by K. N. Banet
He tried to shoot me. He barely talks to me about anything except to learn what the hell is going on around him. He didn’t care if I thought he looked good.
Oh yeah, Adhar, you think this is going to be easy? Just bite him? Funny.
I sure as hell would never bite a guy who was completely uninterested, and I barely knew. And that was if I even intended on ever biting anyone. Nagas mated for life. Once the choice of mate was made, if there was more than one option, that mate had to die before a naga could mate with another. If I did it without thinking, I could easily end up with a guy who fucking hated me, and there would be nothing either of us could do about it except kill each other.
Hmm. No thanks.
I stayed lost in thought, not looking up from the dashboard until we were pulling onto my dirt drive. Cassius mumbled a curse.
“What?” I demanded.
“Why can’t you live near civilization? Or at least get the driveway paved?”
“Ah. Yeah, I thought you were just bitching,” I said, nodding sagely. “You always bitch when you don’t have the creature comforts of a long, paved drive and might get a rock kicked up and scratch the paint.”
“You love your cars,” he said with a bite. “You don’t worry about this?”
“I can easily get the little shit fixed. I don’t like when someone shoots at my car. Big difference,” I said, trying to sound like I was the reasonable one.
Cassius snorted, shaking his head.
When my house came into view, I wanted to cry.
“Holy shit,” Raphael said from the back. I felt the car shift as he moved to get a better look through the front seats. “Sorry about the BMW.”
“Yeah, the witch had already set it on fire, so…” I shrugged.
Cassius coughed, hopefully out of shock. I thumped his shoulder a few times, sighing.
“Yeah, Sinclair had a witch and fae with him. I told you that. The witch set the BMW on fire. The fae put a lot of bullets into the Aston Martin.”
“Did the BMW roll down the damn mountain?” he asked, pointing as he pulled to a stop.
“No, I threw it at the fae when he came after me,” Raphael explained.
“Well…” Cassius cut the engine and gestured at my poor house. “Let’s go see what kind of damage they did.”
As I got out of the car, I started taking it in. I could see the broken window Raphael had jumped through, trying to find cover. I didn’t blame him. If it got him inside to safety faster than a door, so be it. I could see the front door had been kicked open, and there were scorch marks on the frame. The witch probably had a bit of fun with the fire. The BMW Raphael was sorry about? It was a heap of burned metal, ruined electronics, and mechanical parts, much too close to my house. I could see where pieces of it had fallen off after he threw it.
“Kaliya…” Cassius whispered, looking at me. “I’m so sorry.”
“It happens,” I said sadly, staring at the devastation. Before either man could say any more, I went in through the front door, knowing the garage was going to be a hazard of broken glass from the Aston Martin.
My display cases were shattered, my weapons tossed everywhere. That was the first thing I noticed, realizing I was going to have to do a full inventory to make sure I had everything. I didn’t know if they decided to look for something or just wanted to ruin my home. Either was possible.
I picked up a katana I was given by a friend, testing it. It seemed they hadn’t done any damage to the weapons if the katana was a fair judge of the rest.
“Nice,” Raphael said, stepping next to me.
“I’ve had it for about ninety years,” I said softly. “I got it when I completed my training.” I was immensely glad to see it, to be able to hold it. If Sinclair had wanted to hurt me, he could have stolen and sold it off, forcing me to find it.
“Hisao gave you one of his weapons?” Cassius asked, frowning. “Why didn’t I ever know that?”
“Because it wasn’t a big deal. It stayed in its case.” I grabbed the sheath from the floor and found a belt. Once the blade was secured to my waist, I felt more comfortable. Just a reminder I was trained, that I had earned the sword, made me feel more secure. I could survive this as I had survived so much else. “Raphael? Can you go outside and see if you can find our bags? I need my cellphone.”
“Sure.”
I walked deeper into the house when he turned and left. Cassius stayed by me, and I was glad for the familiar comfort of his presence.
“He did a number on your place,” Cassius said, toeing a piece of furniture out of the way. It was my coffee table, and it was flipped over. I could see where the wood was cracking. Another thing to replace.
“Yeah…”
“Why did you send him outside?”
“Naksha is here, and I don’t want him to see me upset if they killed her,” I admitted, swallowing.
“The snake you’re taking care of? You know, it might not be perfect, but I’m certain I can get something set up today at my house for her. Something small and temporary. If she’s…”
“That would be nice. Make the call,” I said softly, walking through my back hallway. I checked the handle of my secure office, sagging with relief to feel it was still locked. Neither fae nor vampire would have been able to get in. One room, the most important room, didn’t need to be checked, not yet.
I went into my unsecure office next and sagged against the door frame.
“They tore apart my computer, Cassius,” I said, looking at the mangled remains of the tower. “Probably stole the hard drive.”
“I’ll text the others and let them know our communication channels have probably been compromised. Give me a moment. I still need to tell Leith about the snake so he can prepare something.” He backed away and left me there to stare at the wreckage. I couldn’t take all day, planning the renovation to keep this from happening again.
I walked quickly around the table and started looking over the habitat. I would have known already if Naksha was out. I would have smelled her through the house, but her scent was still confined to this office. The habitat was secure.
I guess not even Sinclair and that blasted fae were willing to upset a very dangerous cobra.
That’s good. Okay. I know how to do this.
I hadn’t done it since I was a child. It was one of the more private, beautiful naga gifts, and my parents had made sure I could do it just like them. I never did it because unlike my other skills, it evoked too many memories of a childhood that died and took my peace and sanity with it.
I opened the side door of the habitat and started to sing.
19
Chapter Nineteen
Snake charming, from a human perspective, was seen as a parlor trick or just dangerous and stupid. I couldn’t blame humans for that perspective, either. It was stupidly dangerous for most humans to attempt, and those who did it well didn’t charm the way snake charming was meant to be. In ancient times, they had seen nagas doing it and imitated them, but didn’t have the magic to back it up.
Lifting a hand, I began to rock my body back and forth while my hand moved in the opposite direction. The tune I sang was melodic and simple, calming and patient. Snake charming was magical, but it still relied on the snake to budge, to give a little in return before the magic could grab hold.
Naksha slithered off her rock and came toward me. She rose up, and her hood opened, but I wasn’t worried about her spitting. She began to follow my hand, not my face, which was the reason I was taught to do it differently. Naksha could now spit at the hand if she so desired, but my face and eyes were safe. She couldn’t kill or blind me, but it would sting quite a bit, and I would have to wait to try again.
“What…” Raphael was behind me, but I didn’t stop singing.
“Don’t move,” Cassius whispered urgently.
“What is she doing?”
“Charming the snake,” my ex-lover answered. “Consider yourself blessed. Outsiders don’t usually get to s
ee this.”
“Have you ever?”
“No.”
I wanted to chuckle. Cassius was right. This was something nagas normally did privately or with others of our own kind. We didn’t do it for show or to show off. To charm a snake was to make a bond with it, to bend its will, and be something more than another predator. Nothing crazy or permanent, but if I succeeded, Naksha would do anything I wished for a time. I needed that if I was going to move her without proper equipment.
I continued to sing gently and lowered my hand, keeping my palm up. Naksha lowered her head, resting it in my palm. Still singing, I lifted, and she began to wind around my arm, climbing up to my shoulder, then wrapped twice around my neck. Since she wasn’t a constrictor, there was no worry. I kept singing as I stood and continued the side to side, smooth motion, rolling my shoulders. She played on my arms and shoulders, keeping one coil around my neck at all times. She was mine.
“Good girl,” I whispered as the song ended. Naksha moved up and laid her face in my hair. “There are no threats here,” I promised, reaching up to run a finger over the top of her head. There was a sense of awareness nagas had with snakes, and charming a snake only heightened it. I would be able to read her mood until I released her from the charm.
“That was…”
“Beautiful,” Cassius finished for Raphael. “Is she okay to travel?”
“Yeah, she’ll be fine on me if I stay calm,” I said. “Raphael, did you find anything?”
“The stuff in our bags was tossed around, and I looked through everything as best I could, but your phone is gone.”
“They tore up this computer. It would only make sense that they stole your phone, Kaliya.”
“Yeah, they’re looking for information. They’ll want to know every place I own, where I hide when things get tough. If they’ve already broken in, there’s a chance the fae could be watching us on the security feed—”
“You hooked your security cameras with your phone?” Cassius asked, his eyes bugging out a bit.
“Just the habitat cameras,” I answered. “I can’t leave Naksha unattended for too long, but if there’s nothing wrong, I can leave her undisturbed for a couple of weeks and having a state-of-the-art, internet-enabled system allowed me to go do my job.”
“Any fae could have used magic—”
“No, not any fae could have,” I snapped at him. “Don’t make your kind more powerful than they are. You could, but excuse me, we weren’t talking about you. Paden couldn’t do everything I needed for Naksha, and I didn’t want him having to drive out here every day I was gone to check on her. So yes, my phone is hooked into part of my security system.”
I left the office with the cobra and went into my bedroom, gritting my teeth at the devastation. They’d thrown my clothes around and dug through drawers and boxes in the closet. Thankfully, anything really important was hidden somewhere safer than my bedroom closet.
I looked through everything, careful of Naksha as she moved around on me. I picked up weapons and clothing, finding a bag I could toss everything into. Raphael followed me in and started to help. When I snatched a thong out of his hand, he lifted his hands in defeat. I realized the thong had been tangled up with a shirt. He hadn’t been looking for my underwear.
“I wanted to help. This is…this is because of me. Cassius went to check some things and disconnected the power to shut everything down.”
I sighed and patted his chest—his big, kind of considerate chest. Touching him caused the dull ache in my fangs to become insistent, and they dropped again.
Okay, hormones. Let’s hit the brakes. I don’t have time to deal with you and don’t really want to.
“Thanks,” I said, quickly pulling my hand away when he looked down at it. “Just…leave my intimate belongings, please. I can always buy more…”
“Okay.” He reached down and picked up three shirts and tossed them on the ruined bed. “So…uh…”
“Yes?”
“You have a nice singing voice,” he finally spit out. “And that song…”
“That song is the naga…spell that helps us charm snakes. No, I won’t translate it for you. It’s…a bit like a personal prayer.” I felt my cheeks heat. This was just one of the reasons nagas didn’t snake charm in front of people. It drew a lot of attention.
“Your eyes changed while you were doing it. Like a fiery orange.”
“My snake form eyes,” I explained. “Things were moving fast, so you didn’t get the chance to really see me in the light when Sinclair visited.” I blinked and pulled my ability to shift my eyes. Looking up from sorting my clothing, I caught him watching me. His eyes flashed red in return, and my pulse jumped at how he really took in my face, stepping closer.
“They look good on you. A lot better than my freakshow face,” he said, leaning in. I knew he was studying something new, trying to understand and form an opinion, but my fangs ached so hard, I had to pull away—the need to bite him and claim him was too strong.
“You don’t look like a freakshow,” I said carefully. “You’re supernatural, and in our world, the more interesting you are, the more people want to know you. You’ve never been seen before. Everyone is going to want to know you.”
“I’m really never getting my human life back, am I?” There was despair and heartbreak in the question. “I keep hoping…”
“No. You can pretend, but it’ll never be the same. You can’t get back the humanity you’ve lost.”
His eyes flashed red again, and black began to form this time.
“I haven’t lost my humanity,” he growled.
Fuck.
“That’s not what I meant—”
“I get that everyone here last night and in your world might be okay with killing, but I’m not a monster. I’m still going to try my best to be a decent person.”
“Raphael—”
He stormed out, and I tossed my hands up in defeat.
Fuck.
I hissed in annoyance and continued to stuff clothing into my bag. Cassius had some good stuff at his place, but I liked my clothes. I tried to shove Raphael out of my thoughts, so I could consider the problems at hand.
Sinclair had everything. If he had his hands on my tech, then he had his hands on my communications with the other Executioners and Investigators like Cassius. He had my database and would be able to look through my personal search histories. My bank accounts were no longer safe since even I needed a hub to manage the different shell companies and aliases that managed my money. Was there anything I needed to worry about right now, though?
I thought back on the days since I came home, and Carter picked me up.
Carter.
I froze, unable to keep my forward momentum for a moment as I remembered Carter had helped me find where Sinclair was staying. Those texts would still be there, and Sinclair wasn’t a fool. He would already have someone working to break into my phone for intel. It sucked, being a supernatural in the modern world. Chained to the conveniences of technology, but everyone worth paying attention to was smart enough to break through. That was why Cassius was cranky about my security being hooked up to my phone. His security was completely magical, so he didn’t care if people knew where he lived.
Everything had its pros and cons.
The power went out, lights shutting off around me. Well, now the phone couldn’t be used against the house. That was something.
I randomly shoved a few more pieces of clothing into the bag and tossed it over my shoulder.
“Cassius!” I called. “Cassius, we have a problem!”
“What?” He walked in from the garage as I walked into the hallway.
“My phone. Carter, you know Carter, right? Well, he helped me the night Sinclair showed up in Phoenix. They had gone to Midnight Reverie and—”
“Kaliya,” Cassius said with that stern, ‘what the fuck were you thinking’ tone. “What—”
“He was able to get an address, in case the fae in Sinclair
’s group wanted to hook up before they left town.” I refused to let guilt stop me from getting this out there. We needed to make a plan, and Cassius had to understand what kind of danger Carter was in. Not that I had any doubt that Cassius knew the importance of the problem we now faced. “I broke into Sinclair’s place to get the intel some board member at Mygi had given him. It led me to find Raphael before they were able to.”
“Kaliya…Carter is part of the Phoenix vampire nest, correct?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll make the call to the nest Mistress. She’s the granddaughter of Isaiah. She’ll listen to us and try to keep him safe. She’s going to be furious with you.”
“She’s always angry at me for something,” I said, shrugging. Her connection to Isaiah was important, though. Anyone related to the male vampire on the Tribunal was worth trying to work with. “As long as Carter stays out of Sinclair’s hands, I’ll manage.”
“Okay. You ready to go? You can drive while I call her.” He looked around, frowning. “Where did Raphael go?”
“I said he’d lost his humanity, but I didn’t mean it in the way he thought I did.” I shook my head. “He’s…he’s going through that stage every human turned supernatural goes through. You know, they freak out. They don’t want to be a monster. They think we’re terrible and shouldn’t live the way we do. All that.”
“Ah…” Cassius nodded sagely, staring out of a window in my living room, probably looking out for the not-human in question. “Sadly, he’s with two supernaturals who can’t relate.”
“Yeah. We just have to manage. Let’s get going.”
I strolled to the busted front door. I saw Raphael sitting on one of my big yard rocks, meaning a rock in the desert, staring at the sun as it slowly went down.
“We have to get moving,” I called out. “We need to get back to Cassius’ place before sundown.”