. Darrian had said Garrett would crush her if she let him, and she realized how true those words were. She had to think about what she needed and not what she wanted.
She stood and went to the door.
“I need you to leave.”
“I wish things were simple. I wish…" Garrett stopped in front of her and rubbed his thumb across her lips.
She turned her head to the side and opened the door. He stepped out and came to a sudden stop. Thora poked her head around the doorway to see what had stopped him.
Across the hall a short, stocky man stood in an open doorway. She didn’t recognize him, which, considering he was on the breed floor was strange.
“A breed in heat is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” he said, a smug smile marring his face.
Thora stiffened at the insinuation in his words.
“What did you say?” Garrett demanded.
“I was just wondering if she’s free for the taking now, or should I expect her in the service wing soon?”
Garrett took a menacing step toward the man, who retreated back in to his room. “I suggest you shut your mouth and keep your wondering to yourself before you end up on the outside.”
The man sneered. “One breed is as good as any other, right?”
Garrett lunged at him, but the door swung shut between them. He pounded his fist on the door.
“Who was that?” Thora asked.
Garrett turned his scowl on her. “I’ve never seen him before.”
The sound of someone clearing their throat caused both of them to turn. Halfway down the hall stood Darrian.
“Sophie was looking for you,” he said to Garrett, then gave Thora a friendly smile. “I was coming to see if you'd like to take a stroll before dinner.”
The tightness that gripped her chest gradually relaxed its hold. Spending time with Darrian was exactly what she needed. Her eyes darted to Garrett then back to Darrian. Maybe she needed to show Garrett that she had other options.
“I'd love to.”
Chapter 12
“I need some information,” Garrett said as he sat across the dinner table from his sister.
“You’ll need to be more specific than that,” Marcella said.
“Anton Galani.”
“Have you searched the registry?” Marcella asked.
He crossed his arms. “Would I be asking you if I hadn’t?”
“I suppose not. What do you already know about this Anton?”
“Not much. I ran across him at The Sanctuary. He was on the breed floor in an unmarked room.”
“So he’s a breed.”
“I don’t think so. He had a room on the guest floor.”
“Then a Fae.”
Garrett shook his head. Marcella arched her dark brows.
“He used some sort of concealment spell, which leads me to suspect witch, but how would a witch gain access to The Sanctuary without an escort?”
“Someone apparently knows him if you have a name.”
A name was all he had. He'd spent days searching for more. After the incident outside Thora’s room, he'd gone down to Trilby’s office. She'd been off for the evening, but the seal on her door broke easily, and it took just minutes to find the file on the man, but apart from a picture and name, there'd been nothing else.
Most of the breeds couldn’t even say they recognized him, though the few that did only knew his name. So, one of the first things Garrett did when he returned to Oozara three weeks ago was go to the registry.
He hadn’t found anything in the citizen record books. Even his normally reliable sources hadn’t turned up anything. Going to Marcella was a last resort, but there he was, asking his sister for help.
“His name is all anyone knows.”
“I suppose I should be pleased you’ve come to me for help,” she said, and he barely refrained from rolling his eyes.
He knew her well enough to know that she would be bringing it up for years. He loved his sister, but she had a tendency to stockpile favors. It could be months or years, but, eventually, she'd come back and ask him to return the favor.
“Thank you,” he said between gritted teeth.
She gave him a knowing smile. “I’ll check in to it this evening. I’ll let you know what I find tomorrow.”
“I’m leaving at first light,” he said.
“I know. I’ll be traveling with you.” She chuckled when he let out a groan. “Ever since you came home, you’ve avoided spending time with me. I think we’ll have a wonderful journey to The Sanctuary. I have numbers for you, detailing some new Council accounts with The Depository.”
They spent the rest of the meal discussing a series of suspicious transfers of atern from Amadeus’s account to The Council account. The directional flow of the atern was strange enough, but the amounts of the transfers surpassed even Marcella’s spending habits.
After finishing dinner, Garrett went back to his place across the city. His home in Oozara was little more than an empty shell of a house. It had the basic furnishings, but there were no possessions he cared for; nothing to call him back when he'd been gone for weeks or months. Those possessions he considered important were at Marcella’s, waiting for him to settle in to life in the city. A life that was approaching too quickly. He'd be returning to The Sanctuary in the morning, and then it was two weeks until Sophie’s birthday. A date which would mark their unification.
For over a year, they'd been forced to wait as Odessa withheld her approval, and soon they wouldn’t need it. But he no longer wanted it. It had been hard to admit because he'd never been one to make mistakes. Everything he did was carefully planned out, and he saw his goals through.
That was why when he left The Sanctuary, he did so determined to put Thora out of his mind.
In the short time he'd known her, she had turned him inside out, throwing his life into complete chaos.
It had all been planned. Garrett would unite with Sophie on her birthday, and two weeks later, at The Peace Summit, he and Darrian would expose Amadeus and The Council to the faction, holding their Depository accounts as insurance that they would abide by a ratified Treaty.
Now, all he could think about was Thora. After The Summit, she'd be safe. The Sanctuary would no longer be a gilded cage. She'd never face The Council and chose between service and a life fending for herself in a faction that was uncontrolled in their abuse of breeds. But in six days when he united with Sophie, Thora would forever be out of his reach.
He'd gone home to forge.,Tto give himself time to remember what his oath meant. When he was a child, Marcella had impressed upon him the importance of his word and how, as the descendant of the royal family, he must rise above the Fae nature of lying and trickery. They were an extension of Tatiana, and they would hold true to her mission. When their father failed miserably, losing the royal status under punishment by The Council, it fell to Marcella and him to carry on the Zannis family name and work to re-establish the spirit of their lineage.
His unification request had been a promise, and The Council would hold him to it until it was completed, or until Sophie released him.
No matter how badly he wanted Thora, there was no hope for them. Her life and the lives of every other breed in the faction, though, didn’t need to be hopeless.
He had a job to do. He was a hunter, and he needed to hunt.
Garrett went up to his study, leaving the lights off and letting the darkness envelope him. He focused his mind and atern on controlling the flow of energy in the room. Lifting his arms out to the side, his head dropped back. He could feel the gathering magic rotating around his arms, and the royal blue light pierced the darkness.
Pushing aside thoughts of Thora, he generated a map of the faction. The series of small domes, connected by narrow tunnels through the frozen outer world, offered him a view of everyone in the faction, the wooded dome being the only exception. He reached for the Oozara dome, grasping the magical representation by the corners and pulled in opposite directions. The dome expanded and the vibrant purple color separated into small dots of violet, blue, and red. The blue were the Fae, red, the witches, and the violet were the breeds.
He was surprised by the number of breeds he could see. Were they increasing in number? Or was it a result of The Council moving them to a concentrated area?
He zoomed in further, pinpointing a small cluster of breeds, and further again as two isolated breeds stood out. One was pale; their aura faded from low atern. The breed was close to death.
Noting the area of the breed on the map, he lowered his arms and the room went dark again.
He spun around and opened the door. He strode through the house and out the front door, pausing only to recharge his atern and grab his pack from the closet.
It didn’t take long to reach the area where the breed had been. It was an affluent part of the city—home to Council members and a few of his distant cousins. He parked his carriage across the street from the spot she'd been. On the street, he lowered himself to one knee and crouched forward, his hands on the ground beside his knee.
He pushed the earth below him, awakening it to his call and released a flow of magic, the earth pushed back, and a flare of orange light tore through him and filled the night sky.
&nb
sp; Rising to his feet, he glanced down and saw the violet trail of aura the breed left in their wake.
He glanced at his cuff, which flashed red. The spell wasn’t one he used often, as it required a high level of atern. It also allowed every other Fae in the area to see the breed’s path. But that particular breed needed to be found before they used the last of their life force.
Garrett sprinted down the road, following the breed as they wove between houses. The path grew brighter as he closed the distance between them. He ran around a corner and came to an abrupt stop.
The woman lay face up on the ground, staring at the sky with unseeing eyes. Her aura wafted around her in a smoky purple haze as her spirit left her body and rose to the sky above them.
He rushed forward, fell to his knees, and pressed his hands to the sides of her face, intent on administering a revival spell, but the flashing of his cuff stopped him. Even if he used the last of his atern, it wouldn’t have mattered. Revival spells required a nearly full charge. Attempting it at anything less than full would simply mean that he joined her in death.
Defeat drained him of the will to do anything other than kneel there and stare up at the soul stars. How many more times would that same thing happen before he ended the free reign of The Council? He was down to counting the weeks until The Summit, yet every day there were children, women, and men just like that girl who were forced to either submit their bodies to those who would use them or surrender to the call of their soul star.
The last of the woman’s aura dissipated, and a shimmering light surrounded her body, thickening into a mass of white sparkles that shrunk into a point in the center of her chest, then exploded.
Garrett shielded his eyes from the light, and when he lowered his arm, the girl’s body was gone. With no one left to mourn her, her body returned to the earth and the last essence of her spirit formed her soul star.
He stood and walked back to his carriage, determination pounding through him with each step he took. No more breeds would face the same fate. He would bring down The Council and give the breeds the freedom they should have had with The Peace Treaty.
Hunter: Faction 10: The Isa Fae Collection Page 14