Leading me into the office, he closed the door behind me. I was taking slow, measured breaths to calm myself. Knowing that Cory was in the car made it easier.
“I’m sure you know that the Amber Crocus was stolen. The witches didn’t have anything to do with it. Where they held it was fenced and warded.”
“That’s quite unfortunate.”
This was the calm before the storm, and the storm would be directed at the witches. Or maybe me. Despite the feet of distance between us, I kept a careful eye on him.
“I need a promise from you.”
He scoffed, removing the distance in one sweeping movement. Just inches from my face, stormy night-dark eyes met mine. Lips slowly inched back to bare fangs.
Those look dangerous.
With all his eloquence, extravagance, and aesthetic taste, it was easy to forget Landon’s penchant for violence, his adoration for the macabre, and his well-documented atrocities. Surrounding himself with beauty and his appreciation of it in the form of art made it easy to do. His return to his old ways was just one perceived betrayal, offense, or slight away. I tried not to let that overtake my thoughts, but it was nearly impossible.
Refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cower, I stood taller and squared my shoulders. Taking my free hand, I placed it on his chest and nudged him back. “You’re too close. Why don’t you step back a few feet?”
His dark laughter reverberated throughout the large space as he stepped back. “You want a promise from me, Erin?” There were still traces of amusement in his voice. “I don’t know if I should admire your gumption or pity it.”
No need to be an ass.
“I want to fix this for you.” I took the edge out of my voice, forcing it to become softer and imploring. Pandering to the powerful and self-entitled was my least favorite thing. It was the sordid part of my business that annoyed me. But “bite me, this is how things are going to be” didn’t get the results I needed. There’s some wisdom behind the bees, honey, and vinegar saying. And telling a vamp to bite me was just an invitation.
“The witches weren’t involved, so promise that you’ll extend some clemency to them.”
He scoffed.
“Give me a week. I can find it. The witches are under my protection.”
Another scoff. “Let you? No, love, this is your obligation. You can’t possibly think I consider it a coincidence that the competing buyer was Mephisto. He conveniently withdrew the offer. I’m out of money and I don’t have the Amber Crocus. I don’t think the witches were involved in the theft. I think you and Mephisto were.” Arrogance and violence dripped from every word.
The distance between us was ripped away in a blink of an eye. The karambit was torn from my hand and thrown into the wall across the room. My drawn Ruger was yanked from me and discarded near the karambit.
“Your death will be so devastating for Madison and Cory.”
Without weapons, I had to reason my way out of this danger and bluster like I’d never blustered before.
“Who do you think has a better chance of getting the Amber Crocus, me or you?”
He still looked as if he was seconds from going for my throat.
“I had nothing to do with it being stolen. But what do you think will happen if I don’t walk out of here?” I couldn’t defend Mephisto’s innocence with confidence because there might be some validity to Landon’s accusation.
My eyes swept over the room as I tried to devise an exit strategy or a way to defend myself. Landon watched me. It was like being under the scrutiny of a viper. One strike of his fangs and I’d bleed out.
“Madison wouldn’t just be devastated by my death, she’d be vengeful. You don’t want to be a target of a pissed-off Madison, I assure you. Vampires aren’t immune to magic, you’re just fast. You know who’s good with magic? Madison and Cory. Would you prefer me to find the Amber Crocus for you, or would you rather spend your days dealing with them, while the AC is out there somewhere? Eventually it might fall into the wrong hands and my death would be in vain. The vampires’ extinction would be inevitable. All because you had a murdery tantrum.”
The taut muscles in Landon’s neck had relaxed and he took a few steps away from me, but the anger and thirst for violence remained in his eyes.
“You have seventy-two hours to find it.”
The fact that he didn’t bother to issue a parting threat was scarier than if he’d gone into detail about my murder. Him quietly and methodically retrieving my weapons and handing them to me was equivalent to lunging at me with bared fangs. With great effort, I left his home with the casual breeziness of someone who wasn’t marked for death.
Cory waited patiently in the passenger seat while I let out a string of curses, borrowing very heavily from Madison’s Irish-Haitian lexicon.
“Landon thinks Mephisto took the AC,” I eventually said. My head dropped back against the headrest. I laid my forearm over my eyes, blocking out the crescent illumination of the setting sun. It had been a long day.
Cory seemed faced with the same inability to defend Mephisto with confidence. The tension-filled silence stretched on.
“He made an offer, then rescinded it after telling you he wouldn’t. He made a trip to Dante’s to find some. It’s possible,” Cory admitted.
The stilted silence of the drive left room for both of us to do some planning. Occasionally the silence was interrupted by suggestions.
“Let me question the witches,” urged Cory. “I can do an herba detection spell when I talk to them. That’ll tell me if there’s plant life in the house.”
It would be positive in any witch’s home since they used plants, flowers, and herbs in their spells, but it was worth a shot. Maybe under his questioning, like in a courtroom drama, they would break under the pressure and confess. It was unlikely, but a woman could hope, couldn’t she?
CHAPTER 16
It wasn’t comforting that instead of me meeting Mephisto at his home, he’d suggested we meet at a restaurant twenty minutes from my home. The nagging feeling that this wasn’t going to be a confrontation but a discovery was hard to dismiss, and I’d prefer to confront Mephisto without an audience.
Turned out it wasn’t a restaurant but a posh cigar bar. It only took a cursory scan of the luxury cars in the lot, the lightly tinted windows, and the script on the building to see this place lauded exclusivity. The woman who greeted me at the door was dressed in a sheer-sleeved beige pin-tucked shirt and a high-waisted pencil skirt that gave her a vintage look befitting the classic look of the lounge. Adding to the classic appeal were chocolate leather chairs, shelves displaying a selection of cigars, and a bar to the far left complete with a bartender in a dark-brown vest, a crisp white shirt rolled to the forearms, and slacks. Across from the bartender was a built-in bookcase filled with leather-bound books; I suspected classics and first editions.
The lounge was classic elegant noir with the air of mystery that would appeal to Mephisto.
“Ms. Jensen?” the greeter asked after looking down at the tablet in her hand. “Erin Jensen?”
“Yes.” She audited my appearance with a critical eye. It merited a tight-lipped look of disapproval. Her sharp gaze slowly trailed over my well-worn fitted jeans, teal Henley shirt with a light dusting of dirt that I’d missed when I brushed it off earlier after examining the garden, my high ponytail and its flyaways, and my grimace of irritation at Mephisto choosing this place to meet.
“Please follow me,” she directed, escorting me to the back corner of the lounge where Mephisto was seated, secluded from the other five patrons in the room. Soft music in the background prevented conversations from being overheard. I didn’t feel magic as we navigated through the room.
With the exception of Mephisto, everyone in the room was human. Dressed in his typical black suit, he’d traded the black shirt for a white one and complemented it with a multicolored gray tie. It shocked me into a halt, ignoring the seat across from him that he offered. Instead, I gaped a
t him as he took puffs from the cigar in his hand. The small oval window to his right filtered in some muted peach illumination from the setting sun that highlighted the hues of midnight blue and black in his hair.
The keen focus he kept on me was an undeniable reminder of who and what he was. It sparked in me the same doubt and concerns Madison had about the Huntsmen. I wanted to trust him and believe that we were on the same team, but were we?
“You look nice,” he said with a sincerity that only proved he was a practiced liar.
“No, I don’t. I look like I’ve had a crappy day, which, by the way, I have.”
His eyes roved slowly over me, obviously seeing something quite differently than the greeter.
“I disagree. I like the way you look,” he said. He offered me his cigar. The smell wafted to me and I inhaled spice, pepper, creosote, and eucalyptus. I loved the smell of cigars but was convinced that people only liked the smell, not the taste.
I waved my hand, declining his offer.
“You know it’s considered rude not to partake in a cigar bar.”
“Why did we meet here?” I asked, ignoring his etiquette lesson.
“I needed to get out,” he admitted.
Did that theft leave you a little fidgety?
Mephisto was a collector of all things and it wasn’t unlikely that he’d stolen the Amber Crocus.
“There’s something on your mind, Ms. Jensen.”
Ms. Jensen? How did we get back there?
“The Amber Crocus was stolen from the Lunar Marked coven.”
“That’s quite unfortunate for both parties involved.” His airy tepid tone wasn’t doing anything to disprove my suspicions.
“And me, because Landon thinks you had something to do with it and that I colluded with you in the theft.”
His brows inched together and he took another pull from the cigar.
“If he’s threatening you, I suspect Madison can get the STF to intervene,” he said, his cool indifference making it impossible for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with it being stolen.”
“I had nothing to do with it being stolen.” His tone lacked any emotion and the contours of his face went flat.
“Did Kai, Simeon, or Clayton?”
He set the cigar down and took a drink from the glass on the table next to him, inhaling it before taking a sip.
My irritation spiked.
He was dangerously close to having the drink thrown in his face.
Answer me, dammit!
“I don’t believe so,” he responded in the same aloof tone.
“I don’t like these games.”
Annoyance flickered in his dark eyes. “I don’t like these accusations.”
I diverted my eyes and gazed around the room as a distraction. I hoped that he wouldn’t lie to me. I never would have thought that I’d ever consider Mephisto a beacon in my life. He’d brought me back to life, told me about my mother, revealed who he was, made attempts to protect me, got rid of the Immortalis—eliminating one of the many problems and complexities in my life. In a convoluted way, we were on the same team. A blatant lie meant I couldn’t trust him. I wanted to trust him. I needed to trust him.
Returning my attention to him, I whispered, “If you did, I’ll figure something out. I just…” I sighed. “I need you to be truthful with me.”
Perhaps he heard the earnestness, the entreaty, or my real need for the truth because he got up and came around to my side of the table in a slow, graceful, and deceptively human way, as if it were a performance for any possible onlookers. Kneeling in front of me, his eyes lost the sharpness. They were soft and solemn.
“No, I’m not lying to you. None of us had anything to do with it. Our interests might not align, but I have no desire to hurt you, which is why I withdrew the offer. Clay is right, perhaps…” His voice trailed off, but I knew what he was referring to. Clayton believed that I was a weakness of Mephisto’s and that his decision-making was compromised when it came to me. I wasn’t convinced. Maybe I possessed the same weaknesses. Despite all evidence, I questioned him instead of throwing outright accusations.
Humble pie is really grainy with a hint of tang. And I had to eat a great deal of it.
There was something in his voice and in his face and in the lines of his grimace. I couldn’t quite place it. Unease? Regret? Shame?
Warmth crept up my thigh where he’d placed his hand. I leaned into him, feeling his magic wash over me. When I found myself moving closer and coveting his magic, I inched back and turned away. I wasn’t sure it was just his magic that I wanted.
“I think you should move.”
His lips wisped over my cheek, then he moved back to his chair. Sinking back against the comfortable looking leather, he steepled his hands. “Were there any parts of the AC left?”
“Nothing. We looked.”
If even a broken piece was left, we could have traced it using the chlorophyll in the plant. Anything that lived had a life source.
“Someone disabled a Klipsen ward that was protecting it,” I told him.
“Who do you know that shares my interests in collections and is, due to your intervention, immune to magic?” he inquired, brow raised.
He responded to my scathing look of suspicion with a knavish smirk and picked up the cigar.
“The Alpha is no less of a collector than I am,” he reminded me. “He has a reputation for accumulating things he doesn’t really want or need, which is where we differ. I might not need it, but I will want it.”
Were we still talking about the AC?
Scrutinizing him, I wondered if he really suspected Asher or whether he was Ms. Harp-ing him. I made her a verb, because she deserved it.
“Shifters can go through wards, but there was a trigger on the ward. Once the ward was disturbed, the sleep pods would have broken open. Aside from the garden itself, nothing was disturbed.”
Mephisto traced a finger along his lips, uncertainty in his eyes as he listened to the measures we had taken.
“Cory’s questioning any witches that he believes can disarm a Klipsen ward. He’ll use a herba detection spell to determine the existence of plant life.”
“It will probably be positive in most witches’ homes,” Mephisto pointed out.
I nodded in agreement, but we were working with limited options and not a lot of leads. His sigh encompassed exactly how I felt. There was a long considering pause before he spoke again.
“I suppose you don’t want me to intervene in this matter between you and Landon.”
“No,” I said too quickly. “I’ll figure something out.” I had been brainstorming since I’d left Landon, in the event I couldn’t find the AC. I had to offer him something just as appealing.
“Is there an antidote or a counterspell to the AC?” I asked Mephisto. Nothing in my research had revealed anything.
“No, that’s the draw of it. Nothing can be done to reverse it. Death is imminent.”
That’s what I’d figured. If there were countermeasures, Landon would have discovered them before I had.
After thanking Mephisto, I stood to leave and so did he. He laced his fingers through mine as though it was the most natural thing for him to do.
In silence we navigated through the lounge. Mephisto stopped by the host to retrieve a beautifully decorated bag bearing the lounge’s name. Cigars, I was sure. When he walked me to my car, he seemed distracted.
“I need something from you,” he admitted.
“What?”
He slipped his hand from mine and pressed his finger to my temple.
“My brain?” I asked, bewildered.
“No, your memory. You said that you had access to the other Mystic Souls.”
“I don’t have access to it.”
“I know. And since you’re so secretive about it, I’m sure Asher is involved.” He didn’t even try hiding his discontent.
His hand found mine
again. I indulged in the scent of his magic the way he did the cigar. I snapped myself back once I realized how close I had moved into him. It wasn’t fair. Knowing that I had restricted magic and eventually I’d have it did nothing to curb the desire, and again made me question if that desire extended only to Mephisto’s magic. My eyes dropped from his, not wanting him to read the complicated longing and thoughts on my face or see the malevolence that snaked through it. If I could take his magic without him stopping me, I would. Period. I wasn’t proud of it.
“Yes, Clayton seems to believe the book you had might contain the spell to remove your restriction. It would have to be an archaic spell.”
“We couldn’t read those. Madison was the only one who really looked at them. Once Cory and I realized we couldn’t decipher the language, we passed on them.” But Madison hadn’t. She had scanned the pages, convinced she could translate the spells.
“If she saw the pages, we can retrieve the information. Can she meet with Clay to see?”
Even memories of earlier failures with the book didn’t deter me. I was that desperate. I agreed. A little too enthusiastically.
He relaxed some. Did he think I’d say no?
“Good.” He didn’t give me the opportunity to ask more questions before he slipped from me. “Clay will contact you.”
Great. I wasn’t sure how fond Madison would be of Clay rooting around in her head.
CHAPTER 17
The morning after my discussion with Mephisto, the pale-yellow walls, the scent of lavender from the diffuser that inundated the air, and the peaceful hum of music coming from my speaker hadn’t done anything to relax me. The bedroom that I’d converted to a meditation room had magic books sprawled around my meditation cushion. I still scoured through my magic books hoping to find something, although I was doubtful I would.
Throughout my attempt to meditate, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mephisto’s accusations. No matter how hard I tried to redirect my thoughts, they remained on two things: There wasn’t an antidote or counterspell for Amber Crocus, and I didn’t have anything to bargain with if I couldn’t find it. And Asher could possibly be a player.
Nightsoul Page 15