by Hati Bell
He opened his personal entrance and stepped outside. “What’s taking you so long, Jade? I have to set the alarm.” He stopped dead in his tracks when he smelled the distinctive scent of burned flesh. It didn’t take long to recognize Jade’s body lying next to the dumpster. On her stomach, her head and back totally scorched.
Shit, shit, shit. There was only one creature capable of that. He was just about to go back inside for his titanium knife when he heard a sob.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…” Soft-spoken words, filled with regret after regret.
Double shit. He recognized that voice. Amber O’Neill sat against the wall opposite the dumpster, staring into space.
He cursed and kicked a garbage can. “Fuck, O’Neill! It’s like deja vu. A sick cosmic joke I ended up in. If someone finds out you couldn’t keep your burning paws to yourself, you’ll end up in the Catacombs. This is going to kill Drake.” He took out his phone and dialed Matteo. “Back entrance of the Oasis. Now.”
When he finally calmed down, he crouched down before Amber. He was a little worried, since she hadn’t reacted to his outburst. “O’Neill? Hello? Earth to O’Neill.” He waved his hand in front of her, but she had folded her arms over her knees and just rocked back and forth. He gave up eventually and got back up.
It took Matteo half an hour to show up. In a fucking Volkswagen beetle. The phoenix looked as if he’d been through the grinder. His fancy suit and silk tie were all wrinkled, as if an elephant had sat on them.
Logan jerked his chin at Jade. “Looks like your promesi killed her. If she weren’t my brother’s girl, I’d be using this situation to my advantage right now. Demanding a blood promise. Like you did, asshole.”
Matteo’s eyes slid from Jade to Amber. He looked grim, but far from surprised or even shocked. “Do not blame me for an idea you have put in my head yourself,” he chided. “When you took out that phoenix and goblin at the same time, it was like everything connected. You may actually have a shot against the Romanovs, once you see it from my point of view.”
He didn’t give a shit about Matteo’s point of view on how to save his sister. What was the saying again? No good deed goes unpunished. “So you fucked me over for helping you out last night when those phoenixes and goblins attacked your house? Won’t be making that mistake again, mate.”
He’d barely spoken the words when his next mistake showed up. Letitia Olsen sauntered outside, half-naked.
“Logan, querido, what is taking you so long? I want…” Her eyes widened as she saw the body in the alley. Silence and then a scream.
“Shit.” Just when he thought the situation couldn’t get any worse... Now what to do?
Matteo didn’t seem to suffer from any hesitation as to how to deal with a screaming human. Within two steps he’d reached Letitia and snapped her neck. “Are there any other witnesses?” he asked.
His cold-blooded action seemed to wake Amber from her litany of regret. She crawled back on her feet. “Are you insane?!”
“Tell me what happened,” Matteo said calmly.
Amber rubbed her arms, her fingers shaking. “Jade and I went into a fight, and then she attacked me.” She showed him her back, which had the marks of claws that had torn through skin.
“So you have killed the draconi in self-defense,” Matteo muttered. “This gives us three options. The first one is being open about what happened. Your case will go to court at the Tribunal. This could take months. You will go into detention until your trial takes place. The second option is the easier one: compensating the draconi’s family for their loss by giving them a large sum of money. The only catch is that they may not accept your proposal and demand you go to trial. I suggest you take option three: make all evidence of what happened disappear. So… are there any more witnesses?”
When Matteo’s eyes slid over Logan, he braced himself. “None other than me,” he said, a challenge in his voice. Only when the phoenix nodded did he feel himself relax.
Amber was shaking all over, her eyes wide. Clearly she was in shock, barely holding it together. “I killed Jade. You just killed that poor woman…”
“Do you want to end up in the Catacombs?” Matteo snapped. “This here is the reason why phoenixes are no longer allowed to mix with inferi, creating half-bloods. See, half-bloods do not have enough control over their fire for the first century. Which was fine in the old days when it was easy to cover something up. You can imagine how difficult that is in this day and age.” He took a deep breath. “You are lucky there are no more witnesses. If someone found out about this, Crassus would be forced to punish you.”
“So you won’t tell him?” Amber asked tentatively.
“Of course not. You are my promesi, which means your best interest is always my interest. I just wish she had been human; no one would have made a fuss over a human. Also, I no longer fall under Crassus’ jurisdiction, so to speak,” he said cryptically.
“So the rumors are true,” a voice suddenly sounded. Ravi stepped out of the shadows like some nightmare. He held a phone in his hand. His face sported a huge grin. A dozen goblins were at his back.
Logan cursed a streak. Their situation had just gone from bleak to fucking hopeless. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Ravi eyed Amber, who looked frantic. He tapped his phone against his chin. “I heard about the explosion near Turnpike. My sources told me it resembled a phoenix turning into ash. I went out to investigate, hoping to perhaps catch Drake again doing some more torture, perhaps having upped his game. Imagine my surprise when I caught Amber and Jade fighting. It was like a dream come true. I have it all filmed and I’ve already mailed it. The council has already sent out people to take her in.”
“Seth,” Amber said out of the blue, as if waking up from a bad dream. “Seth Croft tried to bury me alive. Namaka saved me but Seth stabbed him in the heart. He was the reason for the explosion, not Drake. Seth blames me for his mother’s death.” She started scratching her upper arms. “I told him I wasn’t to blame. That I’d never killed anyone.” A hysterical laugh left her lips. “I… I can’t say that anymore, can I?”
The dejection in her voice chilled Logan. The situation had officially reached DEFCON status. All she could do now was flee. “Time to show what you’re truly made of, firefly,” he said to Matteo. “Trace her away and explore option one and two. I’m sure you can hide out on a secluded beach on some private island before she’s found and has to go to trial.” The phoenix looked at his feet and suddenly it dawned on him. “You no longer can trace, can you? Those are the rumors Ravi meant.”
“As always, you are sharp as a tack. How did you know?”
“I’ve never seen you drive before. Also, if you were interested in cars, you’d be driving a red, sleek, Italian one, instead of a Volkswagen.”
Matteo gave Amber a sad look. “Crassus extinguished me last night for giving my life fire to an inferi without his permission. I have lost my fire and can not trace anymore.”
“Consequences,” Amber said softly. “That was what you meant when Faey wanted to help Cally. That’s the reason you didn’t respond when I called for you tonight.”
A shadow passed Matteo’s face and Logan wondered what other consequences were in store for the phoenix.
***
Drake threw open the door to Kincaid’s library. He’d turned the Dome upside down in his quest to find Amber, but had failed. The second Logan had called him, about thirty minutes ago, he had started to make plans. He was going to convince Amber to flee with him. If she didn’t listen, he would simply throw her over his shoulder and make her leave.
His grandfather sat behind his desk, talking to a corporate-looking man. A laptop was placed in front of him with a stack of papers.
“Where is she?”
Kincaid waved away the man until he’d left the room, and then shoved the papers toward Drake. “You are welcome.”
He walked to the desk, placed his hands on it, and leaned forward. “I want to
see her.”
“You will be happy to learn that the incident with Malcolm is resolved,” Kincaid said, after which he closed the laptop.
Drake felt like they were having two different kinds of conversations. “Don’t care. Where did you hide Amber?”
Kincaid leaned back in his chair, the epitome of relaxed. “My dear son-in-law actually believed he could change my legacy by taking you out and putting his own name on my front door. As if I would ever allow everything I have built to fall into the hands of a Fitch. It’s almost sad to see it all end so tragically for Malcolm, on the day he finally decided to show some balls. But that’s what you get when you’re a clownfish taking up against a shark; you get torn apart. Or, in Malcolm’s case, killed… in a street robbery. There’s a lesson in here for you, Drake.”
“Save it,” he barked. “Where is she?”
Kincaid put his hands in his neck and smiled. “Sengupta not only is an excellent businessman, but a punctual one at that. I see a lot of potential in him.”
Those words nearly made him lose it. “You handed her over to Ravi?”
“No, I merely fulfilled a promise to him. The White Shark in exchange for dirt on the O’Neill girl, the kind that would remove her from my chessboard. Quid pro quo.” His eyes narrowed, and his stance was no longer relaxed. “Cujo was a gift from Ariana. He was the ugliest mutt I had ever seen, but she fell in love with him instantly, adopting him from the animal shelter.”
For a second there he was speechless, his mind going back to when he’d slammed Kincaid’s dog against a wall. “You’re telling me you handed Amber over to Ravi out of revenge for me killing your stupid dog?” A dog that had nearly chewed his arm off when he’d attacked him.
“I can understand your surprise. My repercussion pales in comparison to what you did. Cujo was worth far more than a simple dryad. But to answer your question once more—no, I did not hand her over to Sengupta. My position as chairman of the local council would not allow me to do such a thing.”
Drake shook his head in denial. His hands were changed into claws and he kept his body in check with great difficulty. Him going bonkers would not help anyone. “If you haven’t handed her over to Ravi, then what did you do?”
Kincaid rubbed a finger over his goatee. “Miss O’Neill was put into custody until her trial date. She was held in the dungeons for a brief moment, but since she is dangerous, as chairman I used my prerogative to send her away. She’s traced to an island in one of the Seven Seas.”
THIRTY
Killer.
I’m a killer.
Amber heaved when she pictured the burned body again. She wiped her lips on her sleeve, and settled her back against the cold wall of Alec Kincaid’s dungeon. How had it come this far? How had she exchanged one type of prison for another and killed someone in the process?
She pushed her head between her knees and tried not to hyperventilate.
Killer!
The word echoed through her head and made her bleed from the inside. She pushed her palms against her eyes in an attempt to banish Jade’s body from her mind.
A familiar heat formed behind her back, and a hand on her arm, tracing her away from this dreadful place.
When she opened her eyes again it was as if she’d woken from a nightmare. It felt surreal to be one moment sitting in Kincaid’s dungeon for taking a life, and the next standing in the sun of what appeared to be an island.
Sweat beaded her forehead and made her nose itch. She smelled dry earth and tried to come to grips with the fact that she’d suddenly ended up in a tropical climate.
Someone pushed her in the back. She looked over her shoulder, straight into the face of a man in a uniform.
“Benvenuto all’inferno, feniksia,” he said. “Enjoy your last moments of daylight. For, come tomorrow, you have to earn that privilege.”
Her heart started pounding as she took in her surroundings. A big square with hundreds of people standing in a formation, like the military during a parade. Only there was nothing festive about this occasion. There was a tension in the air that she could almost taste.
The military guy gave her another push, which she took as her cue to fall in line. She joined the back of the formation, standing still next to a pale guy with hollow eyes. Judging by his brawn, a pixie.
The unnatural silence was split by the sound of a gong, giving her an uneasy feeling. The kind of feeling when you just knew that, even though things were bad, they were about to take a turn for the worse.
Hundreds of arms simultaneously went up in the air. Then the mass spoke as in one voice: “Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant!”
Oh, God…
Oh, no…
Oh, God…
She swallowed and closed her eyes, while her body and mind braced themselves. Her Latin was a bit rusty, but she knew what those words meant. Those were the gladiators’ last words to the emperor right before going into battle.
Hail, Caesar, those who are about to die salute you!
Dear reader,
Thank you for reading Titanium. I hope you enjoyed it. Sorry to leave you with a cliffy (again), but there was really no way around it.
As a new author I would love to hear from you, either good or bad, so I will know what my readers like and dislike. I would appreciate it immensely if you would consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
While you’re reading this, I’m writing the last novel, Diamond, in the trilogy while listening to my playlist.
Rock on!
Love,
Hati
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THE AMAZON
Kellsey Callahan has everything an amazon could wish for–kick-ass brothers, a rock chicks crew, and a pet Kraken. Everything except her childhood crush Leroy Leandros. He wouldn’t even touch her when she jumped into his bed, naked, as a surprise, eight years ago.
THE BEAST
Cursed by a goddess, Leroy turns into a savage beast three days a year. Having murdered countless people, he ended his rampage only when he locked himself in a cage. His raging beast was prepared for anything: except for a captivating amazon.
When during a game of Truth or Dare Kellsey’s challenged to steal a kiss from Leroy, she decides to shoot him with Cupid’s arrow. It’s just a cute little arrow. What could possibly go wrong?
Read The amazon and the beast now.