by SM Reine
Deirdre slammed into Niamh’s back.
The black feathers caught fire. Glossy as they were, they were terribly dry, almost dusty—as flammable as tissue paper.
Niamh screamed. Her wings folded.
And Deirdre didn’t change.
They hit the pavement a moment later.
It felt like Deirdre was only unconscious for the time it took her heart to beat.
She awoke to find herself back at Chadwick Hawfinch’s high-rise. Her aching eyes focused on the wall. It was blurred, but she could pick out the shape of runes. She was in the cell where they had been trying to contain Rylie and company.
When she tried to sit up, her body was too weak to respond. Her eyes rolled down to the pinching on her arm. There was a needle buried in her vein. The clear plastic tube glowed brilliant blue.
“Evening, Beta.”
Stark was standing in the corner, arms folded over his chest, disapproval in every line of his body.
Deirdre flicked at the catheter weakly. “The hell is this, Stark?”
Stark slunk along the perimeter of the room. She tried to track his movements but couldn’t lift her head. “What do you think it is?”
She followed the catheter’s tubing up the pole to the bag hanging from its hook. It sagged with the weight of enough lethe to keep a murder of vampires stoned for a week. It was also enough to keep her numb as her body reassembled itself. The healing fever washed through her body, but the pops and snaps of bones healing barely registered.
“I think you’re dosing me with lethe. Which is…weird. Not uncommon, but weird, all things considered.” Her tongue was uncoordinated. The words slurred.
“That’s because I’m preparing to kill you.”
Even with the warm buzz of drugged euphoria, her heart skipped a beat. “You’re what now?”
“It would be difficult to kill you, but not impossible. I’m keeping you weak enough to find a way if I decide that’s necessary.”
She tugged at the catheter again. “How much have you given me?”
“Not much. Not yet.” He delivered a swift kick to Niamh’s feathery side. “The next words out of your mouth had better be about how this harpy released the prisoners.”
“They broke out on their own.”
“Am I supposed to believe that? You freed them and then fled.”
“Because Niamh dropped Vidya’s body on the roof!” This time, when she tried to sit up, she succeeded. Stark looked surprised. “Did you find Vidya? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” Stark said. “Vidya’s almost as difficult to kill as you are.”
She sagged against the IV pole. “When can I see her?”
“At this rate, you may never get to see her.”
Deirdre didn’t have the patience for it anymore. She snapped. “Look, we can run in circles about whether or not I’m loyal to you for days—nay, for months—or we can accept the fact that we aren’t powerful enough to hold on to an Alpha werewolf and two damn wizards.” He opened his mouth, but she kept speaking. “It doesn’t make us weak. Nobody could hold those people. We’re never going to be co-Alphas if you can’t fucking trust me once in a while.”
Stark didn’t move for a moment, and she thought she’d said the wrong thing—bringing up the whole “Alpha mate” suggestion he’d made, like she was trying to leverage their relationship against him, dragging up all the hurt about Rhiannon all over again.
Then he turned off the lethe drip.
“I didn’t run to get away from you,” Deirdre said. “I was chasing Niamh. But could you blame me if I had fled? You must have scraped me off the street with a spatula, and your first reaction was to lock me into a cell and pump me full of lethe.”
“I have a temper.” Stark’s tone was so mild, Deirdre had to laugh.
He kneeled over the harpy and whipped his hand across her face.
Her eyes shocked open at the pain.
It only took Niamh an instant to realize where she was and what had happened. She tried to scramble away from Stark, wings beating helplessly against the floor, talons scrabbling. She was clumsy in her bird form, huge and ungainly.
He pinned her down with a hand on the side of her head. It reminded Deirdre of the way that a bigger dog would hold down a little dog.
“My Beta tells me you’re the one who tried to kill Vidya and dump the body on my roof,” Stark said.
Warmth flushed over Deirdre. His Beta.
Niamh struggled against him in vain. “I didn’t try to kill Vidya. She followed me into the Winter Court, and I’m the only reason Kristian didn’t manage to kill her.”
Stark clenched a fist in her chest feathers and yanked, pulling the harpy skin away from her body, like peeling the plastic off of a new cell phone.
Her scream made Deirdre’s eardrums shiver.
He exposed a plaid skirt, Black Death t-shirt, and fishnet stockings under the feathers. Most shifters couldn’t shift with their clothing intact, but she wasn’t shapeshifting naturally. The skin was enchanted, a gift from the unseelie—a curse—and she was wearing it over everything else like a cloak.
But it looked like Stark was stripping off her actual flesh, the way that her spine arched.
She was in so much pain.
Deirdre only managed two steps away from the wall before staggering. The healing fever was too much for her.
“Stop it,” she said. “Don’t torture her.”
Stark ignored Deirdre’s plea. “Why would you have tried to rescue Vidya when your allegiance clearly rests with my wife? Tell me the truth. Tell me what happened out there tonight.”
Niamh tried to say something, but she was barely coherent. The consonants, the vowels—they all slurred together.
Deirdre tangled her fingers in the shreds of swan skin, lifting them from the floor. Now that the skin wasn’t attached to Niamh, it flowed through Deirdre’s fingers like a liquid.
Stark flipped Niamh over, smashing her face into the floor. The heel of his palm ground against her cheekbone. “Talk clearly,” he said, still so chillingly calm. “I can’t understand you.”
Niamh’s wide, glistening eyes fixed on Deirdre. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dee. I’m sorry.”
The apology rankled. “You can’t be that sorry, or else you never would have stabbed me in the first place.”
“I had to.” With her cheek pressed into the floor, her lips were almost pursed, the lower eye halfway closed. “I was compelled by Rhiannon.”
“The hell you were,” Deirdre said.
“But I was! You have to believe me. Please.” Niamh must not have had access to all her usual makeup in the Winter Court, because whatever mascara she wore was cheap, clumping to her eyelashes and streaking black on her cheeks as she sobbed.
“You had to know Kristian was from the Winter Court.”
Niamh’s shoulders shook violently. Her body was so frail. “Yeah, but Stark knew that I had unseelie contacts. I asked him about the door in the basement. He gave me permission. You gave me permission, Stark!”
“Your alliance was meant to be with me.” His knuckles were white, betraying his temper despite his frigid tone. “And your deal wasn’t supposed to be made with Rhiannon.”
“I said it was the unseelie queen.”
His calm frayed. “She’s not the queen!”
“She compelled me,” Niamh whispered.
“And the skin?” Stark asked.
Her mouth sealed shut, crystalline tears sliding to the floor. She kept her gaze fixed on Deirdre.
Niamh must have known Rhiannon was a usurper to the true queen, but she hadn’t cared because of what she could give her.
Deirdre would have done anything for the ability to shapeshift. She had joined Stark’s rebellion because she wanted the ability to shift. What would she have done if the Winter Court had gotten to her first? How many terrible things would Deirdre have done if Rhiannon had offered the ability to change in exchange for Niamh’s life?
&nb
sp; She wouldn’t have needed to be compelled.
Niamh probably hadn’t either.
“Were you compelled when you attacked me on the dirigible?” Deirdre asked.
“I wasn’t attacking,” Niamh said. “I followed Kristian there to try to keep him from marking you. I couldn’t reach you in time. And then there were the wards—they kept me from communicating with you. But the unseelie know I’m not with them anymore, they want me dead, and I saved Vidya because…” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I hoped that you’d help me if I helped her.”
Deirdre was still cradling the slippery feathers in her hands. It seemed like such a pathetic thing to have instigated such incredible betrayal.
“I made a mistake,” Niamh went on in a hoarse whisper. “I should never have hurt you. I should have gotten away when Kristian told me what was going to happen at the asylum. I haven’t been able to sleep, or eat, or—gods, I hate myself. But I have information. I can tell you things. For instance, I know that they’ve released the sluagh.”
“I know. We’ve already seen it,” Stark said.
Her eyes grew huge. “Rhiannon is planning to have Melchior kill the true queen so that she can take charge.”
“I know that, too. You don’t have any valuable information. I don’t see why I should give you protection.”
“The unseelie plan to provoke riots,” Niamh said. “They want to get Melchior’s name on the ballot so that he and Rhiannon will be recognized as leaders of the unseelie. Even if they don’t win the Alpha position, they’ll win control of the Winter Court. Sidhe magic is weird. It would give them so much power just to be recognized.”
“I don’t care about sidhe politics,” Stark said.
“Then I can tell you where Melchior’s keeping the queen as he prepares to kill her,” Niamh said.
Stark’s eyes met Deirdre’s over Niamh’s head.
That was something Stark wanted as much as Niamh wanted to be able to shift: Melchior’s location. His life.
“Tell me,” Stark said.
Niamh swallowed hard. “The queen is the most powerful sidhe that’s ever lived. Way more powerful than anyone in the Summer Court. It’s going to take time to kill her. Melchior is there preparing for it now.”
He leaned his weight against her, biceps bulging. “Tell me.”
“Promise you’ll protect me.” Niamh wasn’t looking at Stark. She only had eyes for Deirdre.
Stark’s voice deepened, growing stronger with compulsion. “Tell me where Melchior is keeping the queen.”
Niamh had no choice but to respond, and she knew it. She sobbed, muscles straining as she tried to resist his compulsion.
But she couldn’t.
“Original Sin.”
Stark smashed his hand into her head.
Her skull cracked.
“No!” Deirdre dragged him off of Niamh. She had no idea how she did it. She wasn’t anywhere near as strong as Stark was—or at least, she shouldn’t have been. But she somehow dragged Stark off of the harpy.
He whirled on Deirdre, slamming her into the wall. “What are you doing? This is the woman who killed you!”
“You compelled me to kill when we first met. Was that my fault?”
“There are no innocents in this world, Tombs. She deserves to die.”
“No more than we do,” Deirdre said.
“Yes,” he said. “We deserve to die. But you did, and you came back, and nobody has managed to bury me yet. Survival of the fittest. Niamh isn’t fit and I don’t protect anyone.”
Anyone except Deirdre.
“You’re a goddamn hypocrite,” she hissed.
Darkness flashed over Stark’s eyes. “I’m a man of principle.”
“I thought you were,” Deirdre said. “I thought that we had the same vision for all of America’s gaeans. I don’t know about that.”
He braced his hands against the wall on either side of her head. “You don’t care about sidhe politics any more than I do. You only want to save the queen to make your idiotic election work.”
“Of course this is about the election! The masses want to vote for you. I’ve seen it.” Deirdre put a hand over his heart, which beat slowly and steadily. He was calm. “If we can save the queen, we can have it both ways. Secretary Friederling wants me to make a statement declaring your compliance with the election. I could do that even if you don’t take the oath.”
Stark’s heart beat a little faster.
Niamh stirred on the floor behind him. Her curls spilled over her shoulder and the white feathers caught the light. “I know so much about them. Kristian, Rhiannon, Melchior… I’ve dealt with them all. If we work together, we can kill them, protect Deirdre, and save the election.”
Deirdre’s stomach twisted at being included in the to-do list.
It didn’t look like Stark appreciated that, either.
By recognizing that Deirdre was his weakness, Niamh had pushed him too far. She had finally pushed a button that never should have been pushed.
Stark crushed Deirdre’s shoulders in his hands. “I want you to listen to me, Tombs, and when you listen, I want you to know how serious I am.” His voice lowered with compulsion. “The next time you defy a direct order from me, you will stop breathing. Your heart will not beat. You will die.”
Deirdre gaped at him.
She wouldn’t actually die by his command, but Stark thought she would. He still believed that she was susceptible to his compulsion.
And he’d just told her to obey him or die.
She was too stunned to speak.
“This is the last time we discuss this,” Stark said. “You will stop asking me to participate in the election. And you will not make any kind of public statement on my behalf. If you do either of these things, you will die. Understand?”
“Screw you, Everton Stark.” Deirdre couldn’t manage to put enough vitriol into those words.
Stark turned from her, convinced that the shackles of compulsion held his Beta tightly. He dragged Niamh to her feet. “And now you are going to tell me everything you know about the unseelie sidhe.”
So she did.
XV
Niamh spoke under compulsion while surrounded by vampires and shifters subordinate to Stark. They didn’t have to tie her down. Stark had told her she couldn’t move, so she couldn’t. She didn’t even move when Lucifer inserted a needle into her jugular. Blood began flowing into a wine glass, sluggish and purple-black in the dim light emanating from lethe pipes.
“They’ve been keeping her at Original Sin,” she said again. It must have been the fourth or fifth time she’d said that. Niamh kept looping back to it, as though her brain was a hard drive that kept skipping back to the broken sectors and crashing. Stark’s compulsion had been too strong for the fragile harpy.
Deirdre watched from the corner, arms folded tightly over her chest. She didn’t intervene. She just watched.
Niamh had been one of dozens of best friends that Deirdre had made during her time in the system. She wasn’t special, really. Deirdre hadn’t had family, hadn’t had stability, hadn’t discriminated between friends. She’d hung out with anyone who would take her. Anyone who wouldn’t call her an Omega.
Niamh didn’t really matter. She wasn’t all that special.
But she’d helped hairspray the swimsuit to Deirdre’s butt cheeks so she wouldn’t flash anything when walking across a stage built out of folding tables. She’d taught Deirdre how to do makeup. Figured out the right foundation for her cocoa skin tone.
And then, many years later, she had driven a knife into Deirdre’s back—maybe because Rhiannon had forced her to, or maybe because she just wanted that harpy skin.
Niamh didn’t really matter.
Her blood dripped into the wine glass.
“Rhiannon gave the harpy skin to me.” Niamh’s hair was greasy and tangled. Her cheeks grew pallid from blood loss. “She made it for me personally. It’s unseelie magic, and it would only work for me if I d
id what she wanted.” Mascara streaked her cheeks. “She said it won’t work if I betray her.”
“Melchior,” Stark said. “Tell me more about Melchior.”
“They think that dragonfire might be able to kill the queen. They’re going to magically augment Melchior and he’ll try to burn her. I don’t know how. All I know is…” She swallowed hard. A tear slid down her cheek. “They’ve been keeping her at Original Sin.”
Lucifer twisted the catheter, shutting it so that the blood would temporarily stop flowing. He held the wine glass under his nose to inhale the scent of Niamh’s fluids.
His eyes were locked on Deirdre’s as he drank slowly, throat working, hair fallen over his forehead.
Deirdre left the room.
It was raining outside. The smell of damp asphalt and hushed whisper of tires skimming through puddles made Deirdre shiver, even though it wasn’t all that cold.
Geoff followed her out, lighting a joint. “Doesn’t feel right,” he said, pausing to inhale. “Niamh was practically Stark’s right hand before he made you Beta. He used to have her keep watch over the asylum.”
“She betrayed us,” Deirdre said.
“Compulsion,” Geoff said.
He was preaching to the choir, but she couldn’t say that. Stark had told her to keep her opinions to herself. He had compelled her to keep her opinions to herself, at least for the night, so that she wouldn’t make him look bad in front of the vampires.
If Deirdre said that she agreed with Geoff, Stark would expect her to die. And he’d know that he couldn’t compel her if she didn’t.
She wasn’t sure if she was angrier with Niamh or Stark.
Either way, she couldn’t trust anyone. Not her former best friend, her would-be Alpha mate, or the actual Alpha whose office was up for grabs. Nobody.
Gods, but Deirdre missed Gage.
“Look at this.” Ember Bane emerged from the lobby in a cloud of acidic lethe smoke with a tablet clutched in his hands. He lifted it so that both Geoff and Deirdre could see.