Her phone was in the living room in her jeans and knit, so MaLeila looked for something to cover herself before she dragged herself out of bed. Nika laughed from where she was sitting.
“My brother saw you naked last night so what do you need to be modest about? Certainly not for my sake. We’re both women, and it’s not like I don’t know what you two were up to.”
MaLeila put on her bra and panties anyway before going to the living room and grabbing her phone off the coffee table to text Bastet, who promptly replied that she was on the way, and Devdan, who didn’t reply. Devdan’s lack of response didn’t bother her. It could have meant anything because even when they were on good terms, Devdan was bad about answering his phone at all.
Devdan arrived first, just a few minutes after MaLeila had showered, put on clothes and made herself look decent. She shouldn’t care. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but she still had a hard time meeting the man’s eyes anyway, even without any evidence that she had sex with Marcel just the night before. MaLeila couldn’t imagine how awkward she’d feel if Devdan had gotten there any sooner, nor would she have known how to deal with his reaction whether it had been aloof indifference or overbearing protectiveness.
He sat on a stool next to the counter, eyes watching Nika who rather than be unsettled watched him in return, periodically looking at her phone as if it was going to explode every time it vibrated. MaLeila commented on it, more to cut through the tension in the air than it was to tease or mess with Nika.
Nika chuckled mirthlessly and replied, “You’re not that far off, except it’s not my phone. It’s the world.”
“Is it?”
“This thing in the Middle East with that sorcerer that just took over, it’s unsettling to the Magical Council and the powerful magic families to say the least,” Marcel responded before Nika could.
“Why is that?” MaLeila asked.
Nika pulled out another cigarette, the tip magically lighting without the aid of a lighter. Then she explained, “The leading families are afraid of what this means for them. None of them got into power through the pulling up of their own bootstraps as they would like the whole damn world to believe. They killed, murdered, manipulated, broke alliances and treaties and they live by the same principles today, so don’t ever be fooled by their so-called civilized snobbery,” Nika said rolling her eyes. “Everything that ever happened in the world, good and bad, if you go back and follow the thread through the knots and tangles the Magic Council or a greedy magic family had something to do with it.”
Nika didn’t need to tell MaLeila that. She had been on the receiving end of those manipulations more times than she appreciated and she was sure Nika knew it, so Nika’s comment must have been a preamble to something else, a nudge in the right direction.
“But the Magic Council and the magic families had nothing to do with this coup, did they?” MaLeila asked.
“So you are a smart girl,” Nika said. Then she turned to look at Marcel and added, “Guess you like her for more than just her pretty looks, huh brother?”
Marcel rolled his eyes, muttering something to Nika in another language. Nika only laughed and continued, “Anyway, they don’t take someone acting out of how they’ve predicted or manipulated them into acting lightly. It means they’re not in control.”
“So they’re afraid that Fathi is acting outside they’re control?”
“To make a long story short for you,” Nika replied.
“Or worse,” Devdan cut in, causing everyone to look at him. “They’re afraid he’s acting under the control of someone else more powerful and not on their radar.”
“Like Tsubame,” MaLeila stated.
Marcel shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But the council is certainly taking your inquiry about an unregistered sorceress more seriously now.”
“What are they going to do?” MaLeila asked. “What’s it got to do with Anya coming here and why do I need to speak to her too. I don’t know anything about Tsubame.”
It was Bastet, who had just walked into the apartment, that answered, “They’re going to try to quell the rest of the magic families first, make sure none of them pre-empt the rest of the magical world before they decide on a course of action. Probably send someone to talk and do damage control. With Russia first. The leading magic family there has never been happy about what’s going on in the Middle East, but they trusted the council and the western families to deal with it their way. Now they want to deal with it their own way because the last thing anyone wants or needs is for this thing with Fathi to escalate into another Hitler and WWII. I don’t blame them. It’s the reason I left the Magic Council to deal with the Cold War on their own after that.”
“Hitler was a sorcerer?” MaLeila asked.
“Him. Napoleon, the Huns. You name it. Rarely is there a major world conflict that doesn’t involve the magical world. Our world has ways of hiding our hand in history without erasing the players,” Marcel explained.
MaLeila started to ask more questions when suddenly she became aware of a presence at the other side of the front door, one that still made her tense, even if it had been years since she had been in the presence.
Nika glanced at the door and soon after it unlocked and fell open.
“Please,” she grumbled. “Let yourself in, Anya.”
Based on the flair of annoyance she sensed from the councilwoman, MaLeila guessed Anya was annoyed that no one came to the door to greet her. Then again, the woman was always haughtily annoyed about something every time MaLeila had been in her presence.
The mid-twenties looking woman with smoky topaz colored skin, a long face, sharply shaped eyes and eyebrows, and lips shaped like a bow sat on the love seat that was diagonally across from the couch. She went through her brown and golden tote and pulled out her tablet, scrolling through it as though they all weren’t waiting for her to acknowledge them.
“Okay Anya. Stop the fucking power play trying to make us know our place and that we aren’t much better than the fucking microscopic dust on your shoes. Tell us what the council wants,” Nika snapped.
Bastet snickered, muttering to Devdan, “I could get along with Marcel’s sister.”
Anya looked at Nika and then looked directly at Bastet before looking back at Nika and asking, “Did you brief them on the situation?”
Nika shrugged. “For the most part.”
Anya nodded and proceeded to say, “Simply put, the families want Fathi, along with Tsubame swiftly dealt with. We’ve already sent in spies to assess the situation further, see what prompted this coup without the Magic Council having any idea it was happening. However, that’s not enough for the families. So we’re going to have to send representatives over there personally to reassure them. Starting with the Romanov Clan in Russia. They have a lot of clout when it comes to the Russian military and government and we don’t want them to even begin to get any ideas and think of pulling those strings,” Anya added grimly.
“Nika was just over there. Why didn’t you just go ahead and send her before you let her catch a flight all the way to the states?” Marcel asked
Nika answered before Anya could saying, “Because neither the Prime Minister nor Dmitriy Romanov appreciate being told what to do by a woman who takes no bullshit. Even if it’s on behalf of the council.”
“I can attest to that,” Bastet muttered.
“So you’re sending me on a mission to quell Dmitriy’s worries. You could have called me to tell me to do that,” Marcel pointed out. “So why are you here?”
“Because she’s here to see me,” MaLeila said. “Right?”
MaLeila wasn’t surprised when Anya nodded her head. She had thought it was weird that the woman was making a trip over just to see Marcel and Nika when she could have just called them both in and they would have come to see the council. So it must have meant that Anya had come to see someone who no longer answered to or acted on summons from the council. That consisted of MaLeila herself, Bastet, and Devdan.
The council hadn’t bothered Bastet since the Cold War though, long before MaLeila was born, and apparently Devdan had done nothing to warrant the council’s attention. MaLeila had always found it suspicious that while the council bothered her for being a powerful black sorceress, they never seemed concerned about Bastet and Devdan who were users of powerful yang and yin magic respectively in their own right. After Devdan’s revelation earlier this week, MaLeila understood why. The council probably figured if they could control the master they controlled the slave. So when Devdan cloaked the entire city in temporary darkness for almost twenty-four hours in order to temporarily neutralize the powers of a demon trying to possess her and eat her soul from within while she found a way to banish it from her, she got the blame for the risk of accidentally exposing their world. And when Bastet caused a small earthquake to soften and create cracks in the ground in order to swallow up the storm of a sorceress who could control the rain and wanted MaLeila’s powers to control other forces of nature, MaLeila distinctly remembered the council reprimanding her and whining about all the money they would have to pay in order to fix the damage caused by the disaster. Had she been the only one that hadn’t known about the fact that Bastet and Devdan were bound to her?
MaLeila pushed the flare of annoyance and anger that had built within her aside as she dryly said to the woman, “What did I do now? You’re really going to have to tell me because it’s been so long since you made a visit I was beginning to think I had done something right for once.”
“It’s not what you’ve done for once. It’s what you can do.” Before MaLeila could ask what Anya meant by that, she continued, “We want you to go with Marcel when he visits the Romanovs.”
MaLeila opened and closed her mouth a few times before laughing and saying, “You’re going to have to explain to me why after years of wanting nothing to do with me except to give me trouble you suddenly want to embrace me into your loving arms. Sorry if your intentions are good and I’m just being difficult, but I can’t help being a little skeptical.”
“With good reason,” Devdan cut in before Anya could answer MaLeila. “What better way to show the Russian Clan that the council and the western families have the situation under their perfect control than to flaunt how another thorn in their side is under their control because she’s fucking a council representative?”
MaLeila resisted the urge to cringe. So much for Devdan not knowing she’d slept with Marcel after all. Or maybe he was just assuming. Either way, MaLeila hoped she didn’t look as uncomfortable as she suddenly felt.
“That’s certainly not how the magic council sees it,” Anya argued.
Devdan cut her off before she could continue. “Bullshit. Save your fucking noble causes and explanation and so-called change of heart for someone who doesn’t know how you operate.”
“Devdan,” Bastet sighed while rolling her eyes with her thumbs in the pockets of her jeans.
“By all means. Go ahead and give it to Anya politically correct,” Devdan muttered.
“How about you let me hear her out and let me decide for myself before you come to my rescue?” MaLeila asked dryly.
“Not coming to your rescue. Just saving you the trouble of having to decipher what she means so you’re not under any illusions that the Magic Council wants you for your own merits,” Devdan shot back.
MaLeila’s heart began to race in anger, fingers beginning to clench into a fist as she breathed slowly through her mouth and said to Anya, “The council acts like I can just up and leave the country as though I don’t have school for the next six weeks.”
“You’d be compensated,” Anya assured.
“And I’d have to go to summer school. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks, Anya,” MaLeila said with a shrug. “You’ll have to find another way to get the Russian Clan to see that the Magic Council has everything under control.”
Anya regarded her the same way she always did when MaLeila casually disregarded the wishes of the Magic Council or wasn’t willing to bend over backwards to do what they willed like everyone else. It was that cool rage that one day promised to be unleashed on MaLeila if she ever gave the woman a need to unleash it.
When Anya finally turned away from MaLeila, she looked at Marcel and Nika, telling them that the council would want to brief them first before promptly leaving the apartment.
As soon as she was gone, both Bastet and Nika groaned simultaneously and said, “Bitch.”
Both looked at each other and then smirked in approval at each other before Bastet turned to MaLeila and said, “She’s going to come back after you graduate. She’s going to think that you bringing up school as your specific reason means you might be open to going later.”
“Maybe I am open to it,” MaLeila replied coolly.
“You’re kidding, right?” Bastet asked.
“No. I’m not.”
The tension rose in the air once again and for a while no one said anything, not even Marcel and Nika who exchanged a glance as MaLeila stared down Bastet and Devdan as if daring them to contradict her. After a few more tense moments, Bastet said, “You have anywhere we can talk in private, Marcel?”
“The guest room is down the hall,” he replied.
“Thanks,” Bastet said and nodded for both MaLeila and Devdan to follow her.
Once she closed the door behind them and cast a silencing loop on the room, Bastet wasted no time getting to the point.
“I get it,” Bastet began toward MaLeila. “I really do. You’re pissed off at us both. But just because you’re pissed off doesn’t mean you should flirt with the Magic Council to spite us.”
“I’m not doing it to spite you,” MaLeila snapped. “I’m doing it because I want to.”
“For what reason? Because trust me. Being the Magic Council’s bitch is not all the magic council talks it up to be.”
“Maybe I want to find out for myself instead of taking your word for it. Hell, you lied to me about the binding. You’re still lying to me about Claude. Maybe you’re lying to me about how bad the Magic Council is too.”
“They let rogue magic users attack you on a frequent basis,” Bastet deadpanned.
“That’s not the point. The point is I want to explore the magical world for myself, do something for myself without anyone else dictating what I should and shouldn’t do because that’s all I’ve been doing since I got Claude’s old staff and his book when I was twelve,” MaLeila said, voice raising towards the end.
Devdan decided to speak at that point, a mirthless chuckle preceding his comment. “We’re the ones subjugated to you. You can do whatever the hell you want.”
“No. I really can’t. Because no matter what I do, I’d be forcing you and Bastet along the way, whether you want to or not. You’re invested in this because you have to be. Because you all don’t have a choice, and neither do I,” MaLeila snapped and that was when she made her decision, when for the past few days she had been agonizing over it.
“School was only one of the reasons I told her I couldn’t go. But the other reason was you two. I might be mad, but I’m not cruel enough to drag you two across Europe against your will if you don’t really want to go, if there’s no way I can know you really don’t want to go because you’ll be forced to come anyway,” MaLeila muttered and then added, “You’ll come anyway.”
It used to bring her some sense of comfort that these two, even Devdan for all his harshness and sometimes cruelty towards her, would seemingly follow her to hell and back. Now she could only see the magic chains that bound them together and dragged them down with her.
“What are you trying to say girl?” Devdan asked. It was the first time in years that he called her girl. Girl was impersonal. Girl created distance between them and for the first time, it didn’t bother MaLeila.
“I’m going to break the binding.”
14
If there was one thing Tsubame had learned over the years, it was that the surest way to get a man to act irrationally was to get
between him and his dick—or more specifically, to interfere with him fucking a woman. They would fight, they would kill, they would revolt, they would risk dying, they would risk everything if it meant the humiliation and the annihilation of the person that got between them and a woman. It never failed. And Fathi had been no exception.
It took no more prompting from Tsubame. Once she had done her initial meddling, all it took was for Fathi’s and Ahmed’s relationship to take the natural course it would have eventually taken once Fathi got tired of owing and being subjected to Ahmed in the next few years. Tsubame didn’t know the entire story, nor did she care to find out even though she could have if she wanted to. All she did know was that after a couple of weeks, Fathi confronted her about the rumors and her answer had been simple. While he favored her and the other soldiers respected him so much that they didn’t seek her comfort, he did not own her and she could still choose to be with whom she wanted, especially when Ahmed was his superior. She had carefully chosen her words, purposely specifying that he didn’t own her instead of saying no one, saying that Ahmed was his superior and not just in ranking, knowing that his inferiority complex would set him off.
Two days later, Ahmed was dead, and the first thing Fathi did, before the body was even cold, was call her to him and inform her that he certainly owned her now. She didn’t argue with him, didn’t even let her body posture or expression show defiance. She did slightly raise her eyebrows and lift the right corner of her lips in a smirk more than a smile, something that Fathi took as a challenge before proceeding to assert his power and prove that he did own her.
Under the threat of death, the news didn’t leave the compound while Fathi asserted his authority and superiority. That was the thing about people with inferiority complexes. Once they made themselves the superior, they became just like if not worse than those that oppressed them. With that in mind, Tsubame contemplated her next movements. The ultimate goal was for her was to publically get the Magic Council involved, even pull in some of the other magic families, force them to get their hands dirty instead of letting pawns do it for them, risk their positions so that when the time was right Tsubame could sweep in and usurp them all. But as long as exactly what was happening was happening, they wouldn’t interfere, even once Fathi revealed that he was in power. They would certainly be concerned and send spies to check on the situation, but once they ascertained that there were still rebels—both non-magical and magical—willing to fight his regime also, they would turn a blind eye yet again. So Tsubame set her tasks to manipulating Fathi into doing something different than his predecessors.
The Immortal Queen Tsubame: Awakening Page 14