by SM Reine
She shrugged, trying to look casual. Like dying was no big deal. Maybe it wasn’t—she’d come back from it twice now, after all. “I’d have been reborn again.”
Stark advanced on Deirdre, and she backed up until she almost tripped over one of the computer chairs. “Don’t you have any idea what the sluagh is, Tombs?”
“Sorry, I guess I forgot to take a class on obscure unseelie monsters when I was getting kicked around the OPA’s foster system.”
His hand clenched into a fist like he wanted to hit her. The fact that he restrained himself was a solid sign of personal growth, Deirdre was sure. “The sluagh isn’t an individual creature. It’s an organism made of hundreds of cursed souls that the unseelie queen has enslaved. The sluagh kills by drawing new souls into its morass.”
“So what?”
“It kills by removing souls,” Stark said. “What do you think survives when a phoenix is reborn from her own ashes?”
Oh.
In other words, the sluagh would effectively be able to kill Deirdre—or do something far worse.
“I’m the only reason that you’re alive right now,” Stark said. “And how do you thank me?”
“By saying ‘thank you, big handsome boss man’ very sweetly?”
“You ran off with Melchior. You reek of him.”
She had grown up around people with preternatural smelling abilities, which meant having very few secrets. Her friends had known when she lost her virginity. It had been humiliating, the way they teased her. She felt a similar burn of humiliation now, knowing that Stark could smell Melchior’s dragon sweat all over her.
Deirdre lifted her chin stubbornly, refusing to show how much he’d embarrassed her. “I wasn’t ‘thanking’ you by running around with Melchior. I did that before you saved my life at the Summer Court. I’d do it again now, for the record, but you still can’t hold that over my head.”
“Can’t I?”
“Semantics,” she said. Even in the face of his anger, she caught herself smiling again. She was relieved that they’d captured Secretary Friederling. Relieved, because it meant that she wasn’t going to have to make a very ugly decision. “Friederling was going to arrest me for your crimes.”
Something indecipherable flickered across Stark’s face. “Don’t change the subject. We were talking about Melchior.”
“You want to talk Melchior? Okay. Let’s talk Melchior.” She gripped his shirt in both fists, fixing him with a hard look. “Melchior made me shapeshift, Stark. I became my animal. I flew.” Deirdre’s throat felt thick. She swallowed hard. “I flew,” she said again, hoarser than before.
“With Melchior,” Stark said.
“Are we speaking the same language? Yeah, with Melchior. Who cares?”
“You know who he is and what he’s done. He’s part of the reason that you died last time.”
“Yeah, I know exactly who he is to you,” Deirdre said. “I know you don’t like him. It drives you nuts that you can’t compel him.”
Stark frowned. “Where did you get that idea?”
“Uh, how about the fact you haven’t done it yet?”
“I have, once before. I can place an irresistible compulsion on him if he allows it, same way that I can with any other shifter. His willpower is too strong to take a command without accepting it.” Stark’s tone was measured—and guarded. He wasn’t going to tell Deirdre how he’d discovered that.
“It doesn’t matter either way. I don’t see why you should be throwing crap at him for killing me when you’ve been on the brink of doing the same for months. The only difference is that he and the unseelie succeeded where you have failed, which I can only imagine makes you hate him that much more.”
“I wouldn’t kill you,” Stark said. “Killing you has never been in my plan.”
“Oh? You’ve got plans for me?”
“Yes.”
His voice was low and dangerous, but there was something to it that made Deirdre’s stomach clench, too. And that feeling definitely wasn’t dread. It trod upon the uncomfortable intimacy of an Alpha and Beta who didn’t quite like each other. It also butted up against the confusing feelings she had for a man who didn’t hesitate to strike her with a closed fist.
“Melchior gave me something you couldn’t,” Deirdre said. “He gave my wings to me. So I’m not even going to argue about this. You wanted to go a different path and we split. What happened after that is none of your business.”
Stark’s hands balled into fists.
She saw his swing coming. He was a lightning-fast Alpha, more beast than man, and she actually saw it coming.
Deirdre ducked under it, grabbed his arm, and used his momentum to slam him into the wall.
He ripped away from her to attack again, but Deirdre was already out of his reach. She had darted away from him with the same easy speed that he had. That every shifter had.
Every shifter except an Omega.
As if to prove that she still wasn’t as fast as him, Stark launched across the security room so quickly that she couldn’t even track his movements.
But he wasn’t trying to punch her.
Stark struck her like the front of a storm, rage wrought in every line of his body. His lips came smashing down on hers with just as much gracelessness as when she had tried to kiss him the first time. It was a brutal thing, like he was trying to show her his dominance with the kiss.
Deirdre was too shocked to react for a moment—only a moment.
And then she was pushing back against him, fisting her hands in his hair, pushing back with as much strength as he did.
She slammed Stark into the wall beside the monitor. They must have dented the drywall—two grappling shifters. But she didn’t care. She angled her head and pulled up against him, molding her body against his, forcing him to support her weight.
He didn’t try to push her away. He tried to just push her, forcing her to step backwards in a physical sign of submission.
Deirdre dug her heels in. She bit his bottom lip and he bit back.
Everton Stark tasted like blood and violence.
Stark tore her shirt open. It popped along the seams, and cool air rushed over her, bringing goosebumps to her skin. The cold brought some semblance of sanity back to her.
She ripped away from Stark, scrubbing the back of her hand over her mouth, putting a few feet between them.
They stood on opposite sides of the room, staring at each other. She struggled to catch her breath.
She had kissed him. Or he had kissed her. This madman who had tried to make her murder innocents the first time they met, and had succeeded in driving her to murder on multiple occasions since.
The fire in her blood was from him.
Deirdre felt sick and insane and yet still so excited, like she was on the brink of something exhilarating. She was perched on the edge of a rooftop with her arms spread wide, prepared to fall into empty air.
But she was falling somewhere a lot more dangerous than a street a couple dozen stories down.
“What are we going to do with them?” Deirdre asked, pointing to the monitors.
He wiped his thumb along his bottom lip, smearing her blood. “I hadn’t anticipated having them in custody. I could kill them while January Lazar films it.”
Deirdre probably shouldn’t have been surprised by that answer. “We could do that, or we could try something insane and be civilized.”
“This isn’t a debate,” Stark said.
“No, it’s not, because Marion won’t let us do it. The girl with the crazy hair who looks like she stuck her finger in a light socket? She’s a mage, Stark. Half-angel.”
He dismissed Deirdre’s concern with a wave of his hand, as though brushing the words out of the air. “Everything can be killed.”
“Sure, but can you kill her before she kills you?” Now that Deirdre’s heart rate was slowing to normal, she was feeling a little more rational. Rational and shaky. “Marion’s got ethereal magic. She’s binding al
l of the Alpha candidates to an oath that will force them to obey whoever wins the election. That’s why we were in the Summer Court. We were trying to get the king to swear to the oath. We need the seelie and the unseelie to participate.”
“Rhiannon would never do that,” he said.
“Rhiannon’s not the unseelie queen.” She licked her bottom lip and tasted blood. She had no idea whose it was. “The Winter Court is in civil war. We’re going to have to save the true queen from Rhiannon if we want the Summer Court to play ball—if it isn’t already too late. They have the Ethereal Blade. For all I know, she’s already dead.”
“Why should I care about that?” Stark asked.
“Because you’re going to take the magical oath Rylie created for the election, which ensures that all losing Alphas have to obey the winner.” She balled her fists in his shirt and tugged him a step closer to her. “Because you’re going to win the election and you want the sidhe to be forced to do your bidding, especially if Rhiannon has somehow taken over for the Winter Court.”
Finally, finally, Deirdre could see that Stark was coming around to her way of thinking.
A way of thinking that didn’t involve murdering everyone who opposed them.
“I bet you anything that’s why Marion let us take them,” Deirdre said. “Because she wanted us all here together, right now. So that you can take the oath. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to capture them. I promise you that.”
“I can’t take the oath. I’ve built a different kind of platform,” Stark said, one hand sliding around her waist. “We would lose a lot of public support if we agreed to Rylie Gresham’s terms.”
“They’ll follow us, whatever we decide to do,” Deirdre said.
He cupped the back of her head, tipping her face back. “Us?”
“Alpha and Beta. You can’t get rid of me now. I’m going to be with you the whole time you’re on your way up, making sure that things change the right way.”
“Nagging me, you mean.”
“Only as much nagging as you need.”
“There are two things you haven’t considered here, Tombs,” Stark said. “The first is that if I lose the election, this oath you’re suggesting would mean I would also have to obey the winner. I don’t obey well.”
“And what’s the second thing?” Deirdre asked.
“You said that we would be Alpha and Beta together,” Stark said. “An Alpha’s mate is also an Alpha, not a Beta.”
Deirdre took a step back, shocked.
Mate.
Her mouth was dry. She licked her lips. “You don’t own me.”
“But I do, Tombs. You’re my Beta. You will be an Alpha someday. I’ve marked my territory, and you’re solidly at the center—whatever happens now.”
“What about the part where I only joined your pack because Rylie told me to do it? I’m a traitor. I was never yours in the first place.”
“You were mine from the start,” Stark said. “I was the first to see the truth of what you are, and you’re mine.”
“Finders keepers?” she asked in a taunting tone. “I don’t think that’s how it works, and if you—”
He silenced her by kissing her again.
“Alpha,” he said, the word hot on her lips.
It made her skin crawl and her hair curl.
The idea of mating with him—being trapped with Stark and his sadistic machinations for the rest of her life—was disgusting. Frightening.
And exhilarating.
Chadwick Hawfinch’s high-rise had been transformed in the short days since Deirdre had left it. Once Deirdre fixed her shirt and headed downstairs with Stark, she found that it had been fortified, boarded up, and filled with shifters of all breeds.
They were waiting to greet Stark in the basement. Deirdre sized up everyone quickly, standing behind his shoulder as a good Beta should. The men in the corner were obviously werewolves, while those nearest gave themselves away as some kind of big cat shifters by their sinuous movements. Most of the others she couldn’t identify—but they weren’t all shifters. There were other gaeans, too.
A deadly mix to be hiding in Stark’s basement, especially since Rylie and Secretary Friederling were in one of the apartments upstairs.
It was an explosion waiting to happen.
“Hey, Omega,” someone said.
Deirdre’s hackles lifted as she turned toward the speaker, prepared to fight. But the man who approached had an easy smile. Not insulting, but teasing.
“Geoff,” Deirdre said, startled. He was one of the asylum shifters. She hadn’t seen him since the unseelie attacked.
“Looks like Tombs isn’t easily entombed, if you catch my meaning,” he said with a broad grin. “I’d have expected someone to kill you by now.” He hugged Deirdre, which wasn’t an unwelcome gesture. It was actually sort of nice to see a familiar face.
“I’m tougher than I look.”
“That says a lot, since you look pretty tough,” he said, squeezing a little too tight. She wasn’t the only one relieved to run into a survivor.
Over Geoff’s shoulder, she saw Stark glowering. His scowl reminded her of the way that he had ripped Gage’s tooth from her ear and crushed it in his fist.
Stark wasn’t a man who liked to share his Beta.
Geoff stepped back, leaving Stark and Deirdre to greet more unfamiliar people.
“You delivered,” Stark said grimly, shaking hands with a man Deirdre didn’t recognize.
“I said I would.” He flashed elongated canines when he spoke. He was a vampire, lean and handsome and pale-fleshed. “Who’s this lovely lady?”
She thrust her hand toward the vampire. “Deirdre Tombs. Beta.”
They shook. His hand was room temperature.
“Lucifer. Vampire lord. From what I hear, you’re dead.”
“That makes two of us,” Deirdre said.
His laugh was surprisingly pleasant. Lucifer’s thumb caressed her wrist, as though feeling for a pulse point. “Most of your kind are afraid of my kind.”
“Most of my kind haven’t had pajama parties with your kind.” Her roommate in Montreal had been an asambosan, which was one of the vampire breeds. Jolene had been about as threatening to Deirdre as a French bulldog puppy.
“Deirdre Tombs is a phoenix shifter,” Stark said, startling her. She had expected to keep her identity secret. But he spoke loudly enough to get the attention of everyone in the room.
All those in the basement were now focused on them—on Deirdre.
“A phoenix?” Lucifer asked.
That got him to drop her hand pretty fast.
Deirdre couldn’t help it. She smiled.
For once, she was seen as a threat, and it was a valid fear. They weren’t afraid of her because she was the unknown. They were afraid of her because she could set their asses on fire if they ticked her off.
“That’s right,” Deirdre said. “I’m a phoenix.”
“That explains how you’re alive,” Lucifer said. “It doesn’t explain why you’re wasting your time with Everton. Something like you should be a queen.”
“Or an Alpha,” Stark said.
She resisted the urge to crawl into a hole and hide forever. “Stark and I have shared goals.” And a few other shared feelings that were slightly less political.
“Let me introduce you to our other allies,” Stark said, leading Deirdre away from Lucifer to meet the werewolves. “This is Gregorio of the Whitewater Pack.”
He was a tall, heavyset man with intelligent eyes. His grip was crushing when he shook her hand. Deirdre crushed right on back, squeezing with all her strength. She was rewarded by Gregorio’s widening eyes.
There was another small pack nearby, standing a few feet apart from Gregorio’s people. “Yosef of the Silver Brook Pack,” Stark said, and Deirdre shook hands with yet another intimidating shifter.
He didn’t try to crush her hand.
“I’ve never seen a phoenix before,” he said.
&nb
sp; “You never will again,” Stark said. “Deirdre Tombs is one of a kind.” He was still speaking loudly enough for everyone to hear, making sure they all knew that she was special and powerful.
Powerful, but secondary to Stark.
In the following five minutes, Deirdre met a dozen terrifying shifters who looked to Stark as their leader, rather than Rylie Gresham. They were scarred and broken and vicious, and they were willing to follow the one man who was even more vicious than they were. Because if Stark took over, he’d return the control to them.
As Deirdre surveyed the leaders of the packs, she thought that they kind of had a point.
These people deserved power. Gregorio had a pack of two besides himself; Yosef had three others. Gianna from Virginia was a panther who had brought along a cousin of hers.
It looked right, these ordinary shifters standing with families that they had brought together. In another world, in another time, all of them would have been regarded as Alphas. They would never be able to control many other shifters the way that Rylie did, but they were still leaders.
But not in Rylie Gresham’s government. Not as far as the Office of Preternatural Affairs cared.
“It’s good to see you all here,” Stark said once they’d greeted all of the packs. “I’ve tried to contact you all recently. The responding silence concerned me. I almost believed that many of you had been killed. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you were instead waiting for me to be killed.”
“Can you blame us?” Yosef asked. “You’ve got the gods-damned unseelie out for your head. And the bounty is staggering.”
“A million dollars and a gift from the unseelie queen,” said Yosef’s Beta, a short woman with long brown hair named Amira.
“Which gaean faction is the most powerful?” Stark asked.
The leaders exchanged looks, but nobody spoke.
“Shifters,” Deirdre said.
“Sure, the Gresham shifters are the strongest faction,” Yosef said. “If you want to join up with them.”
“All shifters,” Stark said. “Rylie Gresham only gained political dominance because shifters are powerful. But we’re powerful without her. The sidhe are weaker than us. Why would anyone want gifts from the supposed queen of the unseelie?”