“You really think so?” Graham stopped in front of Ardyn who wiped sweat from his brow and cracked open another beer. “So, tell me, why aren’t they working? Look, we already know that Sarah was plotting against Tyrellis, and therefore against us. Who knows how many people she has on her side.”
“You think Sarah was strong enough to kill my bugs?” Ardyn refused to believe that any vampire could do that. He’d been using them for years and not one had ever been disabled.
“No, but I think she is cunning enough to know that they were there and to find someone to destroy them for her.” Sarah was resourceful; they all knew that. If she wanted something done, she would find a way.
“Fuck.” Ardyn hadn’t considered that Sarah would have gotten outside help of the magical nature. “Who the hell would help her?”
“You know as well as I do that there are beings who have defected from just about every group. It wouldn’t be that hard for her to find a wayward witch, especially after everything that happened with that badass warlock. They’re all scrambling to make new alliances. Sarah is just smart enough to use that to her advantage”
“You’re right, we need to get in there. But we can’t move yet, not until Inda gets back here with the others.” Ardyn gave up on his bugs and conjured a beer.
“Well, I suggest we light a fire under their asses. We’re running out of time.” Graham left the new hideout in search of a beverage a lot more intoxicating.
“We need to get moving.” Inda returned from the kitchen with a drink in her hand. “Just got a call from Reverie and it seems things are moving pretty quickly. Nitara is missing and Ardyn thinks that Tyrellis’ wife is up to no good.”
“Damn! Well, how long do we have?” Mike considered his wife and new daughter. He would have to call her and explain what was happening.
“He wants us there like yesterday,” Inda spoke, avoiding any form of interaction with Jax.
“Let’s get things in order. Sybella, thank you for your help here.” Briar nodded to Mysti who was preparing to return the seer back to the safety of Vilar.
“I haven’t done anything.” She shrugged. She still hadn’t spent any time with Jinn and was already being ushered off back to her home.
“Actually, perhaps you can be of some use. Nitara is missing. Last time you were able to give Jinn a mental connection to her, to let us know where she was. Do you think you can do that again?” Mike offered.
“Yes, if he is willing.” She peered over at the djinn. He’d been conveniently quiet during the conversation. All eyes turned to Jinn; silence punctuated the lingering pause as they waited to see what he would say.
“Sure, why the hell not? If it will help to get this shit over with and get you all out of my living room, let’s get it over with.” Jinn shrugged, and the others sighed in unison.
Nitara curled in on herself. She rocked beneath the pressure of Tyrellis' insanity. It was growing more and more each day. The weight of his paranoia was only made more so with the growing suspicions of his wife who reportedly spent more and more time away from home and in the areas known for his rivals. He screamed internally about his fear and the pain of her betrayal. For Nitara, it was overwhelming.
There were times when he was particularly fragile that she could witness, from within, the outside world. The shade that existed over her would fade away and she could see what things looked like around him. She watched as he finally confronted Sarah.
“Tell me the truth!” he demanded with a trembling voice.
“What truth is it that you want from me?” Sarah rolled her eyes as if the conversation was a waste of her time. “You have truly lost your mind, Tyrellis.”
“Have I? Or is the truth that you are conspiring against me? All this time you’ve been trying to convince me that the world is at my back, knife in hand, and yet it’s you that I should have been concerned about. Isn't it?”
“Are you serious?” She frowned. “You accuse me of betraying you? I have stood by your side for so long, and now you doubt me?”
“I can feel it, the blade in my back!” he hissed at her.
“I will not stand here and be disrespected like this.” Sarah turned, ready to storm out of the room, but Tyrellis grabbed her by the arm and turned her back to face him.
“You will stand here and take whatever I give you! I am the king!” Tyrellis yelled as his fingers dug into her skin; blood dripped from her arm where sharp nails pierced her flesh.
“King? What king are you? You’re holed up in this room, rambling about betrayals and letting your paranoia consume you! Who do you rule?” She sneered as she pulled her arm from his hold. “Do you think these people, who merely tolerate you, will stand beside you? Do you think they will lift your sad ass up from the hole you’ve dug? You had every opportunity to step up and be a great leader. Instead, you coward behind your genie and use her power to keep them in line. You are no king! You’re a scared little boy and everyone knows it!”
Tyrellis slapped his wife. She didn’t cry. In fact, she didn’t make a sound, just turned her face, red where his palm contacted with her flesh, back to face him. “Is that the best you can do? Like I said, a little boy.”
Nitara felt it, finally. Tyrellis was going to let her free. She stood from the ball she was curled into and prepared for her release. As he called to her internally, she rejoiced. Finally! Nitara couldn’t celebrate because just as the door opened, it slammed shut again. She reached out toward the light that would usually free her but pulled back with a howling scream as it burned her.
Tyrellis’ scream echoed Nitara’s as she pulled her hand into her. Still viewing his world, she saw the straps that bound him. Crossing his chest, they burned through his clothing and melted into his flesh. Quickly, he healed. His skin melded with the binding and sealed them within his body.
“What the hell is this?” He pulled at the straps, but they wouldn't move.
“This is my contingency plan. I knew you would turn on me. It was only a matter of time before that paranoia of yours switched to focus on me.” The doors opened and Castius strolled into the room with a sickly grin on his face.
“Honey, I’m home!” The man clapped his hands and laughed.
“How could you do this to me?” Tyrellis still clawed at the straps around his body.
“Change is inevitable, my dear.” Sarah touched his face, then dragged her nails across his jaw and licked her lips as his face bled. “You know how much I like to be prepared.”
“You will pay for this.” Tyrellis groaned.
“Really? Tell me, how do you see that happening now that you can’t call upon your little puppet to fix things for you?” Sarah pushed the man to the floor. “You are nothing without her! Just a sad, weak little man with no strength of his own!”
Tyrellis froze on the floor where he landed. She was right about him. It was the fear that drove his paranoia. Without Nitara, he was powerless against the older vampires.
“Take him away, I’m sick of looking at his pathetic face!” Sarah yelled, and Cast instructed two of his men to carry the frozen king away.
As they hauled his body away, Nitara could see less and less of the outside world. The final snickers of the woman who betrayed Tyrellis was the last she heard before everything went dark and then there was a silence so deafening that it hurt her head. She turned to return to her corner, but before she could curl in on herself again, a familiar voice replaced the rambling sounds of her vessel’s mind.
“Nitara, can you hear me?” The deep timbre of his voice soothed her. This was not the first time he’d entered her mind.
“Jinn?” Nitara felt warmth return to her heart, but it wasn’t there for long.
“Are you okay?” He sounded indifferent. His concern for her wasn’t that of a lover. It wasn’t that of a husband in search for the wife who’d been taken away. She’d broken him, his heart, his spirit.
“Yes,” she lied.
“Your friends are trying to find
you; I need to know where you are.” There it was, her friends were trying to find her, not him. He didn’t want to find her.
“Trapped, inside of my vessel,” she stated plainly.
“The vampire.”
“You know?”
“Yes. Are you not able to get out?” He paused. “Will he not let you?”
“You know how this works; he has to allow me to leave. Unfortunately, he couldn’t give me permission now even if he wanted to.” She looked down to her hand where the flesh still stung.
“What do you mean?”
“Sarah, his wife, she betrayed him. She’s working with Castius, the leader of the rebels who stand against Tyrellis. I’m not sure what magic she used, but she bound Tyrellis so that he cannot release me.”
“Fuck.” Jinn’s voice was full of disappointment and frustration.
“Yeah, it’s another shitty situation.”
“Where are you now?”
“I don’t know. They moved him, but he shut me out. I doubt we’re outside of his compound. That would be too risky right now. Sarah is going to want to keep Tyrellis close by.”
“Okay, good. Help is coming.” Help was coming, he wasn’t. She had to reconcile that for herself.
“Jinn, thank you.” She appreciated his help even though she didn’t deserve it. She needed him to know that.
“Yeah.” Again, indignation coated his voice, and then it was silent again. He was gone, and she was alone.
“Well?” Briar leaned into Jinn, barely giving him room to breathe after coming out of Sybella’s hold.
“It’s not good.” Jinn stood, to give himself space from the overbearing woman. “She is trapped.”
“Trapped?” the fairy queen asked as she handed him a glass of ice water.
“Yeah. Apparently, Sarah, his wife, stabbed him in the back. She is working with someone powerful enough to fashion a device to hold the vampire. Whatever it is, it has locked Nitara inside of him.” He swallowed the water in two gulps and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Oh, and there is some vampire boy toy named Cast that is helping the vamp queen.”
“Cast,” Jax groaned remembering the ice dragon with the same name who they had to put down for helping Daegal. “What do they do, breed them at a damn factory?”
“Shit,” Mike groaned. “It’s never easy, is it? Who the hell could have that kind of power?”
“Yeah.” Jinn looked at Inda. “You better update Ardyn. Let him know were headed that way.” He stood from the seat holding the glass in his hand, and as he exited the room it filled with whiskey.
“All right, let's get to it!” Mike clapped and everyone groaned.
“What happens now?” Cast stood in front of Sarah with his arms spread out at his sides. He was being carefully fitted for his new attire. Already he was happy with the good life. The women who measured him made flirty glances and giggled whenever he shot them a wink. Yeah, being king was going to be good. As it was, he did everything that Sarah told him to do. Didn’t see the point in stirring up any trouble, the woman was on top because she knew what she was doing. He told himself he would learn all he could from her, and then kick her to the curb just like she did Tyrellis. Perhaps, he would be a bit kinder. He shuddered to think what the woman was putting the former leader through, but reports were that he was being tortured something terrible. That wasn’t his concern, his focus was making sure she stayed happy with him. Sarah felt he needed new threads if he was going to be there next leader. When presented to the public, he couldn’t look, as she put it, unkempt. “Is it necessary for me to dress like this?”
“What exactly is your problem with the attire?” Sarah was disappointed in his aversion to stylish wear.
“This isn’t me.” He peered over the head of the woman measuring his chest to the reflection of him in the half-made suit. “I look ridiculous.”
“You look like you fit the part. Did you really think you could rule while wearing tattered jeans and leather jackets? You have to look like a ruler if you expect anyone to show you any kind of respect.” She waved her hand and rejected the bright colored fabric the short woman who assisted the designer showed her. “When you’re in power, you will have to hobnob with all the who’s who of the supernatural world. They’ll expect you to be on your best behavior, and to look like a decent person.”
“What are you talking about?” After stepping down from the pedestal, he picked up a glass of spiked wine. He sipped from it, and his eyes widened with pleasure as the mixture awakened his taste buds and aroused his lower half. “Man, I can definitely get used to this. Booze doesn’t taste anywhere near this good at the bar! What’s this talk about the who’s who? Vampires don’t mix with the others.”
“The common vampire no, but the leader, yes.” It appeared that Sarah would have to teach Castius literally everything about being in charge of Reverie. “You need to educate yourself, strive to be better than the leader before you. There are a lot of things that go with ruling, Castius, and that is something you’ll have to learn.”
“Cast, the name is Cast,” he corrected her before he polished off his drink.
“No, your name is Castius, and that is the name you’ll go by from now on.” She grabbed his hand before he could pick up another glass. If he was going to absorb anything it would be the lessons she had to teach, not the endless flow of wine.
“I’m not about this, changing who I am to fit who you think I should be. I’m me, Cast, leader of the outlaws and now King of Reverie! I do what I want.” He pulled away from her and sat on the plush couch where he had a nice view of the ample ass of the seamstress. “You want to change my image, my name, what else?” “
“If you want a list, I have one.” She winked at him playfully.
“We need to talk about how things are going to go here.” Cast had only been king for a day and already the power was going to his head.
“Yes, we do.” Sarah turned to Rebecca, the designer who had been quietly working at her task right along with the seamstress who was enjoying her flirtatious tease with Cast. “Give us some time please.” The designer and her pouty assistant left.
“What’s the story here?” When they were alone, Cast got up and grabbed that second glass.
“What?” She eyed his hand. “Now is not the time for you to get drunk.”
“I’m fine.” He waved off her concern. “Tyrellis isn’t completely out of the picture until he is dead. When do we make that happen?”
“We can’t just kill him. We have to do this the right way.” Sarah slipped from a mothering tone to a sultry one. With the drink in his hand and the bulge in his pants, she could see that a softer touch would work much better. “Right now, he is driving himself mad, especially with having Nitara trapped inside of him.”
“And that’s good for us?” He watched her hips as she walked across the room and pushed the door shut to give them more privacy.
“Yes, the people will see how unstable he is. Then you can appear and challenge him. It will be a fight that you will win, obviously, and as rules state, if you challenge the leader and win, you take his place.”
“You say it as if it is so simple.” The light that bounced off the pale skin of her cleavage worked in a hypnotic way. Cast found himself entranced by her.
“Well, no, it isn’t that simple. We have to make sure we give him enough time.” Sarah was back at his side and pulling the jacket off his shoulders. Running her hand across his bare chest, she purred.
“Enough time for what?” Cast swallowed his arousal and tried to stay focused, but her touch was exhilarating, and his lower mind was completely preoccupied with thoughts of her.
“Enough time to make sure that whatever he says, it sounds so outlandish that no one will be willing to believe him. As it is, he has been missing for a while. It’s starting to inspire a lot of speculation. The next summit is just a few days away. The city mayors will all be here in the capital. That is when we will strike. By then he should be go
od and ripe.”
“Wait, what makes you think one of the mayors won’t want to take over? What if they jump in line ahead of me?”
“They won’t.” She rolled her eyes. “Do you know anything about the structure of things? If not, I suggest you read up. No mayor can challenge during an official summit. If they want to, they have to wait until Tyrellis calls things to a close. You will challenge him before that. As a citizen, it is your right.”
“This is all moving really fast.” Cast hadn’t considered that he would need to challenge Tyrellis officially, or that he would have to do it with all the eyes of the vampire world on him. The summit was televised to all vampire sectors.
“Cold feet?” She nuzzled him before replacing the jacket with one that was finished.
“No, just a head rush.” He turned to his reflection in the mirror and adjusted the collar. “You know, I look pretty damn good.”
“See,” she kissed his neck, “you fit the role.” Sarah walked in front of Cast, blocking his view of himself but giving him the sight of her backside reflected in the mirror. Her lips danced across his chest and her hand roamed his body in a southern trajectory.
“You’re still a married woman.” He looked down to find her wide eyes staring up at him as her tongue teased his nipple.
“Are you telling me that you care?” she purred, shocked at his sudden concern for what was decent and fair.
“No, not one damn bit.” Cast turned and scooped the woman into his arms. He carried her to the bed at the back of the room. Yeah, being king is definitely going to be fun! he thought to himself as he carelessly ripped through lacey fabric.
“There are some interesting rumors going on out there,” Graham stated when he returned to the hideout from a run. He’d decided to try to go out and get more information since the bugs were disabled. Their recon would have to take a more traditional form. Things around Tyrellis’ compound had gone quiet, too quiet for comfort and he wasn’t down for sitting and speculating about what was happening.
Djinn Rebellion Boxset (Books 1 -30: A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Page 30