Snared (Kaliya Sahni Book 2)

by K. N. Banet

  “I’d be willing to help—”

  “You can’t help me with this,” I said finally, closing the chest to cut off his offer. I put it away while Raphael sat there, staring with wide eyes. “I just wanted to show you.”

  “I went into your office earlier,” he said finally. “I saw your…board, like you did at the condo. Is all that trying to find out who’s killing the nagas?”

  “Yup.” I closed the trap door and fixed my rug. “I thought I told you not to go in there the first time I brought you here.”

  “I forgot because I’ve been in there before. When I watched you charm that snake.”

  I looked up at him, narrowing my eyes. I had forgotten about that.

  “Well…” I crossed my arms, staring at the big man still sitting on the edge of my bed. “Now, you’ve opened up to me, and I’ve opened up to you.”

  “Yeah, look at us. Everyone is trying to kill us, yet we’re closer than ever.” He grinned, and I couldn’t help but smile a little, just a little. “We should do this more often. Maybe one day we’ll be friends.”

  “A cold day in hell, I think is the Christian saying,” I said, shaking my head. He chuckled and didn’t move. He was right. Since the moment the explosion wracked the prison, and I realized he was over me, shielding me, we were closer than ever. I felt like I could talk to him, and he took it all in stride, everything I threw at him.

  Something was changing in him.

  “What else was down there?” he asked, gesturing to the rug and speaking quietly.

  “Books of legends…well, legends to humans. They’re our tales. Our stories. Our truths,” I answered. “One day, I might let you read them.”

  “I would enjoy that. I always loved mythological studies in school. I’m a Roman Catholic, but…there’s something about other religions and cultures I’ve always been really interested in.”

  “Be careful. You have those pesky things called the Ten Commandments. Doesn’t one of them say something about no other gods or something?” I couldn’t help but smile.

  “‘I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me,’” Raphael recited dutifully. “It’s the First Commandment, actually.” He looked away for a minute, then down at his hands. I wondered what was suddenly on his mind. As I watched him, I realized one strange thing since he and I had started living together—he had stopped going to church. I didn’t see him pray, and I never saw a Bible in my condo.

  Something is bothering him, and it’s going to bug me now.

  “Raph—”

  “What’s next?” he asked suddenly.

  If he wants to avoid it, I’ll let him. It’s not my business to pry.

  “We wait for one of two things. The Tribunal tells me where Levi is, and we go get him, or we head out for the prison again at dawn.”

  15

  Chapter Fifteen

  At dawn, I had no word from the Tribunal about the coven or Levi’s location, which meant the prison was our objective. Raphael and I loaded my BMW up and pulled away from my home, heading back for the prison. The ride was silent and dark, even though I knew the sun was out. It was just behind the looming dark clouds pouring rain on everything. I was getting alerts on my phone about flash flooding in different areas of Phoenix.

  “The coven needs to find him faster,” I said softly, watching the road as the rain came down.

  “Agreed,” Raphael said softly.

  Nothing more was said. There was nothing else to say. I knew I could ask him about earlier, but I didn’t want to.

  Well, I do, but how the hell does someone broach that sort of topic? It’s not my business.

  But it felt like it was. That’s what friends did, right? Asked about each other, made sure everything was okay. The issue wasn’t if there was a problem, it was if Raphael considered me a friend who could ask those things, and I didn’t feel up for rejection. So, I drove in silence.

  “Do you pray?” he finally asked with Phoenix far behind us. We were nearly at the prison.

  “No,” I answered. “I haven’t prayed for a long time.”

  “Why?”

  “The gods didn’t answer.” I was a generally honest but not open person. I had opened up to Cassius a long time ago, and now, here I was, opening up to Raphael. The parallels between the two men were something I kept running into. They were both moral, good men. Because I knew they would keep my secrets, I felt more comfortable with them.

  “I noticed you haven’t…been overtly religious since we met.”

  “He never answered either,” Raphael whispered. “Sorry. Earlier really put me in a mood.”

  “It happens.” I knew that all too well. It was easy for the changes in life to throw you off balance, especially when you look back and see just how much it changed. When I was in my thirties, I had that moment. It paralyzed me for what felt like weeks. For the first time in twenty years, I had spoken to Adhar and realized I wasn’t the little girl he remembered and never would be again. I had fundamentally changed, and it finally caught up to me.

  “Who would you pray to if you could pick someone right now?” he asked, leaning back more comfortably in his seat. Since we got in the car, he’d been stiff, and I took his relaxing as a good sign he was getting back to normal.

  “Kali, if I wanted to draw on strength. Vasuki for things naga related. There are so many options. It all depends on what I would pray about; that’s how I’ve always decided.”

  “I’ve heard both those names. Kali shows up a lot in pop culture, and Vasuki was the…” Raphael snapped his fingers. I was impressed he was taking time to learn things about my culture, almost touched. The last time I spoke to anyone who took such an interest was decades ago. Cassius never asked, but I knew his reasons. He’d known, just as I did, that our relationship would never last, and we both had tried not to get too invested.

  “Vasuki, the serpent king,” I finally said for my roommate. “The king of the naga. If I wanted more feminine prayer, I could pray to Manasa, the goddess of snakes and Vasuki’s sister.” I shrugged. “But I don’t pray anymore. I figured if they wanted to look out for our kind, they would have started doing so a long time ago.”

  “Do even the famous nagas get reborn? Like the gods?” Raphael watched me intently. I was almost a little mad he’d thrown me into my own origins and not told me more about his problems.

  “Raphael…all nagas are technically gods. Well, we’re considered divine because of our origins, and that’s how we’re classified in the Archives,” I smirked. “Kaliya of legend, Vasuki, Manasa…we’re all just one of the thousand. Some of the ancient names have stuck around, embodying beliefs, and we can only hope their souls in the afterlife listen, or one day they’ll be reborn and answer our prayers. Not all nagas were equal. Some rose up and had more power.” I was still smirking as his eyes went wide. “Don’t be too alarmed. We’ve lost a lot of our power over the centuries.”

  “What kind of powers?”

  “The ability to be…a monster,” I said, not finding a better word for it. “Nagas could once possess many different forms, from human-like to full snake and a lot in between, depending how powerful the naga was. Some think we’ve lost it because we’ve bred with humans.”

  “So, like Wesley turning into a movie werewolf, you could become some…half-snake, half-human thing.”

  “Possibly, but no one has that power anymore.” It would be nice. In that form, a naga was at its most powerful. If I could do it, I wouldn’t have had a hard time with Sinclair. I wouldn’t be fragile like a human or crushable like a normal snake.

  “Now, back to you. If we’re playing twenty questions, it’s definitely your turn. Why have you really stopped praying?”

  “Of course. Yeah…I was raised Roman Catholic, but I only really started praying and being devout when I was on the run.” He sighed and turned to look out of the window. “I thought maybe it was my lack of faith that turned me into a monster. But God never answered my prayers.
You showed up. I’m still whatever I am, we’re in danger again, and I’ve killed people…”

  “I found you at a church,” I pointed out. I wasn’t going to be the person who discounted a foreign god. I was more than willing to scream bloody murder at my own, but no one else’s.

  He turned and frowned at me. I only shrugged.

  “I found you on your way to Mass, actually. Who knows? Maybe your god had his fingers on the scale.”

  “Thanks for trying, but…I think I’m done with it. Religion and everything my mother taught me just made or makes me feel bad for…everything, even the shit that’s not my fault. I’ve been thinking about it for months, and you know…I think I’m just going to avoid it from here on out. Since I stopped going, I’ve stopped drinking.”

  “You know, the guilt and morals don’t go away just because the faith does. You were raised by obviously good people who taught you killing is wrong. Mind you, I think there’s a grey area, but that’s not the conversation. Your god didn’t teach you, those around you did. Just like those around me taught me that murder is wrong, but killing to protect myself or stop a great evil is fair game.” I shrugged again. “At least, that’s my perspective. Beliefs change, too. After a hundred and seventeen years, mine have changed a few times. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “You are incredibly wise for being such a train wreck,” he said, chuckling after a minute.

  I couldn’t stop myself from snorting, trying to hold back a laugh. I lost in the end, laughing with him. I was a fucking train wreck when it came to a lot of things.

  “Thanks,” I eventually got out as my laughter died. “I’m a mess, I know. A literal disaster walking.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a beautiful disaster, so I guess you can have a pass,” he teased.

  “You think I’m beautiful?” I needed a minute to process the words, but once I did, I couldn’t bring myself to just be quiet. The taste of his arousal on the air in my kitchen came back with a vengeance at the very slim chance; maybe I had been the reason for it.

  Calm down, biology. That’s not fair.

  “Who doesn’t?” Raphael countered. “Cassius obviously does because he used to be with you. Sorcha was hitting on you hard, inviting both of us to join them.” He must have seen something on my face because I saw a light blush begin to tint his cheeks. “Yeah, Kaliya, you’re stunning. It was one of the first things I noticed about you when we met. A guy with eyes doesn’t miss a woman with a body like yours, and I know I called you an old lady a couple of times, but the white hair works on you. It doesn’t make you look old, it makes you look more fucking gorgeous than I think you’re allowed to.”

  “You know how to make a girl confident in herself,” I said, looking back at the road, knowing it should have stayed my focus. We were on the edge of the storm now, which made driving a lot less precarious. I was getting overconfident on the road. “If we’re going down this route to kill time on this drive, do you want to tell me why your girlfriends used to call you Dom?”

  “My middle name is Dominic,” he said, that blush growing.

  “Hmm.” I wiggled my eyebrows, glad to have turned it around on him again. “Is that the only reason? Because a nickname like Dom when it comes to women…”

  “Let’s say I had a reputation,” he finally admitted. “Not that I’ve gotten laid in years, so it’s not a big deal. It’s not like I’m a ladies’ man anymore or anything.”

  “What kind of reputation did you have?” I liked having him in the hot seat, and the whole Dom thing had stuck out to me when Paden told me about him. I was too curious for my own good. My fangs had dropped the moment he called me beautiful, and I was trying to dive into the deep end.

  “Not a good one. What about you? I know about Cassius, and you drunk hit on me. Does alcohol always…uh…” He couldn’t finish, but I knew what he was trying to ask teasingly. Did alcohol always make me horny? It was pretty common. He didn’t know I normally drank a lot whenever I planned on having sex.

  “I have a bad history with alcohol and sex,” I finally said, my fleeting good mood slipping away. “I’m still sorry about that.”

  “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings. When I was younger, I would have said yes, but…I want my first time in a decade to be sober.”

  “You didn’t.” He never had explicitly turned me down, just stared at me in confusion as I realized he wasn’t going to take the offer.

  Have I ever had sex sober? Even with Cassius?

  Sex and I had a difficult history. It started when I was trying to sneak into a really seedy black market, not the well-known fae-run Market but a little alley in some Chinese city where I knew people were selling things they shouldn’t have been. I was seventeen and tried to flirt my way into information, tried to use my body to get what I wanted.

  I lost my virginity to a guy who called my bluff, drugged me, and sold me to his friends by the hour for two weeks until he decided I was too used. Then he sold me at auction. I spent the next six months tied down or drugged out of my mind, kept in the back room of some guy’s mansion in the countryside. Hisao found me while he was there for other reasons, killing the guy who bought me for his own purposes. When I met the assassin, I actually asked him to kill me. He didn’t, instead taking me out of there to his home in Japan. The first year I spent with Hisao was just recovering.

  It had been another thirty years before I let someone see me naked sexually. I remembered getting incredibly drunk because the idea of sleeping with the guy was so tempting but impossible. I had frozen up. Five drinks later, I had loosened up enough to go through with it. The sex had been decent, and I didn’t cry or puke the next morning. I wasn’t covered in bruises, which had been a major positive.

  My hands tightened on the wheel as I remembered how Paden told me to seduce Raphael to get his trust. The thought, even now, made me sick to my stomach.

  “Are you okay?” Raphael asked softly. I blinked as I felt one of his large warm hands touch my shoulder.

  “I’m fine. Just got lost in thought.”

  “You looked like you were about to be sick.” The concern in his voice was touching. “Do we need to stop?”

  “Nope.”

  “Kaliya—”

  “You aren’t the only person who’s lived through some bad shit,” I finally hissed. “And…yeah, the conversation…Sorry, you’re not…I’m not angry with you.” I shook my head, unable to continue.

  “Shit…I had no idea…” I felt him retreat. He was a smart man. He could put two plus two together. The awkward silence that followed was weighted with painful implications. Part of me felt like I owed him just a little more, but deciding what to say was hard.

  “I made mistakes and paid for them. Hisao got me out, and for that, I’ll never be able to repay him. Let’s just…focus on the prison,” I finally whispered, looking ahead and keeping my eyes there, trying to ignore the taste of bile in the back of my throat. It had been a long time since I had such a reaction to my old traumas, but it didn’t surprise me. They liked to raise their ugly heads whenever I was least expecting them to.

  An hour later, I was feeling better, and it was perfect timing.

  “We’re here,” I announced, speeding through the barrier. It didn’t bother either of us this time, and there was no one waiting. The security system was going to need repair in the coming weeks. Thinking about the current problem again was enough to focus me as I parked. When I got out of the BMW, I saw Korey was already waiting at the prison’s entrance.

  She straightened as Raphael and I walked closer. I could see she was riding the edge of a Change, her eyes not a human brown but a light brown that seemed to glow. Her wolf eyes were watching me carefully.

  “Executioner, as I told the Tribunal, we have everything under control here and can perform our own—”

  “You’ll tell me what I want to fucking know, or I’ll give the pack here their third Alpha in twenty-four hours,” I snapped.

  16
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br />   Chapter Sixteen

  The way her face paled told me my hostility hit home. I was agitated because I wasn’t feeling well. I could have written it off as stress, but in reality, thinking of my past and my problems had put me in a worse mood than was really called for. Luckily, I could use it as a weapon.

  “Excuse me, but—”

  “No buts this morning, Korey. I did as you asked. I left the prison to get word out to the Tribunal about the breakout. A defensive plan has been enacted. I’ve been asked to gather information for whichever Investigator they choose to pursue this issue. I’m their eyes and ears right now. I’m also going to be out killing later in the day once they find Levi and whoever else may decide to cause mayhem in my region. This is a shit show, and you’ll bow your fucking head to the power you serve. Let me do my job, and you might get to keep yours for longer than a day.” I didn’t have the time or patience for stonewalling. Knowing my luck, Eliphas was probably arguing with the Tribunal at this exact moment, saying my visit was unnecessary. The prison liked to run itself with little oversight other than occasional reviews.

  I was about to get all up in their shit.

  “Fine. Come inside, and I’ll get our records and whatever else you want,” the wolf finally acquiesced.

  I let her go in, waiting a moment to finally look at Raphael.

  “Don’t trust anyone,” I whispered.

  “Do you really think it was an inside job?”

  “You don’t?” I raised my eyebrows, surprised he hadn’t already considered it. I had assumed it was since the moment it happened. “They don’t allow visitors here, and anyone working from the outside would have been noticed coming in the magical barrier, if not stopped by it. It had to be someone on the inside.”

  He nodded before he stepped ahead of me, grabbed the door, held it open, then stepped in behind me. We practically marched through the torn-up prison. There were scorch marks on the walls in some areas, blood splattered on others.