“I also asked you to take care of it.”
“Yeah, and I’m telling you this truth now, pal, I ain’t changeable.”
“You’re not a kid on the street anymore, stealing toys and dealing dust.”
“Don’t matter if you say that. I am that and I will always be that.”
“You’re not dirt, Opie,” said Asha, staring at him hard, eyes ferocious.
Opie chuckled. “Wow, this has been a horrible experience. I’m going to go find a nice stall and drink myself to death in it. Asha, you finished with that? Perfect, I need it for my medications.”
He swaggered away, the vodka already at his lips and pouring in clear burps of liquid down his throat until he indeed found an empty stall and locked himself in it. “Don’t bother me pissheads, I’m meditating!”
No one so much as looked up.
“How’s his dust intake?” Tiana asked Asha, drawing her second’s attention back. Her face was grim.
“High.”
“A pun of terrible taste, Asha.”
She shrugged. “Fire dust burns, Killian. More than just your brain and the inside of your nose. It burns everyone.”
“How much.”
Asha looked like she needed the bottle of vodka to admit the answer.
“Tell me how much Asha.”
“I don’t know for sure, but he spends his entire paycheck on it.”
“And his rent?”
“I cover it.”
“Asha.”
“I owe him, Killian.”
“You don’t owe shit if you let him kill himself.”
“He’s got demons.”
“We all got demons, dammit,” snapped Tiana, banging her fist on the table. “You babying him and dousing him with drugs and booze isn’t gonna help.”
“What do you want me to do? Lock him in our apartment till he sweats it out?”
“Unless you’ve got a better idea, yeah.”
“You need him, Killian. He’s your third. He runs the goons to get the tributes. They listen to him.”
“They listen to him because they think he’s crazy.”
“He thinks he’s crazy.”
“We both know he’s not.”
“Doesn’t matter what we think.”
Tiana sighed and flopped back in her chair, hands on her stomach as she considered the finger of booze she had left in her glass. She already knew it wouldn’t make her feel better. Which sucked, because the night had started bangingly. What would’ve happened if she’d stayed in bed...if she’d asked Roland to stay?
Probably nothing. It never would’ve happened. He would’ve gone out, as he had tonight, his odd sense of obligation burning on the horizon, forcing him to go and look for the bastard who poisoned him. If only he’d known who was really curled up beside him, pressing her lips against his chest and happy as a clam. They could’ve saved themselves quite the night.
“Would you take the problem to...you know?”
“No,” said Tiana. “He doesn’t need to know. Besides, what’ll he do? Toss Opie out until he cleans up his act? The Don doesn’t give a shit about the stuff we do so long as it doesn’t interfere; and I suspect tonight was interference.”
“Aye.”
“What the hell even happened, Asha. Weren’t you with him?”
“After you left, he kind of panicked...convinced you were mad at him and he wanted to make it better. He wanted to prove he could be useful. I thought I talked him down. We went back to the apartment, were gonna call it a night, but...he slipped out the window.”
“When did you notice he was gone?”
Her lips pressed together. “When Mal Dandy threw him through our front door.”
“Where’d Mal find him?”
“Passed out on top of one of his girls. She said he didn’t do nothing, only paid for her and then sat there in silence, drinking.”
“And he’d already gone to see Pene?”
“Not quite. He only did that an hour ago. I brought em to Blood Alley. Thought he could work off some steam. Least I could watch him there.”
“Then he ditched you.”
“Aye. I’m sorry.”
Tiana waved off the apology, standing up. “Not your fault. Not mine either. It’s on Opie. He needs to get his shit together.”
“He feels excluded, Killian.”
“And what do you want me to do, wipe his ass and hold his hand? Asha, if he wants me to let him in on the big things, he’s got to prove to me he’s capable of holding his shit together. I don’t mind a mad dog roughing up and plucking purse, but I can’t have some deranged mutt in my hen house full of volatile weapons.” Tiana pinched the place about her nose, closing her eyes. “Will Pene say anything to my father?”
“I don’t think so. After she wiped her fingers clean of Opie, she turned around and went right back to work; like he was some misbehaving machine.”
“A machine’d be easier to fix.”
“You know, maybe if we let him talk to her…”
“No.”
“Killian—”
“I may be pissed at him, Asha. But I don’t hate him and I certainly don’t want to completely break him.”
“He might need the closure.”
“Closure is bullshit. You put Opie back into that den, with that bitch, and you’ll be mopping puke and brains off the floor. You don’t tell her where to look for him.”
“That an order?”
“You best believe it.”
“Yes, my Don.”
Tiana waved her friend off, feeling tired and drained now and not the least bit interested in waking up in the morning. Now that Roland was healed and well enough to leave the castle grounds and engage with gangsters—and apparently use magic—there was no longer a need for her there. And the idea of waking up and being ordered about by Phineas and Serai, felt like the worst idea in the entire world.
“I have class early tomorrow, so when Opie comes out of his room, tell him everything is square between us and to quit acting out or I’ll spank him red.”
“Aye.”
“And have my shoes sent for repair and the armor for a cleaning. It reeks.”
With Asha’s affirmative, Tiana left, walked out into the early morning and began her long walk to the castle.
Chapter 14
“Where’ve you been?” asked Tiana, her back to him, drippings of red curls spilling down the back of her robes. She flicked a look over her shoulder, standing there with folios in his hands. “I haven’t seen you in days and now you’re going to come and bother me? When I’m working?”
“I know, I’ve been out the past couple of nights.”
She looked amused, rather than mad, an eyebrow going up. “I know. I can smell the booze from here. You think I’d warrant a shower.”
“We could always shower together, if you insist I take one?”
She snorted and turned back to the books, reaching into her trolley and lifting a massive tome. He knew she’d never climb into the shower with him, in all the times they’d spent together in the past two weeks, she’d still never taken her shirt off before him or explained one wit of why. If anything, she’d become more reclusive about it. He could chalk it up to exhaustion, for that he could plainly see...but—
“I could stay with you this evening,” he proposed casually, watching her face carefully as he settled behind one of the desks, spilling his documents across its cherry wood without thought.
“You know that isn’t necessary. I know how busy you are. I mean, it would be helpful to know what you’re doing, but obviously all good relationships are built on secrets.”
Roland sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “I don’t like the way you say that.”
“And what way is that?”
“Like it isn’t a trap; like you mean it.”
She pursed her lips and considered the book she was holding.
“Look at me,” he said softly. “Please?”
Now she sighed, b
ut did as he asked. “What do you want me to say, Roland? I know what you do is secretive and I understand I’m privy to knowing things a mere library apprentice shouldn’t.”
“Apprentice Librarian.”
“What?”
“You’re an Apprentice Librarian.”
That got the barest hint of a smile from her, and yet, it fell quickly, as if the strain of it were too much effort.
“Tiana, you need to sleep.”
“Sleep is for babies and poisoned princes.”
“Well at least you didn’t refer to me as a baby.”
“I thought about it.”
“Tiana…”
“Roland,” she returned tiredly.
“Sit with me.”
“I’m working.”
“So am I.”
“Oh, you look like it.”
“Come, look at my folders with me.”
He waved her over and she bit her lip in a way which made him shortly consider distracting them both from any work.
After a moment’s hesitation, she obliged, hesitantly perching on the arm of his chair. Which, of course, was not what was going to happen. Hooking an arm around her waist—skinner, he noticed, than usual—he toppled her into his lap, convinced he could die listening to her shriek of surprise amidst a fleet of stifled giggles.
Roland grinned down at her in his arms, and she reached up and caught his chin in her hands. Her eyes narrowed to dark slits.
“You are a menace.”
She pulled him towards her, his mouth slanting over hers, tongue brushing. Her hand skimmed along his jaw, reaching to the back of his neck and twining in his hair. Using the leverage, she pulled herself up, flush with his chest. Breasts brushing and ribs pressing.
He groaned against her lips.
She smiled against his.
“Now, show me your school project,” she whispered.
He growled, but acquiesced as she released her grip and sat up more comfortably in his lap. Then, like a cat, she glanced over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow, hinting at him to pull the folios over and start.
Roland chuckled and did as she wordlessly instructed, sliding them closer and flipping the top cover over.
Opiate Black grinned up at them, his face smashed nearly in, nose dripping blood, a cigarette dangling from between split lips.
“Oh,” she said softly. Her fingers hesitantly brushed over the greyed sepia photograph.
“He runs in the Sludge with the Red League. You’ve heard of them?”
“A bit,” she murmured, peering closer at the rap sheet. “He’s been arrest one hundred and six times?”
Roland flipped the page. “That’s only the official record started when he turned twelve. He’s been falling in and out of bars since he could talk. He was brought into the city from the Northern colonies, where humans live independently.”
“Slavers?”
“Yeah,” said Roland grimly. “They sold him to one of the brothels by the ports, where the den mother who bought him shoved him into every vice she could. He stole, sold narcotics, and even came close to knifing a guard by the time he was seven.”
“She sounds like a piece of work,” she said softly, though sounded angry.
“Tiana—”
“No, keep talking. I want to hear more.”
Against his better judgment, he did. “Of course, originally the city guard was involved and tried to separate them. They already knew all about her and what she did to the young wards which came under her care. And some of her girls came to the captain at the time, telling him things, worried for this little kid. They all said this was worst they’d seen.”
“But it didn’t work?”
Roland’s lips pressed into a tight line. He tried not to feel bad for Opie Black, he really did. Hell, he’d met the guy once or twice now and with the childhood he had sitting in his past, he couldn’t have even imagined him turning out any other way than absolutely crazy.
“Can we look at the next one?’
Roland nodded and slid Opie’s folder away. Tiana opened the next one. Asha de la Cario was fourteen in her mugshot. Tightly braided hair pulled her scowl taunt, yellow eyes managing to glow even through the tint of the photograph.
“Grew up in the south. Personally, I think it’s likely she has fey origins, judging by her eyes alone. Can’t prove it of course, she’s not required to tell, and she certainly wouldn’t when she was interviewed at fourteen. It was the one and only time she was caught and arrested.”
“Why was she arrested?”
“She was trying to sneak into the castle grounds.”
“Did she ever say why?”
“No, but she had a knife with her and an attitude to boot. No one thought it was anything nice.”
She lifted the next folio, Phillipe de Rossi’s, but she merely made a humming noise and passed it over, in favor of flipping over Killian’s.
Killian de Rossi was about seventeen in his portfolio. Skinny, with sharp cutting cheekbones and an evil look curving into a mouth which seemed too big for his thin face. Hair poured down his back, slicked against his skull.
Tiana touched a finger to the boy’s snarl, silent.
“This was after he got arrested for murdering his sister.”
Tiana went rigid.
“No one really knew much about her up until that point, she didn’t have a name, de Rossi kept her cloistered—would often send her away or keep her on his estate.”
“Were you there when they arrested him?”
“I was overseas, spending time in another court, but Marius said they could hear him howling the entire way to the dungeons.”
“Why isn’t he still there?”
“No one could find a body and without evidence, he was released. He went quiet for a while, so it was assumed he was lying low. Then, about four years ago, he popped up on our radars again, but he was too slippery for anyone to pin him with anything. He kept the Sludge; no more bodies popped up across his path.”
“And the sister?”
“Who knows if she even exists, she does have a death certificate which chalks it up to natural causes, but it doesn’t quite add up. I think he killed her.”
Tiana turned to look at him over his shoulder, eyes a bit glassy, even more endless against her pale face and her dark lashes. Her hair seemed drained of its usual vibrant rebellion.
Roland gently spooned a lock of it behind her ear.
“Why are you looking into them?”
“Recently Don de Rossi has begun taking the smaller gangs under his wing. Lessening their tribute and giving them access to his private ports, which import and export in nearly legal manners.”
She pressed her lips together, asking him to go on.
“However, they’ve also been differing to him as their Don. Sure, they have their own gang heads, but even they answer to de Rossi now; a plan largely supported and sought out by the young de Rossi.”
“Still, if they’re keeping it in the Sludge...isn’t it unusual to be looking into them so thoroughly?”
“Yes, but there are also whispers of them moving more than dust and fairy.”
“Like?”
“Magically modified weaponry, and they’ve been selling it to the Orks and the Southern Elvish.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly. “The Southern Elvish?”
Roland’s fists clenched and his brain went a little bit fuzzy with a hint of rage. “Yes,” he said slowly, as if it were a curse. “As if the bastards needed more ammunition. We barely survived the last war with them. I fought in that fucking mess and I know the aftermath they left on their pillages.”
Tiana put a soothing hand on his chest and it was a struggle for Roland to breathe through his nose. He tried to be with her, to feel her hand, and not feel Niki’s on his shoulder, wheezing, braced and holding his stomach with his free hand to keep his entrails from spilling out his gut. Roland yelling for a medic, anyone, for any god to come to his friend
and keep him at his side. He couldn’t let Niki join the numbers of the fallen; stripped of his armor and his dignity, the last thought his friend would have was that he died failing to protect yet another village, another family, another woman, another child, from the ferocity of the elvish devils' raids.
The Elvish were a bitter, savage mixture of a fey creature, like a fire wraith or a siren or a nymph, with one of the Dark Elven, who, while dead as a race, existed in the young of their ancestors. And they were all made of magic. There was not an unmagical bone in their body. They were brutal and greedy and while they wouldn’t take the young of a human, or half-human into their brood, they had no problem creating them. Like, if Roland’s suspicions were correct, was precisely what Asha de la Cario was. Some strain of old, ancient Dark Elven with a human face and fey eyes and elvish ears. Hell, it was basically what he was.
“Roland,” Tiana said softly, hand smoothing the shadows of his face. “I’m here. You’re here.”
“I know,” he said, blowing the air from his chest in an attempt to also rid himself of the memories.
“Hmm,” she hummed, brushing a finger over his eyebrow. Roland shut his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of her calloused fingertips running their trail down the bridge of his nose, along the dip of his cupids bow, and across the seam of his lips, which parted for her as if she were a goddess.
Which, he really thought she was.
And when she dropped her hand, leaned into his hair, and her own mouth touched his ear, she could’ve whispered anything and it would’ve been miraculous.
What she did whisper, was, “Ever wanted to be fucked against a shelf of thousand-year-old books?”
It was then he knew he loved her.
Chapter 15
Tiana met Roland as Killian at the outer gate of the Glitter, her arms crossed against her chest, the wind fluttering the tail of her half-cloak. It was green this evening and looked amazing with the dark brown leather sheathing her legs and the puffy white shirt she wore over top. She looked great. And she knew it. She’d paid careful attention to her makeup before she wandered her way down to the Trough to get changed. She’d been intricate with her contour, shading in her nose so it looked wide and flat. She’d forgone the stubble, but thickened her eyebrows, and by gods if it didn’t make a difference. And there were also the clip-in hoops pushed up the lobes of her ears, glittering and pretty; she almost wished they weren’t fake.
Deception: Rogues of the Red League, Book 1 Page 11