by Sadie Moss
“We’ll be safe from any eavesdropping ears here. I don’t think your grandmother sent anyone outside after us, but better safe than sorry.” His green eyes flickered with worry as he glanced back at the house. “I find it hard to believe that Representative Lockwood would so easily open her home to such a motley crew as a mage, two Touched, and a Blighted man.”
“Yeah.” I nodded grimly. “I don’t know if we can trust her motives. But I also don’t know if there’s an easy way to turn down her offer without drawing more suspicion. Why the hell did you guys come here? I thought Christine said not to let Beatrice see you.”
“Hey, killer, remember what I told you that first day we brought you to the Resistance headquarters?” Fenris settled onto the bench, pulling me down beside him and spreading his long legs wide as he leaned back comfortably.
“Umm…” I got distracted by the sight of his steely thighs encased in dark jeans and had to clear my suddenly tight throat. “No?”
“Fuck Christine.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
“He doesn’t mean that,” Jae interjected calmly, standing in front of us to block the sun from shining in my eyes.
“Sure I do,” Fenris shot back. He draped an arm across the back of the bench, turning to me with a serious expression. “You sounded like you were dying, killer. The last words you said to us were ‘help me.’ You really think Christine could’ve stopped us from coming?” He kicked a foot out toward Jae. “And don’t act like you weren’t the first one in the car, Mr. Magic Man.”
My stomach clenched. “I shouldn’t have called you. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck that!” Corin burst out. He rested a foot on the bench on my other side, leaning in toward me. “Having you here in the Capital and us stuck in the Outskirts is godsdamned torture. The only thing that’s kept me from losing my mind is knowing you’d contact us if you needed anything. And even then, hearing you fade out like that today and being so far away from you…” He trailed off, a haunted look in his eyes. Then he pushed back from the bench and turned to Akio and Jae. “Fuck it. I say we stay.”
“Corin, no—!”
“Your grandmother has already seen us, Lana. She knows who we are. She could report us to the Peacekeepers, have us followed, jail us—or at least me—right now if she wanted to. We already made our choice by coming here.”
Jae nodded slowly. “He’s not wrong. And Christine doesn’t want us to return to the Resistance base for the indefinite future, not until she’s sure we’re clear.”
I leaned forward, resting my head in my hands. “This is all my fault. I should’ve moved faster, gotten some valuable intel sooner so Christine would let me go home.”
Akio crouched in front of me with cat-like grace, tilting his head to look me in the eye. “That’s not how this was ever going to work, kitten.”
My nose itched from holding back tears of frustration. “Godsdamn it. I don’t know how to be a spy. I’m not good at… ingratiating myself with people.”
He cocked a brow. “I don’t know about that. You have all four of us wrapped around your little finger.”
I snorted. “Yeah, but with you guys, I cheated. You have to like me.”
The incubus’s enigmatic eyes darkened, and his nostrils flared. Before I could decipher his expression, he stood abruptly, gazing down at me. “We’ll help.”
“Yeah,” Fen piped in, his hand running lightly down my back. “From what you told us earlier, it sounds like the Representatives are more divided than we thought. Maybe we can use that to our advantage. Make nice with the right people and start changing things from the inside. Find out if any of them know more than they’re saying about the disappearing Gifted. Shit, if we could dig up proof that someone in the government is involved in those attacks on the Gifted, we’d have an actual shot at turning the elite against them.”
“I don’t think any of the Representatives I met today are going to be much help. There are several I have yet to meet, but I don’t—” I broke off suddenly, my head jerking up to stare into Akio’s eyes. “Wait! Couldn’t I use demon charm on them? Put them in a suggestible state and get them to answer any questions I wanted?”
The sunlight glinted off his dark hair as he shook his head. “I’m afraid not, kitten. Powerful magic users are harder to charm, for one thing. And even if you did manage to charm them, you can’t keep someone, let alone a group of people, enthralled permanently. They’d break the charm sooner or later, and when they came out of the trance, they’d know something had been done to them. If an incubus or succubus could just march into the palace and gain control over the entire Council of Representatives, they’d have killed all of us long ago.”
Damn it. That made sense. It had been too much to hope that I could just magic my way out of this, but Akio’s words put me back at square one.
“So how do I get the Representatives to talk to me then?”
Akio flashed the seductive grin that always sent butterflies fluttering through my stomach. “You’ll have to use your actual charm. The nonmagical kind.”
Oh.
We were screwed.
Chapter 7
As unprepared as I felt to charm anybody sans magic, an opportunity came sooner than I had dared hope. A few days after the men burst through the door of Beatrice’s house, my grandmother informed me that she’d received an invitation for a celebration at the palace. Unlike the Grand Ball, this event was just for government officials and their invited guests, so it was the perfect chance to do a little schmoozing with the Representatives and lower-level officials.
Beatrice shocked me by suggesting I bring my four with me. I was still suspicious of her motivations for inviting them to stay with us in the first place and found myself waiting anxiously for the other shoe to drop.
But so far, it hadn’t.
Beatrice had been kind and pleasant to all of them, including Corin, although I did notice she rarely addressed him directly. She’d even keyed them all into the wards on her house so they could come and go freely, a gesture of good faith I could hardly believe. Maybe our conversation after my magic flare had affected her more than I’d thought.
On the day of the ball, Jae disappeared for the afternoon and returned with formal clothes for all the men to wear. He didn’t need to bring anything for me this time, since the wardrobe in my bedroom was practically bursting with dresses of all shapes and colors.
My body thrummed with nervous energy as I stepped out of the luxurious glass-walled stone shower in my “en suite” bathroom—a word I hadn’t known until I arrived here. Not sure what to do with my hair without Ivy’s guidance, and still cringing from memories of the pins digging into my scalp from my previous attempt, I left my long red locks down.
Before dressing, I strapped my twin daggers to my thighs. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use them and wasn’t sure how much help they’d be anyway in a room full of the Gifted and Touched, but they were like a security blanket, soothing my nerves.
Yanking open the large wardrobe, I stuck my hand in and grabbed the first thing I touched. It turned out to be a deep purple full-length gown with a plunging V in the front, cap sleeves, and a fitted waist. The fabric was something soft that clung to the curves of my body, and it was embroidered with an intricate pattern of delicate, sparkling beads. I tried not to appreciate the beauty of it but couldn’t help running my fingers admiringly over the shimmering beadwork.
Finally, I grudgingly slipped on a pair of heels and headed downstairs.
My feet followed the familiar path to the kitchen, drawn by the sound of voices. As soon as my four had officially accepted Beatrice’s offer to stay, they’d done almost the exact same thing I had when I first arrived—sought out the warmest, most lived-in part of the house.
Beatrice had been busier than usual with meetings at the palace, making me wonder if there had been another attack on one of the Gifted. Or had the Resistance struck another supply shipment? Although the men checked in with C
hristine daily, she hadn’t mentioned any new strikes as far as I was aware. But maybe she was keeping our updates on a need-to-know basis now that we were all staying in the Capital. It might be safer for everyone if we didn’t know too much about other Resistance operations.
A high-pitched gasp greeted me as I walked into the kitchen. Retta’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes like saucers behind her thick glasses.
“Oh, Miss Crow! Look at you!”
I flushed uncomfortably under her excited gaze—and even more under the hot stares of the four men standing in the kitchen, devouring me with their eyes.
“Ho-ly gods.” Fenris let out a low whistle.
He was one to talk. The dark gray suit he wore showed off his tall, muscled body to perfection and made his messy hair and scruffy face look even more handsome. The suit’s color reminded me of his wolf’s fur, and I smiled at the thought.
“You’ll do more than charm people in that dress, kitten. You’ll bring them to their knees.” Akio lounged against the kitchen counter, his eyes slowly tracing the length of my body.
“You look beautiful, Lana.” Jae stepped forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek, surprising me. I’d grown close to him over the few weeks we’d spent together; most of our magic lessons ended up devolving into long talks about everything under the sun. But he kept his emotions so tightly under wraps that I was never quite sure what he felt for me. Even now, his elegant features were carefully neutral, though heat sparked in his green eyes.
“You truly do, Miss Crow!” Darcy bustled around the kitchen, shooing Akio out of the way so she could reach into a cupboard behind him. “A right beauty, you are. You’ll be the envy of every fancy society lady there tonight.”
She shot a glance at the four gorgeous men crowding the kitchen and shook her head wistfully. I had to agree with her there. They might not envy my dress, but they would certainly envy my company.
Darcy and Retta had taken to the men right away, despite the intimidating power that radiated from three of them. The servants seemed to have become more comfortable around me too, and I realized it was probably because I was acting more like myself. I felt more like myself with the guys here.
Corin draped an arm around my shoulder, his fingertips skimming my bare skin. “You ready for this?”
“Fuck, no. You?”
He chuckled. “At least this time I won’t have to serve drinks and get felt up by Gifted women.”
I bared my teeth in a snarl I couldn’t suppress. “Anybody tries it, and I will fight them this time.”
He pressed his lips to my hair, murmuring in a low voice, “You going to defend my honor?”
Heat snaked down my spine, and my body shivered involuntarily. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Lana? Are you ready, sweet girl?”
Beatrice poked her head into the kitchen, her short white hair perfectly complemented by the blue gemstone earrings she wore. Her eyes softened when she saw me, an expression like pride stealing over her face. She took in the men, her eyebrows rising and a small smile playing across her lips. “Ah, you’re all ready, I see.”
Although I wasn’t prepared to fully trust Beatrice, now that several days had passed with no Peacekeepers banging down the door to haul the men away, my wariness had faded a bit. I’d begun to suspect that part of her motivation stemmed from the simple fact that she was incredibly lonely. She’d lost her entire family to the Great Death and spent over a decade living in this museum of a house all by herself. She never actually joined us when we gathered in the kitchen, but she’d find excuses to pop in and say hello from time to time, and I wondered if the sound of voices floating through the house was as comforting to her as it was to me.
“You’re sure the other Representatives will allow us all in?” I asked again, brushing my hands over my beaded dress.
She stepped fully into the kitchen, seeming taller than her five-foot stature. “Dear girl, that is not up to them to decide. You’re with me. These men are with you. That’s the end of it.”
I didn’t think that was the end of it at all, and nerves turned my stomach into a rock, but I nodded anyway.
“Okay. Then we’re ready.”
The white marble facade of the People’s Palace glowed like a star as Tarik pulled up at the entrance. The car behind us rolled to a stop as well, and as the green-haired fairy opened the door for Beatrice, Akio, Jae, and Fenris stepped out of the second vehicle. Corin pulled the handle on his side of our car and slipped out, holding the door open for me.
He didn’t offer to help me out of the car like the others usually did, and I could’ve kissed him for it. I didn’t mind when the other guys made such chivalrous gestures, but Corin had hunted bison with me on the Great Plains of Wyoming. We’d climbed trees together, made love under the stars in the vast open grasslands, and stolen from any Gifted person foolish enough to visit the settlement. He knew what I was capable of, and for him to treat me like a prim and proper lady belied our entire history.
So instead of taking his arm as we headed up the steps to meet the others, I grabbed his hand, lacing our fingers together. Like partners.
A red carpet once again adorned the wide stairs outside the palace, and my heart slammed harder in my chest with every step we took toward the imposing entrance. Beatrice led the way, and the rest of my four flanked me protectively, eyes scanning the crowd.
Unbelievably, this celebration was held in an entirely different room than the Grand Ball had taken place in. How many ballrooms did this place have? It was enormous enough to hold dozens, so I probably shouldn’t have been surprised.
The tone of this gathering was much different from the Grand Ball as well. The crowd was smaller and obviously more comfortable with each other, given the volume of conversation that greeted us when we stepped into the opulent space. Live music floated down from an elevated platform on one wall, where a group of demons played instruments I didn’t recognize. Fairies—both male and female—flitted through the crowd, laughing and entertaining the guests, their brilliantly colored hair gleaming in the light.
Like the other ballroom I’d been in, a dance floor took up the middle of the space, and just like last time, it was mostly empty. Apparently, the Gifted really weren’t big on dancing.
So why the fuck did they keep throwing balls?
I tried to suppress my bitterness as we made our way through the roomful of people chattering and sipping expensive champagne. Was this what the Gifted government did every week while people in the Outskirts were starving? The thought marred the brilliant sheen that glittered over everything here, and I gripped Corin’s hand tighter.
Heads turned toward us, and I swore I could hear conversations die as we walked by, only to resume in hushed whispers after we passed. Beatrice seemed aware of the gossip too, but she staunchly ignored it, keeping her head held high.
When we were about halfway across the room, a man I didn’t know caught Beatrice’s eye and gestured her over. She turned to face us, grasping my hand lightly.
“I’ll just be a moment. Enjoy the festivities, and…” Her brow furrowed for a brief moment as she looked over my shoulder at the men. “Stay together.”
She turned and swept through the crowd toward the Gifted man who had summoned her. He had dark skin, receding short gray hair, and a gaunt face. Who was he?
“Eben Knowles,” Jae murmured in my ear, answering my unspoken question. “Another Representative, and probably the most powerful wizard in the country.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear that. The ballroom was a sea of different powers, but that man’s magic stood out even in this crowd, radiating from him so strongly I could feel it from here.
“Thank gods he can only cast spells from scrolls.” I shook my head. “I can’t imagine how big of a threat he might be otherwise.”
“True.” Jae shifted his gaze away from the man as Beatrice reached him. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s handicapped by that. Given his position i
n the government, he has access to almost every spell ever transcribed.”
I shivered, casting my gaze around the room again. We couldn’t afford to forget for a second that we were in the middle of a viper nest. This place was dangerous, and the odds of us finding the information we wanted without getting bitten weren’t great.
“Right. So, we need to get these people talking. How do we do that?”
A warm hand fell on my back, and I turned to see Akio leaning toward me. He dipped his head to murmur in my ear.
“Dance with me.”
Chapter 8
An unladylike snort erupted from my mouth. “What? No! We’re here to feel out the Representatives; we need to get them talking.”
“That’s what I plan to do.” The smile he flashed me was pure sin.
My face flushed. “Well, I… I don’t really dance.”
“I’ve seen you fight. You know how to move. Dancing follows the same principles, just with less violence.”
“Yeah, but that’s the fun part,” I muttered.
The incubus smirked before collecting my elbow and leading me toward the dance floor. Corin released my hand with a sympathetic smile. I glared at him as I was pulled away, then quickly added, “You three stay together. Be safe.”
He nodded seriously. “We will.”
I turned around, walking quickly to keep pace with Akio’s purposeful strides. “You know, we don’t have to do this.”
He swept us into the middle of the large marble dance floor, spinning me around to face him. Ornate stonework decorated the floor in a beautiful pattern of white, red, and gold. A few fairies twirled by with Gifted guests, but otherwise, we had the entire thing to ourselves.
“Oh, but we really do,” Akio shot back. “You want to get to know the Representatives? To draw them out? The best way to garner their interest is to steal the spotlight.”