by T. A. White
I considered. It couldn’t hurt.
I nodded to the woman. “You see her.”
He frowned and nodded.
“She’s not in her area,” I said, finally articulating one of the things that had been bothering me.
It wasn’t obvious at first glance, but the servers had cut the room into quadrants and tended to stick to their space unless summoned. This woman, however, was ignoring all that, moving in a way counter to the rest of the servers.
Liam picked up on the significance of that.
“Anton, find out who she is and her master’s name,” Liam ordered.
Anton looked between the two of us but didn’t argue, already moving to follow orders.
“Do you see anything else?” Liam asked, a weight to his question that told me what he really wanted to know.
I shook my head. “There might be something, but I’m not sure. There are too many power players to get an accurate read.”
He touched me on the hip. “Then we’ll get her to a place where you can get that reading. Stay here.”
I was more than willing to oblige as he signaled one of his enforcers before moving away. The crowd parted for the dangerous shark in their midst as he cut through them.
Even as young as this vampire was, she could probably wipe the floor with me. She had to have decades on my three years. Vampires were like fine wine, they grew more powerful and dangerous with age. Something I wouldn’t have for many, many years to come.
Liam appeared in front of the server, a genial smile on his face. She stepped back and drew up short as another enforcer appeared behind her. The one I called Viking. He was large and intimidating as he scowled down at her.
The tension I’d been carrying in my shoulders dissipated as they corralled her. Whatever her intent, whatever had been planned was contained now.
A sharp scream ripped from her. She crumpled in the Viking’s hands, falling to the ground as she jerked and shook. A space widened around the three as those in the vicinity drew back to watch the drama in their midst.
Liam and the Viking tried to protect her from injuring herself, their efforts only mildly successful as she convulsed, her eyes rolling up in her head as white froth spilled out of her mouth. Blood leaked out of her ears and mouth.
A halo surrounded her in my othersight, getting stronger and more vivid with every scream. Whatever was happening to her, it sounded like she was being slaughtered as we watched helplessly.
I glanced away, looking in the direction she’d been heading. Distantly, I noted Thomas surrounded by his guests, Niall and Cadell among them. They all watched dispassionately as the woman’s cries suddenly ceased.
That was nearly scarier than her screams, the silence unbearably loud in the full ballroom.
Thomas frowned with curiosity as he looked between where I stood, and Liam and the woman on the ground, something building in his gaze.
A movement to his right caught my attention. A vampire, vaguely familiar, turned toward Thomas’s group. His face displayed the same vacantness as the woman.
His lips moved as he muttered.
I moved before I could think better of it, discarding the possibility of using the Judge. There was too much of a chance of hitting civilians.
Fifteen feet from Thomas. Ten.
I wasn’t going to be fast enough. The man raised his hand, something warping the air in front of it.
I sprinted for them.
Thomas’s eyes widened at the sight of me pelting in his direction, his gaze rotating as he sought what had caused my panic.
The vampire threw the ball of writhing air. I arrived, yanking Thomas out of the way. Not fast enough. The protection Dahlia had given me shredded with a crack that ripped through the air.
The ball hit me—excruciating pain consuming me. Arlan and the twins watched with fascination as they sipped on their drinks. Then nothingness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“When were you going to tell me about this?” Thomas asked. His voice sounded overly loud to my pounding head.
Not my favorite way to wake up. I didn’t bother opening my eyes, not ready to leave the cool darkness quite yet. You never know when someone might let something interesting slip, and with vampires, it paid to overhear as much as you could.
Liam remained stubbornly silent. I could almost imagine his cold gaze in my mind.
“Perhaps if you looked beyond your own concerns every once in a while, I wouldn’t have had to,” Liam said.
Thomas scoffed. “Bullshit. You were hoping to capitalize on her ability without my interference.”
“I have no need to go to such lengths when your yearling hates you.” Liam sounded coldly amused.
The smallest growl escaped Thomas. “She’s mine, Liam. Not yours. Her secrets, her life, are mine to protect or use as I see fit.”
And he couldn’t understand why I didn’t trust him or want anything to do with him. It was statements like that which reminded me why I’d remained stubbornly independent despite the cost.
“She is yours in name only,” Liam said. “Everything else belongs to me.”
And on that note.
I sat up, not wanting to listen to any more of this.
I glared at both vampires, neither of whom acted the least bit ashamed at being caught talking about me like I was a piece of meat.
If anything, Liam seemed amused.
“How long was I out?” I asked, ignoring all the things that were wrong in the conversation I’d just overheard.
“Not long, only a few minutes,” Liam responded.
I nodded but didn’t make any move to stand. Sitting up seemed to be the extent of my ability right now. Already my head pounded and dizziness threatened to put me on my back again.
“You should be dead,” Thomas said.
I lifted my head as I gave him an incredulous look. Was that a threat?
“He’s right,” Liam said, sounding grimmer than I’d ever heard him.
Not a threat then.
“I returned your weapon to you for a reason,” Liam said heavily.
“You also said only use it in an emergency,” I said, feeling a small twinge of shame.
I’d reacted rather than acted. There was a fine difference between the two. One led to stupid actions, the other to victory. Tonight, I saw the threat and instead of pulling my gun, I’d thrown myself in front of it. What a foolish mistake. I couldn’t believe I’d been that dumb.
“This situation qualified,” he said. “He would have survived several rounds as long as you didn’t hit his head or heart.”
“I’m interested to know how you survived something designed to kill a vampire master,” Thomas said in an idle voice.
At least this I had an answer for. I drew out the small pendant Dahlia had given me and winced. The pretty stone looked like it had been shattered and then glued back together, the number of fine cracks in it almost infinite.
Thomas reached out and studied the pendant. “That is an interesting bauble you have there. Where’d you get it?”
I shrugged. If he didn’t know, I had no plans to tell him. Liam knew. If he wanted, he could inform Thomas.
He set it down very gently, squatting so he could study me carefully. He reached for my hand and paused, his mouth tightening when I drew back the faintest bit.
“Your necklace absorbed a good portion of the attack but not all. I need to assess the extent of the damage,” he said with a forced patience.
“Have Liam do it,” I told him, more to see his reaction than anything else.
“It’s in your best interests that I do this,” Thomas said, giving me a sharp smile as he grabbed my hand and held it in an unbreakable grip. “This is better suited to my skill set than his.”
Liam stood behind him, unmoving. I took that to mean Thomas wasn’t lying.
I forced myself to remain still as Thomas’s power swept through me, brushing against my insides. It wasn’t a bad feeling, more uncomfortable than a
nything. Like someone shoving a needle into the nerves just under the skin, a thousand pinpricks that made me want to rub my hands down my body to dispel the sensation.
Instead, I sat uncomfortably as Thomas’s gaze turned inward.
Liam loomed over his shoulder, his face just the slightest bit pensive as he watched. The faint worry in the lines around his mouth told me how important this was. As if I didn’t already know.
I’d missed it upon first waking, too distracted by the awful way I felt to notice it, but now, with Thomas’s power calling my attention to it, it was impossible to miss—a piece of magic, wriggling as it burrowed into my shoulder. It felt alien and wrong there. Almost physical as it hunkered down.
I briefly considered finding a scalpel and trying to cut the offensive piece of detritus out, like it was a tumor I could get rid of.
I doubted it’d be that simple. Spook-related things rarely were.
“What happened to the woman?” I asked in an effort to distract myself.
“Dead.” The words were grim.
A soft sigh of regret escaped me. I hadn’t known the woman, hadn’t wanted to either, if I was being honest with myself. I wanted no further ties binding me to the vampires and would have resisted any overtures of friendship from her, would have hardened my heart and erected my barriers so high she never would have had a chance to scale them.
Still, it was sad to think her open gaze and happy smile had been erased from this world. She would have left people behind, people who no doubt cared for her and would miss her now she was truly gone.
Wrapped in all of these thoughts was the belief her death lay at my feet in some way. If I’d been faster, handled things differently, maybe she wouldn’t now be dead.
“She wouldn’t have survived even if you hadn’t brought her to Liam’s attention,” Thomas said, his eyes closed, his power still questing.
I didn’t know if I believed that.
His power began to withdraw and he looked at me, his silver-gray eyes startlingly clear. “Think it through. She was killed as soon as it became apparent she wouldn’t complete her mission. If she had managed to do as ordered, she would have faced the same fate.”
I was quiet as I processed that statement. “Is that what happened to the other vampire?”
He inclined his head, his gaze steady. “His strings were cut as soon as it was clear he was no longer of use.”
I blew out a breath. The thought of being responsible for a person’s death lifted just slightly. I hadn’t realized how heavy that burden had been until it was gone.
Thomas stood. “The person controlling him took care of the task for us. Had he survived, my enforcers would have ended him shortly afterward.”
“It wasn’t his fault. They were being controlled.” My gaze went between the two of them.
It was the only explanation that made sense. I’d seen that blank, vague look before in other victims of compulsion.
“Right?” I asked Liam.
He hesitated before nodding. “I had Makoto look into both of them. Neither one displayed any indications of disloyalty.”
Thomas didn’t look affected by the words. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t afford to let people know vampires can be so easily compelled and the public nature of the attacks would have forced my hand.”
I didn’t like that answer, but I understood it in a way.
Thomas had taken over the city not too long ago. He couldn’t afford to appear weak, and having his own people try to assassinate him did not send the right kind of message to his enemies.
“Beyond that, it is difficult to lift a compulsion. Unless we found the person responsible and killed them, we would never be able to trust them again,” Thomas said, appearing unaffected at the thought of killing his own people.
“How did she die? I thought we were nearly indestructible,” I asked. Beyond severing our heads or burning us alive, it was very difficult to kill most vampires. The older one was, the more difficult.
“We don’t know,” Liam said, folding his arms over his chest. “I have Joseph going over the bodies to see what he can find.”
Joseph was a doctor and understood more about supernatural physiology than anyone else I knew. A benefit to being nearly immortal—it gave you a lot more time to study the topics that interested you.
Thomas stood and circled to my back. I edged forward in my seat, preparing to stand.
A hand on my shoulder pressed me back. A fact I was grateful for when the edges of my vision darkened, dizziness threatening to send me back to unconsciousness.
He pulled aside the strap of my gown and cursed. “Liam, look at this.”
Liam stood and moved around me. His fury hit my back in the next second, the tension from it making me edge forward again.
“She’s been marked by the hunt,” Thomas said.
My stomach dropped. “The hunt? You mean the Wild Hunt?”
The two shared a look over my head. The silence was filled with the heavy weight of unsaid things.
“Liam?” I couldn’t help the tremulous quality of my voice.
“Yes, the Wild Hunt.”
The hunt the vampires were so worried about? The one that had the Fae of the city in a tizzy?
“How can I be marked?” I asked, groping for calm and logic.
“That is a good question,” Thomas said.
Liam stepped around me, his face hard and his eyes glittering. “I have a way of finding out.”
“Stop,” Thomas’s voice rang out, filling the room with power. My breath stuttered in my chest, the compulsion in his words unmistakable.
That didn’t affect Liam as he continued to the door.
Thomas hissed, the sound edging toward a catlike growl. “You will not threaten our position.”
Liam turned on him, his fangs dropping down as he snarled. “They have gone too far this time.”
“We have no way to prove it’s them,” Thomas snapped.
“It’s them alright. We both know it. Someone in the hunt would have needed to mark her, and you know as well as I do that Niamh has most of the lords caught in her thrall,” Liam said, his voice hard.
“It’s not a full mark. Her role isn’t set yet. They can claim this is the effect of the hunt’s magic. They’ll say the hunt chooses its prey,” Thomas argued.
“The lords mark potential prey. They open their victims up to the magic, making them more susceptible for being chosen by the magic,” Liam argued.
“That’s supposition. You said yourself no one truly understands how the hunt works. You cannot go and accuse them based upon guesswork and feelings,” Thomas said.
Frustration and anger were written in every line of Liam’s body. I sat quietly, feeling like a bone two predators were fighting over. It didn’t help to know fear had invaded, sending my stomach rioting.
Liam paced in front of me, his power crackling through the air. Whatever reins he kept on himself had snapped. This was the real Liam—raw, dangerous, savage.
“Then we get her out of here. We hide her,” he said.
I nodded. I was all for this plan. I’d already spent one night being hunted through the woods. Sometimes I still woke, gasping for air, feeling like I was back there being chased and terrified I wouldn’t see the dawn. I had no desire to add another version to that nightmare.
“You, of all people, know how impossible that is,” Thomas said.
Liam’s flinch was barely there, unnoticeable to those who didn’t know him well.
“The hunt will just follow. You’ve seen this.” Thomas’s face was sympathetic.
Liam ran a hand over his face. This was the most discombobulated I’d ever seen him. It brought home how much danger I was currently in.
“Can we get them to take their hunt elsewhere? Or tell them not to hold it?” I asked.
“It’s doubtful that will work,” Thomas said. “They’ve made clear their intentions to start a barrow here. The treaty we have in place with them does not all
ow for our interference.”
“How does a Wild Hunt lead to establishing a barrow?” I asked, thinking aloud.
Liam stirred. “Fae magic is old magic. Primal. Its roots are deep in the earth. Once upon a time, they were easily able to establish little boltholes close to this world, entire realms they could rule while still touching the magic of this plane. That is no longer the case.”
So, Dahlia had been right in the information she shared last night.
“Another reason I can’t stop the hunt,” Thomas said, almost seeming regretful. “The council is interested in knowing whether they can succeed. Better for it to done under our watchful eye than somewhere our presence isn’t as strong.”
Liam was quiet, his eyes coming to rest on me. I stared back. It was tempting to let him try to protect me from this, to hide me somewhere the hunt would never find me—if such a thing was even possible.
But I had friends here who needed me whether they knew it or not. Jerry, for one. There was also the question of how I got the mark. Leave now, and I might never know and whoever had done this to me could just wait until all this passed to try again. Only next time they might succeed.
Forewarned is forearmed. At least now I knew what I was up against.
Liam read all this on my face. His sigh held a note of frustration and he looked like he wanted to keep arguing.
“We’ll figure this out,” he told me.
I nodded. We would. There was no other choice.
“For now, I say we figure out what happened to your vampires,” I told him.
It would keep my mind busy and away from thoughts of what might happen a few nights from now. There was also the fact that the two matters were connected. It was clear Niamh had a hand in both. Figure out one thing and you were halfway to figuring out the next.
He nodded, reluctantly, still frowning darkly at me.
I prepared to stand. “We should see what we can find out about the bodies.”
“You need blood,” Thomas said, his voice implacable. “You’re weak and can barely stand.”
I grunted, not needing the reminder. Much as I hated to admit it, Thomas was right. I wasn’t going anywhere. Whatever strength I’d managed to gain from Liam’s blood, it was gone now. Wiped away as if it had never been.