Charlie’s face softened, and she stepped forward, away from the angry male, and laid a hand on Jared’s shoulder. “We can’t risk going into Xerxes’ territory. We’re barely holding on here.”
“Manda is my niece. I will help you do anything you ask, but I need more than Jared with me to rescue her from Xerxes. With my skill set and your knowledge of him, we can do this.”
“Niece? Skill set? What are you?” Charlie stepped away from Jared and studied me carefully. “You say vampire, but the only vampire I know with a heartbeat is Eira. Were you mated to an Elvin, too?”
I blinked, and my breath caught in my throat for a split second. Another hybrid? “I was Djinn before I became a vampire.”
“Godric.” Calliope stepped closer, as if her presence would protect me from the simmering rage of the two Lycans before me.
“You’re part of this. A spy for Xerxes.” Charlie’s mate lunged, but I didn’t give him a chance to lay a hand on me or Calliope.
I grabbed her arm and teleported a few feet away. No need to hide now. They didn’t care about Manda. They wouldn’t believe me. I never expected them to. But I’d had to try. I could at least tell Asa I’d tried. Then she could shame me for living up to the empty potential my family had thrust upon me four thousand years ago.
“What are you doing?” Calliope said once her feet were firmly on the ground again. “I told you no blinking. Now everyone knows.”
I scanned the silent crowd in the courtyard. Their eyes told the story. Hatred. Distrust. My niece was doomed, if these were the people I was supposed to ask to help me. Asa was chasing a lost cause.
Chapter 17
KILLÍAN
Get them out. That’s all that mattered right now. Taking care of these people. Getting them to safety meant I could get my mate to the safety of Veil sooner. I didn’t care how much more blood had to run through the streets of Sanctuary, as long as it was the enemy’s.
I moved silently through the alley behind the café, sword drawn, ready for anything. But there was nothing.
No Djinn.
None of Xerxes’ wolves.
Nothing to kill. Nothing to punish.
This town had been a haven. A place of peaceful existence and strength. A family of sorts for me after moving into the town with Eira. And now…
Burned wood and tar filled the breeze, at least half the town had been decimated before Jared had controlled and doused the flames. But the smell…gods, the smell was rancid. Death and blood hung in the air with the smoke. It choked out everything familiar and good.
We needed a fresh start. We needed something that was ours to fight for. There might very well be a fight waiting for us in Veil, but I was ready. At least the land there would belong to us again. Not to the humans of this Earth.
I turned a corner and came upon the red steel door Eira had said to look for. I rapped on the metal with my free hand and took a step backward to wait for a response. A small panel opened on the right side of the door, and a pair of brown eyes peered out at mine.
“We need to get you to the castle.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Eira’s mate, Killían.”
“Come closer.”
I moved forward.
The eyes blinked. Then a female voice spoke tentatively. “I know you. Who else is out there?”
“No one. Others are clearing the last bunkers. You’re mine. We have to go now. The town is clear. We have to move you before they return.”
The small metal grate closed, and then I heard the large steel door groan under the pressure of someone pulling it. It started to slide slowly to the right, revealing an open warehouse-style room packed with at least thirty people. There were several pixies and brownies, easily distinguished by the metallic glint of their skin as the sunlight hit them. The rest were families and teens, mostly Lycan, if I had to guess. They outnumbered all other populations in the town.
Once they had all crowded out into the alley, I turned to the first woman who’d spoken. “Is that all? No other rooms we need to double check?”
She shook her head with a slow sigh. “It’s one big room. That’s everyone.”
I slid the big door closed so it wouldn’t be noticed by Xerxes’ soldiers. No need to let them know we’d been semi-prepared for an attack. Any edge in battle was better than none. The heavy steel grated against the concrete floor, having come completely off its rollers, and I winced at the painful sound. At least they’d gotten it closed, because something had hit this door hard trying to get in.
“Did they know you were inside?”
She nodded, and her whole body shuddered. “A family showed up after we’d shut the door. They saw us let them in. We got the door closed quickly, but they tried for a while to get inside. Thank the gods for the Drakonae welding on the seams.”
“Do you have a mate?” I asked, motioning to the group to move down the alley. No one stood with her.
“Not any more. He died in the fire at Ada.”
My stomach clenched like someone had gut-punched me. “You were one of Charlie’s survivors?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice nearly inaudible.
“I’m so sorry.” I knew what it was to lose the one person on the planet your soul desired. I’d lost Eira a thousand years ago only to find her again so recently. To be given a second chance had brought my soul back from the edge of darkness.
We moved along in silence after that, bringing up the tail end of the group as they crossed the street and headed up Avenue B toward Main Street Circle. Everyone was quiet. Even the children mixed among the adults were silent. The air had stilled, letting the burnt smell settle thickly between the buildings. I choked back a gag and upped my pace, eager to get back to the castle and check on Eira. My gut worried that she’d sent me on this errand and then snuck off to take care of something else. She was brave and strong and undeniably stubborn as a mule.
I needed that strength. She continued to pull my humanity forward one day at a time. I didn’t seek vengeance and death every day now. But in the midst of this war, I could feel the ugliness returning, and I wanted to escape it. I wanted to start over with her and our child in the mountains of Veil, away from everyone and everything. I wanted to focus on being the man she fell in love with and the man our child could be proud to call father.
I had to get these people to the castle.
We had to get out of Sanctuary.
The group reached the edge of Main Street and stopped. I pushed through the throng to the corner of the building and held my breath—as if that would keep a Lycan from hearing my heartbeat or a Djinn from sensing my hesitation. I saw movement to my right.
A group of people led by Bailey and Erick moved stealthily down the sidewalk toward the main entrance of the castle. Within a few moments, they were safely inside, and I choked down a shout when both Bailey and Erick appeared only a few feet away from me.
“You’re the last group,” Erick said, his Viking accent still present even after all these years in America—in Texas. “The others from both bunkers are safe.”
“Mikjáll is waiting at the door,” Bailey added, gesturing to the people at the front of my group. The woman I’d spoken with originally stepped forward first, urging a couple of teens along with her. The rest followed.
Before we reached the massive door, it swung open, revealing Mikjáll’s large frame and eyes glowing with the flame of his Dragon. He stepped across the threshold and motioned to the people to start filing through. It took a few minutes, but we all made it inside without incident. I glanced over my shoulder before entering the castle.
“No one is there,” Mikjáll rumbled, his tone low and slow. He watched over my shoulder, sweeping the Main Street area from left to right. “I would see their heat signature if there were.”
“It just feels—”
“The calm before the storm,” Mikjáll said, giving voice to the unease I felt deep in my gut.
“The people are safe
. We’re that much closer to going home. That’s what matters,” I answered, trying to brush away the instinctual feeling that something was coming…soon.
Mikjáll grunted and closed the door behind me. It slammed into place, and he turned the bolts then dropped the large steel and wooden beam into place to bar it further.
It would be easier for someone to hack through the thick stone wall than to try and break through that front door. A fact that should’ve been comforting if I hadn’t known we would be attacked by an army of Djinn and Lycans and human artillery.
“We need to know what he’s bringing with him. Do we have scouts out? Do we even know who’s in charge of the town? Of defense?”
Mikjáll rolled his neck and then shook his head. “Everyone’s just trying to sort through the wounded right now. You’re the only one giving anyone else orders.” He headed for the courtyard, and I turned toward the stairs. “Good luck with that,” Mikjáll called over his shoulder before disappearing into the shadowy hallway.
Good luck. Yeah. Cause luck is so helpful in war.
We needed a plan. Defenses. Something besides a teleportation blocking spell and a bubble of ice held in place by a grieving Dragon queen.
Chapter 18
XERXES
It was time to take the SECR. Manda had accomplished her task. All the generals and intelligence were meeting today in secret. At least they thought it was a secret.
In the span of a moment, we were standing in front of the SECR headquarters building in Savannah. Magick flickered and rippled dozens of times per second behind me as my Djinn troops maneuvered my Lycan and human ones into place. I bowed my head and breathed slowly, calling up my invisibility power—courtesy of the Kitsune serum. A side-effect unique to only me.
I opened my eyes and watched my arm disappear from view. Then the rest of my body followed, completely invisible to the naked eye. Heat sensors could still pick up on my form, but otherwise, I was invisible.
“Move forward, Cal. Savannah is ours, starting with the death of each and every person in charge of their government. The SECR falls today.”
“Yes, Master. And Manda?”
“Her fate and those in the room with her is mine to shape. No one touches her but me.”
“Yes, Master.” Cal nodded and spoke into a walkie, spreading the command. The roar of the Lycans and humans echoed through the streets. My personal Djinn guards pushed inside the headquarters, and I froze any resistance in place so that my men could gut them without breaking their stride.
We cleared floor after floor. Bodies littered the ground, and blood ran like water, soaking the carpets and slicking the tile floors. The sound of painful groans and scared men and women begging for their lives was but music to my ears.
Four of my guards stood in front of two closed double doors, swords drawn, waiting. I shuddered, letting the invisibility fall away so that I could be seen again.
“The summit meeting is inside, Master. They are waiting for you to arrive,” Cal stated calmly.
“Open it.” I motioned to the stationary guards. They complied immediately, swinging both doors open to the view I’d been waiting so long to see. All the hard-to-reach, paranoid men who ran the SECR sat at one table, lambs to the slaughter.
“They’ve been disarmed, General.” One of the Djinn spoke softly as I passed over the threshold into what they’d thought had been a secure and secret meeting.
“Gentlemen, I can tell you’re confused. I’m here to kill you all, just like I did in Washington. After today, the entire east coast will be under my control.”
Heartbeats skyrocketed. Sweat beaded on their foreheads. Even the smell of urine mixed into the glut of scents permeating the room.
“Manda.” I said her name forcefully, enjoying the full-body flinch she exhibited. “Come to me.”
She rose from her chair at the table and walked, head down.
I grasped her chin in my hand and stared down at her deadened eyes, but she didn’t look away. Didn’t cower. A smile spread across my face. There was still a trace of the fighter she’d been. This was going to be even more fun than I’d thought. Time to teach her she’d never win, once and for all.
“Let’s get started, shall we? Who here has yet to fuck Ms. Farrok’s mouth?” I glanced at the multitude of reddened faces of her supposed colleagues and then back to her. “You’ve been quite the busy girl. Her pussy is nice, too, but there’s just something about this one’s mouth that does it for me.”
I turned to face the closest man at the foot of the table. “What about you? Pussy or mouth?”
The man’s jaw trembled, and the stench of urine soiled his pants. I lifted my hand and squeezed the air, using my magick to strangle and snap his neck. No fun to be had with that one. I preferred a little more backbone.
“Let’s try another, shall we, Mandana?” I slid my hand from her chin to the back of her head and wrapped my fingers in her silky black hair. I turned her head to the next man at the left side of the table. “What about this one? Have you sucked his cock? Licked his balls? Did you win him to your side?”
I grasped the front of her suit jacket with my free hand and ripped it away, along with the front of her silk blouse. “Maybe he just needs to see your tits to remember. Did he fuck your tits, too?”
She trembled, but still didn’t speak.
“What about your pretty pussy. Did he like all your piercings?”
“Sir, what is the meaning of this. Who are you? Manda Farrok is our Secretary of Defense. This is disrespectful and disgusting. I demand you unhand her and leave this building before we are forced to arrest you.”
I turned to the speaker. A large man, nearly my height stood just to my right. “So she has licked your balls, then.” He reddened, and I smiled. I tore away the rest of Manda’s clothing, leaving her tanned skin bare for all to see. Every scar. Every bruise. And shoved her to the floor. Her knees hit with a hard thud.
“I am Xerxes. I am your god.” The men in the room gulped nearly simultaneously. Good. They knew who I was. Manda had no doubt regaled them with my terrifying actions through history.
I pointed to the man who’d dared to give me orders. “Be a good bitch and suck his cock.” Manda crawled slowly forward. No glance over the shoulder. No hesitation. Blind broken obedience. Just the way I liked it.
“No,” the man protested and took a step backward.
Manda froze in place, keeping her face pointed toward the ground. Her naked body hugged the carpet beneath her. She was nothing more than a trophy now, and she knew it. The SECR was finished. The men in this room would soon be dead. Whether they realized it already or not didn’t matter in the least to me.
Torture was always more entertaining than putting poor souls out of their misery. She was no exception. I pushed her farther and harder, hoping for those rare moments when her spirit would rise and she would fight against me. All so I could beat it out of her again. And again. And again.
“Fuck her mouth, or I’ll cut your worthless dick off right now.”
The man paled, undid his pants, and reached for Manda. Before he could force his limp dick into her mouth, he sailed across the room with a yell. I reached with my magick, but she was too quick. There and then gone. No rhyme or reason. I rushed forward to grab Manda, wrenching her up by her hair.
“I know it’s you, Asa. Give yourself up or watch me torture your daughter until she tries to kill herself again.”
The old Djinn queen didn’t come back, but that didn’t dampen my resolve. I slammed Manda’s face down onto the large meeting room table and kicked her feet apart.
“Once I catch your meddling mother, I’ll be sure you get to watch her die before I finally end your life.”
“Fuck you, Lamassu bastard.” She spit the words at me like snake venom.
“Maybe later,” I answered with a nonchalant smirk, pressing her head and neck harder to the table.
I looked up at the silent room. “You’re all going to die.”
I said, slowly turning my head and meeting the gaze of each and every SECR official in the room. “But you get to choose. Fuck this bitch and die a quick death. She did betray you to me, after all…or don’t, and my man Cal here gets to slowly disembowel you while you watch.”
Horror and disgust and anger and fear thickened the room like a fog, and Cal drew his scimitar. The stones in the long hilt glowed, speaking to their master’s hunger. But not a single man chose a painful death. And one by one, they fell into line, waiting for their turn to plow the woman they’d called a colleague only moments before.
Chapter 19
CALLIOPE
“Calliope!” My name boomed across the courtyard from Miles’ mouth. Good gods, it just wasn’t going to get better. “Who have you brought into our home? Someone informed me he is Djinn.”
I whirled from Godric, putting my body between the Dragon and my…nope, not going there. Can’t go there. “He’s not with Xerxes.” I couldn’t love him. Couldn’t care for him. It would only kill him sooner. Even if I couldn’t have him permanently, I intended to keep him safe as long as possible.
“So you don’t deny he is Djinn?” Miles stomped forward, rage making his eyes brighten with his Dragon’s fire.
I straightened to my full height and let my Siren come forward. “I don’t deny it. But I won’t let you hurt him,” I hissed right into Miles’s face.
“All Djinn are with Xerxes. You know this. He’s a spy. Move aside.” Miles reached forward to push me out of the way. Godric’s hand on my wrist tightened, and the world folded around us again. Fuck. My head spun, and then we were still again, this time on the opposite side of the courtyard.
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