“See ya.”
As the elevator came to a halt at the ground floor, I waited until I heard the door to my building slam shut and even after that, I waited another twenty minutes before I climbed into bed with the manila envelope and all of its contents. I trusted Asher not to use his little mind-bendy trick to make himself invisible and violate my privacy, but I still guarded the contents of that envelope like a dragon guarding his gold.
“Okay, Ty,” I murmured. “Let’s see what you left me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
My stomach knotted up as I removed the thick stack of photos and paper from the envelope. The first thought to cross my mind was that Ty must have assumed he’d be in custody for a quite a while because he’d left me with a ton of information. The first was a legal document giving power of attorney to Levi. Interesting. He’d put a sticky note on the document letting me know that for the time being, Levi would be handling all of his business, including his “contractors.” Guess I had a new handler for the time being…
The second bundle was paper clipped and at the top of the stack was a photo of an onyx disk that looked a lot like the poker chip I’d been given upon entering Kieran’s lair. I studied the image for a moment and removed it from the stack to find several pages of notes scrawled in Tyler’s handwriting. I skimmed over the information, research he’d conducted into Lorik’s mysterious debt. According to his notes, Ty had been working under the assumption that Lorik was holding a death marker.
I read on, making mental notes of pertinent information as I went. Apparently, if Lorik had indeed gambled his life away, he’d be in possession of a black chip like the one in the photo. It would be on his person at all times and bound to him so that when the debt was called in, he could be located easily. Whoever held the debt could use the chip as leverage, pretty much turning Lorik into a slave. Do the bidding of the holder, live another day. It made me question Lorik’s story about his immortality being gifted to him. Dollars to donuts, his long life had been forced on him and he’d been buying himself time by serving whoever held his marker for quite a while now. I shuffled through Ty’s notes and paused at the last page. He hadn’t finished his research but wrote three things: Motives? Connections? Stakes? And circled all three in thick black ink. Below the unanswered questions one sentence was scrawled and underlined three times: Who is the Rakshasa queen?
I refastened the paper clip to the stack and set them aside. He’d given me a jumping off point and if anything, Ty’s research indicated that I needed to be very careful around Lorik. If he was back in Seattle under orders from a big, bad supernatural, I could be in for a little more trouble than I’d anticipated. Especially if this mysterious Rakshasa queen was involved. The last thing I needed right now was do deal with yet another royal headache.
The next stack of papers was a mish-mosh of those “loose ends” he’d mentioned. A list of things he wanted me to take care of at his condo, a couple of sealed envelopes he wanted me to pass on to Levi and another for Marcus, one of his human employees who didn’t like me too much. That meeting ought to be fun. I set the envelopes aside and looked over another group of notes. More research, this time on Mithras. Ty had gone the extra mile, giving me too much to think about so I’d be distracted from trying to get him out of jail. He was one smart cookie.
For some reason, Tyler didn’t think that Mithras had anything to do with Lorik’s death marker. Rather, he was working on the assumption that Lorik had been sent to Seattle on business for the holder of his marker, but being the greedy, opportunistic SOB he was, had been on the hunt for a little side action. According to Ty’s research, Lorik had been in Seattle the entire six months I was away in O’Anel, giving him plenty of time to establish himself with the local criminal networks. He left me a note stating that if I had the opportunity for a face to face with the elusive Mithras, to take it. It might be my one and only shot. Gods amass power from the faith of their followers, he wrote. The old gods are weak and so is Mithras. Don’t allow him the opportunity to gather power. I guessed that answered my question about whether or not Mithras was the real deal. Ty suspected he was and so I was going to assume he was as well. Ty might not have been omniscient, but he was a stickler when it came to research. Any intel he’d gathered would be as good as gold. Lastly, he’d included a note from the client who’d requested proof of death, but Ty left it up to me to decide what that would be. I’d have to lay eyes on Mithras before I could make that sort of determination, though. And thanks to Lorik’s ambition and persistence, I didn’t have much longer to wait.
The last item in the stack was an envelope with my name on it. I held it in my hand, traced the letters with the pad of my forefinger. How could I sit here and pretend that this wasn’t the most fucked up situation ever? That Tyler being hauled out of The Pit in cuffs didn’t make me want to burn the PNT facility to the ground just so I could get him out of there. I’d made a promise to him that I’d let this play out, though. And no matter how badly it tore me up to do nothing, I refused to break another vow to him ever again.
My fingers shook as I broke the seal and pulled the folded paper from the envelope. Whatever he’d written, Tyler had taken his time. The words were scrawled in flawless penmanship, not the hasty scribbling of notes I’d finished poring over. I took a deep breath and leaned back on the pillows as I settled in to read. I could almost hear the tenor of his voice in the words.
Sorry to disappear with nothing more than a note. But you have to admit, I owe you one.
First of all, stop worrying. I know you’re climbing the walls right now, but there’s no need for it. Save your concern for something that really matters. This situation with Xander… This is nothing.
Man, did he know me or what? But asking me not to worry was like asking the moon not to glow. It wasn’t going to happen.
It’s funny, but I’m sort of glad that we have this momentary distance. Writing down what I want to say is so much easier and the time apart will give you an opportunity to process it. If I’ve learned anything over the past several years it’s that you handle stress best when given a little space.
Ouch. That one sort of stung, but it was true. Stress and I weren’t exactly friends and when I started to feel the pressure, the world closed in on me. That stupid distance gave me the room I needed to breathe. Whereas it made me sad that I put up walls to deal with bad situations, it also warmed my heart to know that Tyler recognized that need and respected it.
You’ve wanted answers, Darian. And I’m going to give you what I can. But please understand that I withhold things not because I don’t trust you. It’s because I’m trying to protect you from something that’s more powerful than you can imagine.
The Synod has been watching me for several years. To say that I swim against the stream is an understatement and it goes against the order the Synod has created. Just like the universe was created from chaos, the Jinn manifested from that same cosmic explosion. We are not finite creatures, Darian. We are made up of everything and nothing. We exist in the here and now, yet our souls stretch from the beginning of time and reach far into the future. There are times when I don’t even understand it all, which is why it’s hard for me to explain it to you now. Out of the chaos we found order. We are protectors and observers and we are taught to serve our charges but keep our distance. Even supernatural lives are fleeting in comparison to a Jinn’s existence, and attachment to a charge is discouraged. I followed the rules, and kept my distance for thousands of years.
Until I met you.
You’re only my second charge, Darian. When you don’t need my protection anymore, it will free me to be bound to another soul. But how can that happen when my soul is already pledged in love? How could I possibly protect another when you are woven into every fiber of my being? I wish I could explain it to you. I’m not articulate like Xander or straightforward like Raif. For us, the soul is not merely a spiritual thing. It is everything. Ty had underlined “everything” twice,
the paper smudged from the force of his pencil. Love, life, power…it’s all encompassing. We live by a code of selflessness, Darian, and to the Synod, loving another creature is selfish. It is perverse and corrupt and…weak. According to the Synod, feeling love compromises our ability to exercise control. You think you’re a control freak? You’ve got nothing on the Synod.
I could almost hear the laughter in his voice. Feel the warmth of his gaze on my skin. Adira told me that they weren’t meant to love the ones they protected. But wasn’t the very act of binding their souls to another an act of love? Wasn’t that selfless protection, that giving of themselves a very demonstration of the thing that was so staunchly forbidden? The Synod’s logic made no sense. Were they the high priests of detachment? Gods of apathy? Too holy and pure to sully themselves with emotion? Jesus. The very idea of Tyler being forced to repent for his emotional attachments made my stomach burn with anger and my heart clench with sadness.
My eyes blurred with tears as I continued to read. Maybe it was for the best that we weren’t having this conversation face to face. Simply reading his words had me slowly unraveling. Hearing them would have laid me low.
I told you that the Synod was afraid of me. But they’re more afraid of what I represent. Change. You’re not the only one who likes to buck the system, Darian. I’m so sick of the rules. Tired of following doctrine and dogma that makes no sense. Adira suffered because of it. You suffered because of it. And I refuse to let anyone I care about suffer at the hands of their asinine rules ever again.
When I thought of Kade, I turned inward, the pain of his abuse still so raw and fresh. He’d nearly destroyed me. And he’d done more damage to Anya than I could ever imagine. But I failed to recognize the hurt he’d done to Adira. What her involvement with him had cost her. And in the process, he had hurt Tyler, too. Those goddamned rules stood in the way of a quick and painless ending to Kade’s appearance in our lives. No wonder he was through playing nice. Those coveted rules of theirs had caused us all nothing but pain.
So, screw the Synod. Screw their rules. How do you contain unchecked power? You don’t. I refuse to be contained for another second. I’m telling you this now because they’ll be watching you more closely than ever. The Synod has been wary of our relationship from the first time I laid eyes on you, but because of the decisions I’ve made, they’ll try to get to you in an effort to control me through you.
They might use our separation as a window of opportunity. Merrick might come looking for you. He’s my friend, Darian, but he’s loyal to the Synod and I don’t know if I can trust him. If he makes an appearance, keep your guard up. And don’t utter a word of this to Levi. He’s too close to the Synod and he knows too much already. He’s a good kid, but I don’t want his loyalties to be tested. Should you come across Merrick, keep your ring hidden. Don’t let him see it. Speak of it to no one from this moment on. I know you’ve been to see Reaver. Prodded Levi for information he’s unable to give. Do not let the words Nys’Asdar pass from your lips. If the wrong person hears you, even I won’t be able to protect you.
No matter the distance between us, the ring will keep you safe. Remember, I’m only a wish away.
I love you, Darian. No one could ever love you more.
-Tyler
Tears spilled down my cheeks as I read Tyler’s letter again. I carefully folded the paper and held it close to my heart as I settled beneath the covers. There was so much for me to process that my head spun from all of the information and I knew that Ty had barely scratched the surface of what he wanted to tell me.
I’d been careless, poking around, searching for information when what I should have done was waited until Tyler was ready to open up to me. Who knows what sort of trouble I’d stirred up in going to both Levi and Reaver about Nys’Asdar. God, could I be any stupider? Reaver wouldn’t rat me out, though. There was too much at stake for the both of us if he did. I doubted that the Synod would be able to push his buttons easily. Levi on the other hand… What was his connection to the mysterious council of Jinn rulers? And if they decided to turn the screws on him, would he turn on Tyler? Me?
I caressed the ring on my thumb. The living, thriving force that Tyler promised would protect me. What in the hell was it? And why did it make me even more wary of making wishes than usual? Damn it, Ty. You’d better get yourself out of this mess. And before the Synod comes calling.
A shiver of energy ran from my thumb, up the length of my arm. What if there really was something trapped inside the ring like Reaver suggested? And what would it mean for me if it decided it wanted out?
I woke the next morning to find Asher camped out on my couch. I found it both a little comforting and a lot unsettling that he could drift in and out of my highly secure building like he owned the place. I mean, what if I’d decided to sleep naked? A studio didn’t offer a hell of a lot of privacy.
Before rolling out of bed, I tucked Tyler’s letter into my pillowcase. I gathered up the rest of Ty’s notes that were still scattered on my bed and slipped them back in the envelope. The only thing left out was the power of attorney for Levi, which I was planning to drop off at The Pit later on this afternoon. With any luck, Lorik would call soon to give me the details on our meeting with Mithras and I could cross one very big task from my to-do list.
After a quick shower, Asher greeted me from the kitchen bar as he dug into a colossal bowl of cereal. If he stuck around much longer, he was going to eat me out of house and home. “You sleep like the dead,” he remarked around a mouthful of peanut butter Cheerios. “It’s a good thing you’ve got triple the security because I swear, I could have set off a round of cannons in here last night and you wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Triple security?” I swore if he ate all of my Cheerios I was going to throttle him.
“Yeah. Your wards, Raif’s set up,” he grinned, “and me.”
“Well, thank god for that.” I grabbed a less impressive bowl from the cupboard and sat beside him at the bar. “Because I’ve been thinking for weeks that double protection isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
“Someone’s in a mood this morning,” Asher snarked as he shoveled in another bite. “And to think I was going to share some news about Tyler with you this morning.”
The box of Cheerios hovered over my bowl mid-pour as I turned to face Ash. “I will stab you with this spoon…”
“Jeez, take it down a notch Godzilla. You need caffeine to tame that violent streak of yours.”
He had a point. “Later. What’s going on with Ty? Is he okay?”
“Well, the PNT cellblock isn’t exactly a vacation destination or anything, but I don’t think you have to worry about anyone trying to hurt him, Darian.”
If the Synod was afraid of Tyler, I could only imagine how Adare and his colleagues regarded him. “You’re probably right. But that still doesn’t make this situation any less wrong.”
Asher shrugged. I knew whose side he was on and I wasn’t going to waste my breath trying to plead Tyler’s case. Especially since Ash was in a sharing mood. I’d promised to keep my distance and let Ty work this situation with Xander out on his own. I hadn’t, however, agreed not to spy on him.
“After I left here last night, I went back to the house. Raif was discussing the situation with the king and he was a little…louder than usual.” God bless Raif. He wouldn’t dare defy his brother, but he was still looking out for me. “Anyway, from what I could gather, Tyler reached out to his own people, looking for a diplomatic resolution since they’d already been made aware of the situation. The Synod refused to help him. For whatever reason, they seem to want him locked up as much as Xander does.”
Those rat bastards. It didn’t surprise me, though. “Tyler is the Jinn delegate representative to the PNT,” I remarked. “That alone should give him a little clout in this situation.”
“I don’t know anything about that.” Asher brought the trough he was using as a cereal bowl up to his mouth and slurped the milk from th
e rim. “A hearing has been set. Three weeks from today. Both sides will present their cases to the judicial council and they’ll decide what Tyler’s punishment will be.”
Not much different from human legal proceedings, really. Though in most cases, a human judge would give Ty probation and a week of community service for his first offense, I had to assume that the PNT’s judicial council wouldn’t be quite as forgiving. “What sort of punishment does assaulting a high king warrant?”
“Beats me,” Asher replied. “Public flogging? Dismemberment? Life in a cold stone cell? Beheading?”
Well. Wasn’t he a little ray of sunshine? “Care to offer up any punishments that weren’t popular in the sixteenth century?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Asher said. “Law and punishment aren’t my areas of expertise. I’m a soldier, Darian.”
After this, I was going to make sure I studied up on the PNT’s laws and punishments. It was time to buff up on all things supernatural. “Well, for what it’s worth, I appreciate the fact that you’re a sneaky little eavesdropper, Ash. Three weeks isn’t too long to wait.” Not when Xander could have put off the hearing for the sole purpose of making Ty suffer in that cell out of spite. “The downside is, you’re stuck with me for the next twenty one days. Sorry.”
“No worries.” He slurped the remainder of his milk from the bowl and leaned over the counter to set it in the sink. “Just throw a little action my way and I’ll be golden.”
“Well, you’re in luck, because I might happen to have a little action for you.” If he was going to be shadowing me for the next few weeks, I might as well put him to good use. Now that I knew that Lorik had a price on his head, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I hadn’t trusted him eighty years ago. There was no way in hell I was going to trust him now. “I’m working a job for Tyler, and if everything goes according to plan, I’ll be meeting my mark tonight. I don’t think I’ll be surrounded by friends or even allies. I’m thinking it’s not a bad idea to bring along some trustworthy backup.”
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