by Lyra Evans
Gritting his teeth, his jaw visibly tight, Sade said, “Like I said. A misunderstanding.”
Niko nodded, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. He looked up at the ceiling, as though thinking back. With a shrug, he said, “I thought it might have been people you were worried about before you got popped. Ah well. Guess you really were crazy.”
Sade jerked over the table, leaning forward as close as he could to Niko, as close as the ringing chain would allow. It screeched taut as he tried to intimidate Niko, but Niko only stared him down. His heart pounded, but Sade couldn’t see that. A waft of his scent met Niko’s nose, familiar and so foreign at once. It was dust and stone and industrial soap, but it was also venom and peat and the iron tang of blood. In a flicker, Niko was back in the playroom, arms and legs bound, his body coated in sweat and speckles of blood with Sade above him.
He pushed the memory away.
“Who called me crazy?” Sade hissed. Niko picked at a piece of lint at the hem of his shirt.
“I did,” he said with a smirk. “Just now.” Sade grimaced at him, and Niko shook his head. “But you know they all were saying it. All your precious lieutenants. Your boys from way back. You know they were calling you nuts behind your back.”
Sade’s face was wrought in an ugly glare, and he pulled back from the table. “Just more lies, Kiki,” he said, though it was clear he didn’t quite believe what he was saying. “My boys would never do me like that.”
Niko shrugged. “Come on, Sade.” Even speaking his name was like spitting out poison. “You started going on and on about how the ‘Woods were closing in,’ and how they had to keep away from ‘the Woods.’ What were they supposed to think? Why do you think it was so easy for me to plan the raid? They were all one foot out the door, anyway.”
Sade’s glare grew sharper and more deadly for a moment, his mind likely going back to the night of the raid, to the chaos and smoke and blinding light of the flash grenades and guns pointed in his face. But after a second, something shifted, and his glare turned to something else, the flame of anger paling to a more steady light.
“So that’s what this is about,” he said, a pleased grin cracking across his face. Niko tilted his head, cursing inwardly. “You want information on the Woods.” He shook his head, sucking on his teeth. “Causing you some trouble, are they? Hard to maintain the hero cop reputation when it’s built on a lie.” Niko said nothing; Sade licked across his upper teeth. “The detective who single-handedly brought down all the sex trafficking in Maeve’s Court. Only you didn’t.”
The air was dry in the interrogation room. Niko wished he had water but was also glad he didn’t. Drinking now would be a sign of weakness to Sade.
“So you’re saying the Woods is a sex trafficking ring?” Niko asked, taking the chance to play dumb. But Sade didn’t buy it.
“Nice try, Kiki,” he said, shaking his head.
Niko shrugged, looking to the side. “What? You don’t want to prove you aren’t crazy?” He made an indistinct sound. “Suit yourself.”
But Sade only laughed, a grinding, rough sound. It never meant anything good for Niko. “I believe this is where we start negotiating.”
Niko’s throat tightened. “Why, what do you have to offer, really? For all I know, you really are crazy.”
Sade tilted his head forward, making a face that said ‘really?’ He motioned ‘no’ with his head and turned to the door. “Have it your way. Guard?”
“Fine, fine,” Niko said, his bluff called. “Depending on what information you’ve got, I’m prepared to offer some things you might be interested in.”
Sade shook his head as the guard appeared at the door, and he turned back to Niko. “Oh, I’ve got information. More than anyone else does on the Woods, probably. I’m guessing that’s why you came to me. You know that.”
Niko studied Sade’s face closely. “We can have you moved to a private cell. Give you access to the kinds of comforts only low-security inmates get. Better snacks, some kind of personal entertainment in cell, books, supervised internet access. Maybe even access to contraband foods, if the intel is really good.”
But Sade’s expression remained hungry and wolfish. He shook his head slowly, his eyes pegged on Niko’s face. Niko knew Cobalt was watching, meant to give him a sense of support in this, but as Sade eyed him he felt painfully isolated.
“There’s only one thing I want,” he breathed.
Niko rolled his eyes. “You’re not getting out, Sade. Not even for a day.”
To Niko’s surprise, Sade blew off the suggestion. “Come on, Kiki. You know what it is I want.” His eyes flickered up and down Niko’s body, and Niko felt an ice storm rage across his spine. He said nothing, frozen to the spot. “I want to fuck you. One more time. Whatever I want.”
“Are you serious?” Niko said, his words full of breath and horror.
Sade’s eyes glittered. “You let me do whatever I want to you, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about the Woods.”
Niko could feel every hair on his body, every tiny motion of the air on his skin. His eyes were fixed on Sade, but his mind couldn’t focus on anything at all. He could almost feel Cobalt in the security room, the vibrating tension building inside Niko’s chest. And all those images he’d been vexed by, the constant thoughts of Cobalt and himself wrapped in one another, Cobalt touching him, pressing into him, making him arch in glorious pleasure—they all seemed to evaporate in an instant. Because Niko could not see an alternative.
“Deal.”
Chapter 19
The paperwork was surprisingly simple. The official contract both Niko and Sade would have to sign wasn’t terribly complex because the MCPD was only officially offering Sade one single thing—one conjugal visit. The second contract was less official and strictly for the purposes of keeping Sade honest. It detailed more specifically what it was Niko was giving him in exchange for a truthful account of all his knowledge regarding the sex trafficking ring known as ‘the Woods.’ Niko sat in the small office, designed for use by the prison psychologist, scouring every line of the contracts to flag any possible loopholes Sade might try to abuse.
His heart beat in his throat as he read and reread the line about the ‘conjugal visit.’ Typically reserved for only the best-behaved inmates to share with their partner as incentive for good behaviour, conjugal visits were exceedingly rare, particularly at Sluagh. The idea that Niko was to serve as Sade’s ‘partner’ in this instance only intensified the ill feeling in him. He’d spent so much time telling himself, again and again, that he was done with Sade. That he’d never have to be near him again, never have to let Sade touch him again, never have to submit himself to— But now he was doing just that. Exactly what Sade wanted. Yet even as he questioned his own decision, Niko knew there was no other way. There was nothing else Sade would trade for his information. And Niko was on a much stricter timeline than Sade was.
As the door to the tiny, stuffy office opened, Niko inhaled a breath of ocean winds and warm sand and delirious, happy freedom. And then his stomach dropped, his jaw tightened, and he braced for the incoming fight.
The door clicked closed, and Cobalt walked around the room to sit next to Niko on the short sofa. He moved like spreading water, smoothly and soundlessly. Niko did not look up at him, despite feeling Cobalt’s eyes on him, choosing instead to stare down the contracts. The cuffs at his wrists snagged slightly on the edge of the coffee table as he tried to cross out a word and adjust the phrasing.
“You have not yet made the trade,” Cobalt said, and Niko paused. That was a strange way to start.
“Not yet,” Niko said quietly, watching as his handwritten change slowly shifted on the page, his writing turning to typed letters and fitting themselves into the contract formatting. “That’s what these are for.”
“Paper contracts?” Cobalt asked. “So you’ve no intention of fulfilling your side of the agreement?” He sounded vaguely relieved, and Niko was very mildly o
ffended.
“Of course I intent to fulfil my side,” Niko said, his words brittle. “Sade won’t give us the information we need if I don’t.”
Cobalt was silent a moment. Niko’s eyes travelled across the ground between them. Cobalt’s legs and feet seemed exceptionally still.
“You intend to give him what he wants before extracting the information?” Cobalt asked, his tone now flat.
Niko rolled one shoulder, trying not to think about it. “He won’t sign it, otherwise.”
“But you cannot guarantee he’ll give you the truth, or all of it, after he has what he wants,” Cobalt argued. Niko frowned, both frustrated and confused.
“Of course I can. That’s what the contract is for.” He reread the unofficial contract again. The wording in this one was less comfortable for him, though perhaps the content was the issue.
“If you expect a man like that to hold to a contract simply because it is legally binding—”
Then Niko understood. “It’s magically binding.” He held up the official contract, making as if to tear the paper. It bent slightly under his fingers but refused to yield to his efforts. In the light, the ink on the page glinted with silver and gold, though when flat it looked burgundy. “The contracts are designed to work in the place of innate Fae magic. They’re just written versions of the trades we make via handshake. Done this way in prison to ensure as much protection for both parties as possible. Plus, it leaves a track record for the justice department.” He held up his hand with the cuff. “Visitors have to wear these at all times in the presence of inmates, and inmates have similar cuffs they can’t remove either. To protect them from each other and themselves and to protect everyone else, I guess.”
The air in the room grew cold, the atmosphere fragile. Cobalt leaned over his knees, propped on his elbows and staring down at the ground as though bearing the weight of information he was unprepared for.
“You’re actually going to do it,” Cobalt said, more to himself than Niko. “You actually intend to let that—monster—have—you?” His last words were bitten out, like he forced each of them from his throat with effort. Niko finally did look at him more directly, and he found Cobalt vibrating with restraint.
Suddenly, the images Niko had been living with, the ones of him and Cobalt, intertwined and wrought together, seemed faded, weak. Suddenly he couldn’t quite pull them up to his mind’s eye. And he flinched at the realization. In the wake of those images was a hollow that panicked Niko, a feeling that made him at once sick with dread and paralyzed with grief.
“He was very clear about his requirements for the deal,” Niko said, barely whispering though he intended to speak evenly.
“Who gives a fuck what that piece of shit wants?” Cobalt snapped harshly, and Niko was struck dumb by the sheer vulgarity of what he’d said. His eyes flashed up to Cobalt’s to find them blazing, like steel in sunlight.
“No one,” Niko answered, his own anger rising. Air was static in his chest, but he forced himself to speak. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have a fucking choice. He’s got information we need—”
“So offer him something else,” Cobalt interrupted. His hair fanned, almost like hackles rising on a Wolf, but it continued to move about as though it swayed in a current. “Negotiate.”
Niko ground his teeth. “You’re saying I didn’t?”
Cobalt held his gaze. “He told you what he wanted and you agreed. That is not how a negotiation works.”
“I didn’t have a fucking choice!” Niko repeated, balling his fists. His head swam with relived memories of his time with Sade, of the way he’d been made to beg and agree to things in the past. He remembered that first night in his own apartment, alone, and how he’d sat awake, furious with himself for the cruel twist of his life. “There’s no other way to get him to talk!”
Cobalt’s expression broke, a flash of fury soon quashed by a sudden realization. “Of course there’s another way.” Niko opened his mouth to demand an explanation, but Cobalt cut him off by providing it. “I can make him talk. Just get me in a room alone with him. No cameras.”
Niko froze a moment, then laughed a harsh, dismissive sound. “Yeah, I’m sure. And I’d love to take that approach too, but not only do I think it won’t work, but here in Maeve’s Court, prisoners still have rights. So as much as torturing him for answers would be balm to my soul, it’s not going to fly.”
Cobalt cocked one eyebrow, then following what Niko was saying, he shook his head and exhaled long and slow. “No, Niko, I mean I literally have the power to make him talk.”
Niko stared at Cobalt, his muscles tight. Something flared in him at Cobalt’s use of his first name, but he couldn’t risk focusing on it long. Instead, he got to his feet, collecting the contracts as he did.
“We don’t have time for you to try advanced interrogation techniques or whatever you think you can do,” Niko said, heading for the door. “We need to track down the Woods, and we need to do it now. Or don’t you care about finding Indigo’s killer anymore?”
It was a cheap shot—Niko knew it—but he was raw and angry and about to do something he’d promised himself would never happen again. He couldn’t bear thinking about Cobalt’s feelings at that moment. But as he reached for the door, Cobalt stopped him.
“Stop,” he said. Except he didn’t say it. He sang it. The word came out like a melody and full of weight. A symphony in a syllable, and Niko was completely floored. He stopped in his tracks, the word echoing into his chest and to the far reaches of his mind. “Sit down.”
Again, the words tumbled like notes in a descending scale, filling Niko’s mind and heart and taking hold of him. He felt himself moving as though in a dream, his body following the direction of a conductor. Suddenly, he was sitting on the sofa again, next to Cobalt. Once the last echo of the music in his head faded out, Niko realized where he was and what happened. He looked up in muted shock at Cobalt, whose expression was apologetic but weary.
“Did you just—”
Cobalt nodded. “Yes.”
Niko opened his mouth to respond, to ask a thousand questions, to scold Cobalt for not telling him sooner, and possibly several other impulses that passed through his mind. But unfortunately every one of those things tried to spill from his tongue at once, resulting in a garbled, spluttering mess of a sound and causing Niko to nearly choke on his own words. After a couple false starts, Niko took a moment to gather himself and tamp down all but the most urgent questions.
“You can control people?” Niko asked, his voice hitting a pitch slightly unnatural to him. The words came out strangled, and Niko glanced several times at the door, concerned someone might overhear or walk in at an inappropriate time. Like now.
Cobalt scratched at his scalp, causing his silver-white hair to flutter more than usual. “To a degree, yes.”
Niko waited for further explanation, but Cobalt offered none. Niko gritted his teeth and said, “What. Does. That. Mean?”
Studying him closely, Cobalt said, “It means when I Sing a command to someone, I can—” He paused, thinking of the right words. “—override—their will. To a point.” Niko’s stony, pointed expression remained unchanged, so Cobalt continued, “As long as the person wants to do what I tell them, on some level, I can make them do it. But I have to sing the instruction, then they have to agree, even if it’s only the smallest part of them.”
Niko shook his head. He hadn’t wanted to leave, hadn’t wanted to end his conversation with Cobalt on that note. He’d have stopped if Cobalt had simply asked him to, the normal way. So he could believe he wanted to stop. That he wanted to sit back down. But the rules there seemed very vague and difficult to quantify.
“So you can only make people do small tasks in their general interest?” Niko asked, wondering how this was particularly useful and what Cobalt intended to do with it.
Cobalt’s expression went flat. “I can make people do any number of things, in their interests or not,” he sa
id. There was no weight to what he said, no threat behind the words, which drew Niko into a false calm. Because what he was saying was, in actuality, terrifying.
Niko considered this. “But you said they had to want to do it,” he said.
Cobalt nodded. “I also said only a tiny part of them needs to want it.”
“How the fuck do you measure that? How much is a tiny part?” Niko asked, frustrated.
Cobalt looked around the room, not seeing it. He seemed to search for a way to explain, and Niko felt momentarily stupid. “How much do you want to exercise right now?”
Niko blinked. “What? I don’t want to exercise right now.”
Cobalt nodded. “Do five push-ups.”
The music that came from Cobalt’s mouth was unlike any song Niko had ever heard. It played a tune directly to his soul, and his soul responded in kind. Without even considering it, Niko got into position on the ground and did five push-ups. Only once he’d completed the five, did he stop and jerk back into a crouch, horrified at himself.
“I said I didn’t want to!” Niko snapped, trying to maintain his fear in control. When he looked back at Cobalt, he saw a wave of anguish cross the Selkie’s beautiful face. Niko didn’t know why.
“Some part of you did,” Cobalt said. “Maybe, at the back of your mind, you’re concerned you aren’t getting enough exercise. Maybe you just have too much nervous energy or tension, and push-ups seemed like a good opportunity to burn some of it off. It could be anything. But once I Sing the command, if there’s even a chance you would do it willingly, you will do it.”
Niko got to his feet slowly, carefully sitting back down on the couch. His mind raced. The music had a strange effect on his body, beyond the obvious; he felt much calmer than his brain thought he should. The Song was soothing, warm, like home. A home Niko had never known. But one he definitely wanted to. The idea of that scared him even more.
“So you can order someone to do things against their self-interest?” Niko asked, possibilities drawing themselves in his head.