Heir to the Coven (22 page)

“Ew! Too much information Harris.”

“Don’t play miss-ish with me Natasha. I know what you used to do when you were ‘patrolling’ the city and the wood that went plunging into flesh then was the figurative kind not the stake kind.”

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself. Let she who is without kink cast the first stone.”

I sighed. There really were no secrets in that house. “Just put Kain on the phone.”

“Aye, aye Captain.”

The phone landed on a hard surface with an ear-splitting clunk. I could hear people commenting on the ass kicking Mercy had just delivered. I should have worried about possible accomplices being tipped off, but if anyone tried to bolt Mercy would take care of them given her current mood, to say nothing of Kain once he was free. Since it would be an admission of guilt they could be killed on sight without a trial.

Kain’s voice came through the phone. “Thanks a bunch Little One. Mercy slapped me upside the head with a chair after they took off my shackles. That’s fun as foreplay, but I’ve been informed that’s not an option for at least a month and I didn’t even get a conjugal visit.”

“We have bigger issues than you following my cryptically given orders and it costing you sex. I need you to bring Dawn to me. You know where.”

Kain was silent for a moment. “What a stupid bitch she is.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m on it.”

“One more thing. Don’t tell Rainor; he was feeling better when he had a glimmer of hope that you being set up absolved this household of the crime and knowing it really was one of us will do more harm than good.”

Kain began to say, “Not a problem, Harris told me he-”, but I snapped my phone shut as Megan who had walked away not that long ago regained her former stupidity and came at me with a kitchen knife. I really should have tied her up; this was so annoying. It took me two seconds to take the knife from her and to snap her arm. “Megan, I am really not in the mood to deal with you right now.”

I knocked her out and locked her in a closet.

Chapter 23

I did not immediately go to take care of Dawn after I left Megan McCoy’s house. Unsure of whom I could really trust in my coven right now, I went to various humans who worked for us and intimidated them into rather quickly investigating all the accounts and business transactions of the coven. I needed to know if anyone else was giving or receiving payoffs. Not even Dawn’s account showed anything abnormal, which meant she was not the one who paid off Megan unless she had left a million dollars lying around the house or buried in the backyard. Which meant there was still an unknown entity in all of this. I suspected that entity was going to have fangs.

There was a certain warehouse where certain activities were carried out after dark. It allowed us to question people without fear of them escaping and wrecking havoc inside the coven house. And it very often allowed us to make people disappear without anyone being the wiser. In this particular case, it was going to keep Dawn from having any potential allies come to her aid because until this was all said and done, everyone was a suspect. I arrived at the warehouse shortly after dark feeling like my brain was going to leak out of my ears after pouring over all that paperwork with the lawyers and accountants, and after trying to piece this all together.

Kain met me out front. “What made you think I would remember that spoon comment?”

“Lucky guess and you were the one who kept putting spoons under my pillow every night for a month after it happened.” I smiled at him. “Is Mercy going to forgive me any time soon?”

“She understands and letting her kick Dawn around for awhile helped a lot. According to Harris I missed quite the show. Couldn’t you have told her to take care of Dawn after you had them unlock me?”

“That’s what you’re upset with me about? I made you miss a girl fight?”

Kain shrugged. “I’m a guy, what can I say?”

I shook my head. “Moving on then. Is she all ready to go?”

“Yep. She’s playing opossum too. Mercy gave her a good crack in the head, but she was awake and crying at the guys that I set her up and you fell for it while I was chaining her up. In the car ride over she got quiet and has been pretending to be unconscious since I brought her here.”

“Then I’ll have to wake her up.”

We went inside the warehouse. Dawn was the first thing I saw. As a good enforcer should, Kain had chained her hands together and hung her from a hook in the ceiling. Her sleeping beauty routine was in full force as she sagged with her eyes closed, but her breathing was too fast for her to be out cold. There were bruises from the ass kicking Mercy had given her on her face, arms and what I could see of her legs. Kain started to take off his jacket, but I stopped him. “I’ll do it.”

“Tash?”

“She’s mine, Kain.”

“This is what I do.”

“I know. I used to be you, remember? But I am exercising my rank to have the pleasure of making this traitorous bitch scream. You can wait outside.”

“But she set me up!”

“That’s why you can’t be part of it. This needs to be handled by someone with a clear head so we can get the information we need and you want revenge. You’ll wind up killing her before we get enough out of her.”

“Now I’m unprofessional?”

“Aren’t you throwing a tantrum right now? Go outside. I’ll call for you if I need you.”

“Natasha-”

“
Outside
.”

Kain bowed. “As the lady wishes.”

I waited for him to shut the door before I approached Dawn. Trailing my nails across her cheek, I said, “I made you a promise at that human club when you challenged me Dawn. Do you remember? I told you if you did not yield I would mark your face forever. That’s a promise I’m about to keep.” I dug my claws into the flesh over her cheekbone and yanked down in a swift motion, leaving five trails of blood. Snarling I said, “Open your eyes you faking coward!”

Dawn’s eyes popped open along with her mouth. She shrieked in pain and reflexively tried to bring her hand to her face to staunch the blood, but she was chained too tightly and she was not strong enough to break free even with all that adrenaline rushing through her system.

“SHUT UP!” I yelled. “I did not give you permission to make a sound.”

The screaming did not stop. This is what gags were invented for, but since the point of all this was to get information out of her, a gag would be counter productive. “Dawn, you have one second to stop making that noise or I will do the same thing to your other cheek.”

She shut up. Fast learner.

“Now, I am going to ask you questions my little idiot and if I don’t like what you have to say or if you lie to me, you will suffer a consequence. You know I can tell if you are lying. Do you understand?” I was circling her so she could not see what I might be about to do behind her. She was trying to crane her neck to keep me in sight, but it was impossible.

“Yes.”

“Very good. You set up Kain very cleverly to take the fall for what you did. Why him?”

“Because before you came back he was the only thing in my way. I was setting him up to knock him down from the start. Then he made it easy with all his vanishing acts to investigate. Once he started sniffing around I had more incentive to get him out of the way. Actually, even before Kain started sniffing around he kept taking off to look at rings for that cow-eyed moron. I know because he asked my opinion on what sort of a ring to buy her. No one ever asks me about the coven, but why not go to air headed Dawn to ask about a sparkly stone. Well this air head fooled you all,” Dawn said with a sneer. “All I had to do was make sure people noticed when he went missing and plant doubt in your mind with that story about him running around with a red-haired waitress at the appropriate time.”

“Why did you do this? Because you felt ignored? Did Rainor ignore your daddy issues so you acted out?” My voice was dripping with sarcasm.

No answer. This actually made my roiling blood very happy. I gave her a slap across the face hard enough it would have broken a human’s jaw. As it was, it made her spit out blood and a couple teeth. “I will ask you once more. Why did you betray us?”

Dawn laughed as best she could around the missing teeth I had just given her. “Revenge. The two of you took everything.”

“This is about my taking over the coven with Kain as my second? You really are a moron. Assuming you did get rid of Kain, there was no way you ever could have taken me on. If you had pulled all this off before I came back, the Order could have come and killed everyone here and there wouldn’t have been a coven left for you to try to rule. Even if they didn’t, you don’t have the strength to lead. The others would have risen up against you with your first shrill order.”

“He would have helped me with everything!”

“Who?” My mind immediately went to Anton, after all he had betrayed Vincent to gain the power our alliance offered, it would track that he would play Dawn into thinking he would help her rule and once Kain was out of the way thanks to the set up, then he would kill her and take over everything while the coven was still reeling from it all. Of course he’d have to get through me, but maybe he hadn’t thought I would return or thought I wouldn’t kill him and he’d take me out.
No
, said my blood,
he would not do this to you
. “Tell me who!”

I raked her other cheek.

Dawn screamed in pain, but otherwise stayed silent.

“All right,” I said, “let’s start at the other end.” I knelt down and took one of her bare feet in my hands. Grasping the smallest toe, I yanked up and snapped the bone. “This is one little piggy that will be yelling wee wee wee in pain the whole way home.”

I could smell the bile starting to rise up from her stomach so I quickly got out of the way. Vampire reflexes were wonderful.

Once she finished vomiting, Dawn sobbed. “Tristan! It was Tristan.”

“Anton’s second?” No wonder he had killed the female vampire the night we patrolled together. He wanted to shut her up before she gave anything away or pointed the finger at him. He was always hovering around, trying to keep me away from Anton, it appeared to prevent us from teaming up to discover his duplicity.

“We wanted to make the pair of you pay for your crimes! This was never about Kain.”

Then it hit me. The one “crime” Anton and I shared, if you belonged to Gregory’s caste that was, was their almost total destruction. Dawn and Tristan were of the same blood. This was why vampires didn’t usually take outsiders into their castes; you could only trust blood. If Anton had had any idea Tristan belonged to Gregory he never would have let him live let alone be his second. “Did you join our coven to betray us or did Tristan talk you into it after he found out who made you?”

I surprised her. I don’t think she expected me to connect the dots that easily. She should be grateful I had, she still had nine more toes that weren’t dislocated and fractured.

“I was sent here by the one who gave the blood to caste me. Tristan came later on his own mission. We met by accident.”

“Who made you?”

“That I will not tell.”

“I already know what bloodline you are, why hold back the name?”

“Because where I fail she will succeed and you will bleed bitch.”

“She? Now that is telling. Just give me a name and we can end this.”

Dawn remained silent.

“Why do you make me do this?” There went the next toe in line with a crack. And then the next. And then…..

“STOP! I’ll tell you, just stop!” Dawn gasped for breath. “Gregory’s consort, Helen, made me. They thought I would be useful, just like Lucius thought you would be, only they made me weaker so I wouldn’t be threatening.”

“The perfect spy,” I purred. “Pretty and fun and not bright enough to earn anyone’s suspicion. What was Tristan to them?”

“My feet!” Dawn whined.

“Next are your fingers. Tell me about Tristan.”

“Tristan had been their dessert before he was changed. He owed Gregory a debt for changing him so he came here to settle the score. He didn’t know I was here because he came of his own accord. We met up on the hunt one night and decided to work together. He’s the one that paid for that broodmare’s car and house. After you went to see her the first time and killed her guards, she started demanding more money for the ‘threat’ against her life you presented. We knew you would eventually go back so we told her if she described Kain and it worked we would give her more cash.”

“Was anyone else from the coven involved?”

“Max.”

“
The driver
?” That was a surprise. “What did he get out of all this? Was he of Gregory’s line too?”

“He got sex and in exchange, I got to know where everyone went and what they said. No one ever thinks that the driver with the preternatural hearing can hear through that glass.”

I had all I really needed. “Thank you for your cooperation, Dawn. For what it’s worth, when you weren’t being a snotty bitch I did enjoy spending time with you.”

I killed her in a very painful way reserved for traitors. I won’t go into details, but it was very bloody and messy. If she had been Hadi it would have been worse because she would have betrayed her own blood by turning on me and a coven under my protection.

As I walked out of warehouse, I was still wiping blood off my nails when Kain walked over. He eyed me as he fell into step beside me and said, “The cleaning crew is on its way over. I anticipated.”

“Thanks. We need to get moving.”

“I was going to ask if you cracked her or wound up killing her in the process, but of course you cracked her. Who was her accomplice?”

“Anton’s second, Tristan,” I hissed as we got into my car. “They both belonged to Gregory. This was all payback for what we did to their caste when they tried to invade us the last time I was home.”

Kain growled. “We have a problem.”

“Several. Gregory’s consort is behind all this and according to Dawn she is going to keep trying to kill us all and we had another traitor under our roof.”