by K. F. Breene
A broad-shouldered man with short legs met Kieran halfway to the double doors. A wire led from his earpiece to somewhere behind his neck.
“They are ready for you now, sir,” the man said, motioning Kieran on.
Kieran checked his watch. We were fifteen minutes early. He nodded anyway and squeezed my hand.
“Just tell the truth,” he murmured to me, and then he was striding away.
A short woman I hadn’t noticed stepped out from behind the man, giving me her rendition of a smile—a tight-lipped affair that set me on edge. She gestured to the front of the mostly empty benches.
“You can wait here.”
I took a seat at the edge and Donovan slid in beside me. Thane took the seat behind us and reached forward to massage my shoulders.
“This is just a formality,” he said. “You are very clearly on Team Kieran. They just want to make it official, no biggie.”
Zorn stood just off to the side, and when the same woman tried to get him to sit, she ended up backing away slowly, as if sensing a predator.
“They have to know we wouldn’t let anyone take you from us,” Zorn said, clasping his hands behind his back. Somehow, his freshly pressed and expensive suit made him seem more dangerous rather than less. It was obvious he’d be plenty happy if things went sour so he could operate without rules. “Even if they bamboozled Demigod Kieran with their prestige, they could never sway us. We know what’s right, and we’ll fight for it.”
Time slowly ground by. Each minute lengthened into an hour. My gut churned, my stomach queasy.
“Think those battles in the halls would have gone down differently if we’d been out for blood?” Boman asked.
“We were out for blood,” Dylan replied.
“No, I mean, actually fighting. Fighting to kill.”
“Yes, the fighting would’ve gone much differently.” Amber’s voice was a low hum. She’d sat behind me and to the side, a little removed from everyone else. “You should know that from when you battled Valens. I believe this team would’ve still done exceptionally well. You have recent experience in do-or-die situations. However, some of these Demigod crews have been around since time turned over. They are cunning and brutal and specialize in killing. Fighting here is a game. When you strip away the rules, you reveal the true nature of magical people. It’s why we have the rules in the first place.”
I stared at the large double doors in front of me, sick with worry. I had no doubt the ruthless crews Amber had spoken of were within striking distance. If this went south, there’d be a blood bath.
“Ma’am.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin, so wound up that I hadn’t seen or felt the short-legged man approach. His grim expression did nothing to pacify me. Was I about to walk into a hostile situation?
“They’re ready for you.” The man motioned me forward.
“You’ll be good,” Boman said, standing as I did, followed by the rest of the crew.
“No sweat, Lexi, just be yourself.” Bria winked at me, which might have been reassuring if I hadn’t seen her fingers turning white where they held the back of the pew-like bench in front of her.
Breathing was difficult. I should’ve brought the kids to calm me down. We’d been through hell together—they were used to putting a good spin on things.
The door groaned as it opened, echoing into the cavernous space within. High ceilings and muted tones of wood and cream greeted me, along with seven men and women in black robes seated on a high bench. Had they stolen this getup from the non-magical world, or vice versa? Either way, their elevated presence was incredibly imposing as I took a seat in front of them, my table of average height but seeming so much lower.
Kieran was absent, which meant he must’ve exited through a side or back door, out of sight. Someone had set out a glass of sparkling water for me, and I contemplated taking a sip. My intensely shaking hands would have given me away, though.
“Alexis.” Zander sat in the prime position, directly in front of me. Magnus sat beside him, leaning back, his face unreadable. The stately woman I’d seen on the first night’s walk was next in line. I recognized a few other faces, but thankfully, no other Hades Demigods were present.
“Yes.” I nodded, my fingers digging into the backs of my hands where they were clasped.
“Do you know why you’ve been called in?”
“Yes. Because of the mark Kieran put—applied to me. Put on me, rather.” I wiped away the sweat collecting on my brow.
“Correct. We are going to ask you a few questions to get to the bottom of it. Now, do you know the significance of a Demigod’s mark?”
I took a deep breath so I wouldn’t pass out halfway through my explanation. “In the past, Demigods marked people to claim them as property. Now marks are usually only used in love connections, which is to say they’re not used very much at all. It is basically branding a person with the Demigod’s signature.”
Zander clasped his hands on the desk. “In essence, yes, you get the gist of it. How did that mark come to be placed on your skin?”
I explained my version of events, revealing that I’d actually known about the mark (from the guys) before Kieran had, and that I had also established a permanent soul link between us. While it didn’t show on the surface, it claimed someone just as thoroughly. Maybe more so.
Throughout my explanation, Magnus leaned against the arm of his chair, watching me silently.
“Can you prove this soul link exists?” Zander asked, and a man I did not know at the far right grinned, his eyes hungry. He thought I couldn’t.
I used air magic to whip his tie, and then let it blow across the others. “The soul link allows us to share some of our powers. I can feel a person’s power level now, too, not just their soul. Kieran can use my magic enough to see spirits.”
“Yes, but we’ve seen your magic move the air as well,” Zander said, squinting. “For those that don’t know, what is the difference between what air magic and spirit can do?”
I blew spirit across them, sucking power from the Line to do it, making sure they felt it. When their souls rattled in their casings, every Demigod but Magnus sucked in a startled breath.
“Looks the same, but feels different,” I concluded.
“Yes. Quite.” Zander visibly shivered.
“The soul link also swells her power. Surely you can feel her elevated level,” Magnus said, his finger draped across his upper lip.
Zander turned a little to look at him, as though surprised.
Magnus answered the unspoken question. “I’ve known she must have a soul link for some time. I am familiar with them, though I no longer have one.”
“Oh right, yes. The reason for the…” Zander made a circular motion with his finger. “The child issue.” He turned back to face me. “Fine. Now, Alexis, I do know Demigod Kieran has asked you to marry him. He has said he wishes to make you co-ruler once you marry, which would make the mark immediately legitimate, but here you are with nothing but a promise. I can’t help but question this. It would be a good strategy for him to mark you, offer to share the leadership, and then never go through with it. He would…have his cake and eat it too, so to speak.”
I chuckled. I couldn’t help it.
“Something is funny?” the woman beside Zander asked.
I schooled my expression. “It’s Kieran who wants to share the leadership role, not me. I have no desire to step up to the plate, but I will because he wants me at his side. Look, the mark has nothing to do with that. I love him. I want him, forever. I don’t care if he’s in charge of a territory or not. I like the way it feels when he burns his mark across my skin and claims me as his. I ask him to do it often. I like being tethered to his soul. Everything else is just politics, and I don’t much care for that. There’s nothing else I can tell you about it.”
Silence trickled into the lofty room, all seven pairs of eyes beating down on me.
“One last question,” the woman beside Zander sai
d. “Why not marry before coming here? You have pledged yourself to him—why not button it up and make it official?”
“The mark and the soul link are official. It’s more official than a few signed pieces of paper and a rubber stamp. A legal partnership can be undone, but the ways we have united cannot be dismissed. With us, it is until death do us part, literally. One of us will have to die to undo what has been done.
“As for your question, I haven’t decided what kind of wedding I want. I don’t know where I want to have it. I couldn’t waste time thinking about it before this Summit because I had too much to prepare for, and…”
I sucked in a breath and wiped my forehead again, trying to stop the flow of words. I couldn’t imagine they were helping at this point.
Silence filtered through again, all those eyes making me nervous, their judgment turning my blood cold. The assembled didn’t seem to like my answers.
“Look, I love him,” I said. “I love him with everything that is in me. I wouldn’t go back and change anything that has happened between us. I trust him to keep me safe, and I’ll support him in all things. We’re stronger together. I don’t know how else to convince you, and I certainly don’t know how to make you butt out.”
The woman looked down her nose at me. “You can marry him now and finish this up. That will make us…butt…out.”
I responded without much consideration. “A person only gets married once. Kieran and I will marry when and how we want, and I guarantee you, it won’t be a rush job in some oversized office building in front of a lot of humorless magical people who have a shaky hold, at best, on morals.”
“Have a care, Alexis, on how you speak to your betters,” said a woman beside Magnus, and I gritted my teeth to the point of pain, trying to hold back the words that wanted to bubble out. These clowns weren’t my betters, or even my equals. They had more power, that was it. That was all. If we were on equal footing, I’d push and shove until I could inject a little humanity back into his group of tyrants.
Pressure settled on my shoulders and bit into my shoulder blades, the feeling of being watched oppressive. The Line throbbed into the room, unbidden, and shadows zipped all around it. Magnus jerked, seeing it.
A shadow lurked within, staring into the room. This wasn’t Harding—the shadow being exuded menace. It pulsed with vengeance.
Panic welled up in me. Would Lydia or Aaron dare to make a move in such a public place, before Magnus?
“Fine, fine.” Zander banged the gavel, and I jumped. Still that shadow stared. “I move to a vote. Will the mark be classified as valid, yay or nay?”
He turned to get answers, but I couldn’t look away from that shadow. If I did, I feared it might step into my plane, like Harding had done. Something about that thought had cold creeping through my middle.
“Nay.”
The coldness turned to dread. I dragged my eyes away from the shadow long enough to see who’d spoken. The guy at the end, who’d doubted the soul link earlier, smirked at me. He’d just added himself to my “enemy” list.
15
Alexis
When I swung my gaze back to the Line, it abruptly disappeared, and the shadow with it. Colors returned to normal. The freezing grip that had squeezed my middle relented.
Magnus’s gaze was heavy on me, his eyes analyzing—or maybe accusatory?
A “yay” came in, then another, my heart still hammering despite it.
“Yay,” Magnus said when his turn came, his stare intense.
“Yay.” Zander banged the gavel. “Passes, six to one. The mark is valid. Now, Alexis, let’s move on to other business.”
Magnus’s brow rumpled and he finally looked away, peering over at Zander. Apparently he hadn’t realized there would be other business.
“I have questions about the Thunderstroke,” Zander said, and Magnus’s look went from confused to flat and disinterested.
The sound of the doors opening echoed through the lofty hall.
I didn’t have time to relax before my body wound up again. Dylan’s shoulders were tight and his eyes panicked, but he walked in with his head held high, as befitted one of Zeus.
“What about him?” I asked, dread squeezing me a second time. I wasn’t the only valuable one the Demigods wanted to get their hands on.
Dylan sat in the chair beside me, which he scooted a little closer until it was touching mine.
“The situation surrounding him is highly unusual.” Zander leaned forward, and hunger sparked in his gaze. Despite his reputation as a rule follower, it was clear that even Zander wasn’t above scheming to acquire a rarity for his collection. “We need to make sure that he wasn’t…cornered into the position he now holds, you understand.”
“All due respect,” I said, “that’s rich, coming from the lot of you. You grilled me about my very legitimate mark, but you didn’t bat an eye at the bogus mark he was forced to endure in the past.”
“He was not brought before us, therefore his mark could not be called into question.”
“Why do you think he wasn’t brought before you?” I waited a moment, my cheeks hot. “Because he was confined while being physically and emotionally abused by his captor. He was sufficiently cornered there, yet no one showed up to help him. Now that he’s in a good situation for once in his life, he’s the subject of scrutiny? Do you only go after those who don’t require your help, or what?”
“Just a moment, young lady,” Zander said, his voice dropping an octave and his intensity making the hairs on my arms stand at attention. “I ask that you have a little patience.” It was entirely too clear that he wasn’t asking. “Gianna kept that boy under lock and key. We didn’t see him. Out of sight, out of mind.”
I clenched my fist. What a sorry excuse.
“Now, Mr. Maccini—”
“That is no longer my name,” Dylan cut in. “I started a new life. I’ve chosen a new name.”
Zander braced his forearms against the desk surface. “Did Demigod Kieran urge you to take a new name?” he asked.
“I chose a new name when I landed in that Chester town in the hills. Demigod Kieran accepted the name I offered him.”
“Yes, let’s talk about how you ended up in that Chester town. Demigod Gianna was poisoned. You were both poisoned—poison was found in your bowls and in your blood work—and you were both pronounced dead. I inquired at the time and had it on good authority that you were thoroughly dead. The person responsible was never found, but given you’d gone down with the ship, so to speak, we had no reason to suspect it was you. But now, here you are, strong as a lark. I find all of this highly suspicious.”
“I couldn’t have poisoned her, if that’s what you mean. Not with the blood oath.” Dylan fidgeted with his shirt.
“Maybe not you, but certainly an accomplice isn’t out of the realm of possibility.”
Dylan laughed without humor. “An accomplice? I wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone without supervision. I wasn’t allowed to have any friends. If I could’ve poisoned her and granted my freedom, I would’ve, believe me. If I could’ve found a way to end my own life just to get away, I would’ve. But I was trapped. Thoroughly trapped. Granting my own salvation was impossible.”
“Then how did you escape?” Zander pressed.
Dylan shrugged. “To this day, I still don’t know. I remember my throat closing up and the taste of bile. I remember clawing at my neck, desperately gasping for air but not getting any. Gianna was beside me, doing the same thing. Magic exploded around the room. The pain was excruciating, and given Demigod Gianna’s fancy for whips, nipple clamps, hot wax, and strap-ons, that’s saying something.”
The accusation in Zander’s eyes dulled somewhat. His face twisted in disgust. “I see.”
“Pardon my bluntness, sir, but no, you do not. I lived in hell on earth. Trapped, like I said. Caged, like an animal, at times. I longed for death more than once. Dying itself was excruciating, but as the blackness blotted out my vision and the pain
lifted, I was honestly happy to be released. The last memory I have of the attack is lying on the floor on my side and seeing the door open. My last thought was Please let death release me from this life. That’s all I remember.”
“And yet you haven’t been released at all.” The guy at the end leaned forward this time, his eyes alight. “That pretty little Soul Stealer—”
“I would ask you to refrain from using the words pretty and little when speaking about a woman with superior status and a highly advantageous magic, if you would be so kind,” the stately woman said pompously. “It is degrading.”
“Agreed,” Magnus drawled, leaning heavily in his chair now. He was clearly bored. “Not to mention disrespectful when speaking of your colleague’s daughter. Or didn’t you get the memo, Rufus?”
“Ah yes. Now that you mention it, I did hear somewhere that you are getting soft in your old age.” A sneer covered Rufus’s face.
“Men, please, enough.” Zander frowned, keeping his gaze on Dylan. “Rufus, what was your point?”
“I find it interesting that a Thunderstroke essentially came back from the dead and ended up with a Spirit Walker. Didn’t she bring one of yours back from the dead yesterday, Zander? Seems suspect.”
Magnus sighed so loudly that it was clear he meant to be heard. “The incident in question happened fifteen years ago. Alexis was eleven. Even if she’d been in training at the time, she wouldn’t have been able to travel to the other side of the country without being noticed, let alone use the sort of magic necessary to bring a man back from poisoning. I doubt she could do it now. She can only repair the soul—she cannot repair the body. Try again, Rufus. We do so love when you speak out of turn about things you have no knowledge of.”
“Yes, yes, quite right, Magnus, quite right. Hmm.” Zander rubbed his chin, the sound like sandpaper. “And then what happened, Mister…Dylan?”
Dylan relayed the story about how he’d woken up in a morgue all by himself, cold and alone, without a mortician or guard nearby. He filled them in on how he’d snuck out, creeping past sleeping guards, and found an unoccupied van. He’d later ditched the car and gotten a ride from a truck driver, who’d brought him as far as the Chester town.