Bind the Soul (27 page)

A long silence stretched on as she, Ash, and Seiya stood immobile, waiting for the imminent attack, while the surrounding soldiers waited for . . . what?

Two men standing across from Piper stepped aside, opening a space between them. A new figure stepped into the circle. Light glimmered on honey blond hair and caught on a pair of green eyes. She deflated as tension left her all at once.

“Miysis!” she exclaimed in relief. “Where did you come from?”

His gaze moved from her to Ash before stopping on Seiya.

“Who are you?” Power thrummed in his voice but didn’t mask his cold hostility. Piper’s relief died as quickly as it had come to life. Maybe this wasn’t the friendly rescue party she’d been hoping for.

“Who are
you
?” Seiya countered, equally cool.

Piper glanced between them. The tension was thick enough to cut.

“Uh,” she said into the silence. “Seiya, this is Miysis Ra. Miysis, this is Seiya, Ash’s sister.”

“A Ra?” Seiya hissed, loathing twisting her features. Her hand slid toward her gun.

Miysis’s soldiers lifted their weapons.

“Hold, Seiya,” Ash murmured.

She reluctantly dropped her hand.

“Your sister?” Miysis asked Ash. “You’ve kept her existence well hidden.”

“Not by choice.”

They stared each other down. Piper didn’t understand what was going on. Miysis clearly wasn’t there to rescue her; he may have saved her from Raum and helped her into the gala, but he wasn’t an ally she could trust. Especially when he’d admitted he and Ash had tried to kill each other in the past. She didn’t know whether they were in danger. She cleared her throat to break the silence—again.

“Miysis, uh . . .” She glanced around. “What are you doing here?”

His attention turned to her, but his soldiers’ eyes were on Ash and Seiya. “Asphodel was attacked. Everyone is babbling about Ashtaroth’s escape.” His gaze shifted back to Ash. “Quinn claims you kidnapped his daughter.”

Ash blinked and looked blankly at Piper.

“It was Raum,” she said quickly. “He disguised himself as Ash since Samael was planning to kill Ash anyway.”

“And where did Raum take you?” Miysis asked smoothly. His eyes gleamed.

She swallowed. “The Underworld.”

“I see. And did Ash rescue you?”

“Not precisely.”

Another long beat of silence.

“Where is it?”

She froze. “Where’s what?”

He made an impatient sound. His eyes no longer glinted bright green; they’d gone black. “My spies reported an outrageous amount of destruction in Asphodel. Not even a draconian could have done it. Where is the Sahar?”

She shot a panicked look at Ash. “I threw it in the canyon in Asphodel.”

“Lie,” Miysis growled. “One more chance.”

His soldiers shifted restlessly, halberd blades flashing in the light.

She looked at Ash again. Dark circles bruised his eyes. He was exhausted. He’d used up his stamina escaping the Underworld and his magic getting her through the Void. He wasn’t up for another fight, especially one against an unknown number of Miysis’s best soldiers. Ras weren’t weak daemons.

Taking a deep breath, she reached into her shirt and closed her fingers around the cool weight of the Stone. She opened her hand to show Miysis.

“It’s here.” She snapped her hand closed as the circle of daemons tightened.

Miysis stared greedily at her hand. “Give it to me.”

“No.”

His face went hard. “Give it to me or my men will take it from you.”

Keeping her breaths deep and even, she mentally prepared to do murder again. The Ra family killed Hades daemons whenever they could, and in their eyes, Ash and Seiya were Hades daemons.

“I’ll give it to you,” she said, “but not until me, Ash, and Seiya are inside the Consulate.”

His jaw clenched. “You are not in a position to argue, Piper. I don’t want to hurt you. Give it to me now.”

“If I give you the Stone, you’ll kill Ash and Seiya.”

His patience was vanishing fast with the Sahar finally in his reach. His words came out in the growl. “I can kill them either way.”

Ash casually pulled his wrap over the lower half of his face in anticipation of the coming fight. Seiya’s hand drifted toward her gun again.

Piper stepped in front of them.

“I can stop you,” she told Miysis, cursing the tremble in her voice. “
I’m
the one who blew up the bridge in Asphodel.”

Miysis stared at her. “Impossible.”

His truth-seeing magic told him she wasn’t lying but he still couldn’t believe it.

She clenched her hand around the Stone. “I used the Sahar. Don’t make me use it on you.”

The Ra daemon didn’t move. “You can’t use it.”

“Is your truth magic not working?” she snapped. “I. Used. The Sahar.”

“You
can’t
,” he repeated.

She jerked her hand up, touching the power in the Sahar for just a second. It flashed bright white. Miysis and his soldiers reeled back, their fear obvious. Piper tried to look calm and confident as she struggled to put her thoughts back in order after the dose of rage from the Sahar.

Miysis recovered, though his eyes remained wide. He exhaled slowly. “We will escort you and the draconians to the Consulate. Then you will give the Sahar to me.”

She nodded. She dared not use it against them, not when it poisoned her mind so quickly now. Neither was she confident in her ability to take on however many soldiers waited beyond the circle of light. Trading the Sahar for their safety was the only solution she could see. She didn’t want to kill anyone anyway.

Keeping the Stone tight in her fist, she nodded at Miysis. “Lead the way.”

He gestured to his soldiers. They formed a column around her, Ash, and Seiya. As they began walking again, Piper was reminded of her blisters. Oww. It would be a long hour.

Ash moved up beside her, his eyes scanning the surrounding soldiers.

“You shouldn’t have told him you used the Sahar,” he whispered.

“He already knew
someone
had used it,” she whispered back. “How else was I supposed to keep him from killing you?”

She knew what Ash was getting at; her ability to use the Sahar was too dangerous for Miysis to ignore. Even if he didn’t need her to use the Sahar for him like Samael did, he wouldn’t want her free to be used against him. And the easiest way to prevent that was to kill her. She really didn’t want to believe Miysis could do that; he wasn’t a monster like Samael. But he was no angel either.

Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do except hold the Sahar hostage and wait until they reached the Consulate.

After that, all bets were off.

CHAPTER 16

P
IPER
stood in the kitchen at the Consulate. The huge pot of chicken soup on the stove in front of her was beginning to steam. She stirred it idly, trying hard to push away the weird sense of disconnect that made it feel as though she were dreaming.

At the island counter behind her, Ash sat on a bar stool, his head pillowed on his folded arms. His armor-like vest was hooked on a chair while Seiya scrubbed at the shallow, claw-like scratches on his lower back. Gauze pads and rolls of bandages were scattered across the granite. Seiya was a better healer than Ash, but in his exhausted state, it was safer to let scratches and minor injuries heal naturally. Healing by magic was very draining on the victim; it forced the body’s natural healing rhythms into overdrive. Seiya didn’t want to put even more strain on Ash’s body, especially since Vejovis hadn’t thought Ash could handle more healing.

Lyre stood beside Ash, holding his shirt out of the way while Seiya worked. His eyes were shadowed, his jaw tense. His gaze flicked from Ash, to Seiya, to the kitchen doorway in a slow repeating circuit. Every few minutes, he’d let his gaze linger on Seiya, his shock at her existence touching his expression before tension replaced it.

The exchange of the Sahar had gone smoothly. Piper hadn’t been a fan of giving it up after everything she’d gone through over it, but she didn’t want to keep it either. It was evil. And it belonged to the Ra family anyway. They could worry about it.

She’d been apprehensive about Miysis and what he would do once he had it, but he didn’t seem to have any ulterior motives or plans—for now.

She stirred the soup, worrying her lower lip with her teeth as she eyed Ash. She could see all his ribs and count every bump of his spine. He needed to get out of the Consulate and go into hiding before Miysis changed his mind—or before Samael caught up to them. But he didn’t have the strength to run again, and if she were honest, neither did she. They were stuck where they were until, at the least, they could get some sleep.

Lyre glanced up, meeting her eyes. He’d been at the Consulate since Raum had kidnapped her, waiting for any word on her fate. Her father had been waiting too. Their reunion had been brief and awkward. His relief over her return had been tainted by his fury at Ash. It had taken some convincing before he’d believed Raum had abducted her and not Ash. Uncle Calder wasn’t at the Consulate; he was in the city searching for leads on her whereabouts—unlike Quinn, who didn’t appear to have done anything.

He had already rejoined the ongoing meeting in the Consulate’s largest conference room. The Consul Board of Directors had come to discuss what had happened at the Amity Gala; the poisonings had killed seven prominent Overworld daemons, as well as four of their human supporters. Quinn was leading the meeting, which was apparently far more important than hearing the whole story of his daughter’s abduction and escape.

“Is the soup ready?” Seiya asked, cocking her hip as she appraised her bandaged brother. “At this rate, we’ll have to pour it down his throat.”

Ash growled something unintelligible.

“I think so,” Piper said. She stuck her head over the edge of the pot and got a face full of scalding steam. The soup was starting to bubble. “Two minutes. Lyre, want to get the bowls?”

“Anything my lady desires,” he said extravagantly. As he stepped to the counter beside her, he cast her a sideways look and smirked. “
Anything
she desires.”

She rolled her eyes. “I missed you too, Lyre.” She lifted her wooden spoon threateningly. “But don’t think that’ll get you anywhere.”

He sighed. He heaved four bowls out of the cupboard with exaggerated effort and turned toward the island—then went abruptly still. Piper whipped around.

Miysis stood in the kitchen doorway.

Everyone tensed except for Ash, who was possibly asleep. Piper didn’t like the way the Ra daemon’s attention lingered on Ash, taking in the draconian’s bared, abused torso. Seiya noticed his stare and tugged Ash’s shirt down.

Miysis’s gaze lifted from Ash to Piper. “Do you have enough for one more?” he asked, nodding toward the pot of soup.

Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose.”

She tried to hide her nervousness as Miysis calmly sat at the table. She turned back to the pot of soup and started ladling it out. As the others sat around the table with their bowls, Piper poked Ash in the side until he snarled and sat up. It took several more pokes to get him off the stool and into his chair at the table. He stared at his bowl. Then he picked up his spoon and started eating with robotic intensity. He pointedly ignored Miysis—some kind of power play, she suspected.

Across the table, Miysis swirled his spoon around in the bowl. He looked out of place in his uniform. His was gold with red accents, opposite to his soldiers’. The style was elaborate but equally military; he looked ready to leap onto a horse and lead a cavalry into battle. He tasted his soup before casually lowering his spoon. Judging by the fact that he didn’t make a “yuck” face, his diplomatic mien was in full force. Piper deliberately slurped a big spoonful.

“What do you want?” she asked impatiently. “You have the Sahar.”

His expression went cool and impassive. He abandoned any pretense of eating and pushed his bowl away. “I need to know exactly how you escaped.”

“You already know. Your spies told you.”

“I only know what they could discern from outside Asphodel, not what went on inside the estate.”

“What does it matter? You have what you want.”

He watched her silently, weighing her with his cool, jaguar stare.

“He thinks it’s a trick,” Ash rumbled unexpectedly. “Or a trap.”

When Piper looked at him, he shrugged and slid out of his chair, limping to the stove to refill his bowl.

Piper turned back to Miysis, staring at him incredulously.

“You look so shocked,” the Ra daemon said with a note of bitterness. “You underestimate Samael’s duplicity. You’re right: I got exactly what I wanted, which makes me even more suspicious. Why let you escape with the Sahar after all the effort he went through to get it? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Samael didn’t
let
me escape with the Sahar.” Her hands clenched angrily. His assumption belittled all her suffering. She took a calming breath, smoothing out her expression.