Authors: M.J. Scott
Shadow Kin (40 page)
“Once you testify—”
“That will be too late. More people will be dead.”
“People will die if you don’t testify.” His voice was quieter now though no less forceful.
“Not like this,” I said. My throat closed as I saw the bodies again, heard the sickening thuds as they hit the ground.
Simon’s mouth twisted. “If you leave, then we won’t be able to stop him.”
“If I stay, you won’t be able to stop him either,” I said. “You don’t know who those people out there were, but he won’t stop with strangers, Simon. He’ll come after those you love. Do you want to lose Guy? Or your sisters?”
He turned pale and let go of me then, stepped away, eyes burning. I’d struck home.
“With your testimony—” he started to say.
“No.” I shook my head. “No. I can’t stay. You and Bryony can talk to the Fae. They’ll believe what she tells them.”
“It’s not the same as you talking to them.”
“It will have to be good enough.”
He closed his eyes, then opened them. They were dull, no spark of warmth in the blue at all. “You wanted this all along, didn’t you?” His voice rasped, roughened by anger. “To go back?”
“No!” The denial was automatic, and I knew it was true now. I didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to leave him or what he offered. Even if believing in that vision of the world was worse than grasping at straws. “No. I don’t want to go. But I have to.” I twisted to look back at the door. Was Bryony still facing down the Beasts? The tang of Fae magic still prickled the air. “It’s the only way.”
He looked like he didn’t believe me, and pain clenched my heart. “Please, Simon, you have to believe me. I have to go. I still might be able to help you. Maybe I can find out who his informant is. I’ll do what I can. You can still stop him.” Or I could, I realized. Stop him in the way I knew best. Kill him. Though attempting Lucius’ life in the middle of the Blood Courts was pretty much suicide, maybe I could bring myself to try.
But I couldn’t think of that or whatever might wait for me when I returned. For now, all I could think about was the man before me. The one who’d seen me. The one I was leaving behind to return to the dark. I reached up and pressed a kiss to his mouth, not knowing what else to say. “Thank you.”
Then I turned and ran before he could stop me. Ran through the doors, past Bryony and toward the Beasts, who drew their weapons as I approached. I half skidded to a halt and held my hands up. “I’m here,” I said. “I’m coming willingly.”
One of the Beasts stepped forward, beckoned to me with a long gray finger. The claw curving at its tip gleamed black in the sun. Feeling like I was walking to my execution, I moved forward, into his reach. As he pulled me toward a waiting carriage, I turned. Simon stood on the marble, standing in a shaft of sunlight, face grim, as still as the statue of St. Giles looming above him.
Our eyes met, his searing mine. I turned away, not wanting to see any more when there was no way to make things right between us, not wanting the last memory of him to be that stony gaze. As I stepped into the carriage, surrounded by the hot stink of the Beasts, I remembered what he’d said earlier. He’d been wrong. We hadn’t had time at all.
It was Ricco who came for me. I should have expected it. He probably volunteered for the job. Certainly his expression of gloating anticipation was enough to add to the fear that had steadily grown as I’d sat in my locked room for several hours after the Beasts returned me to the warrens. I could have run, of course, could have shadowed and escaped, but I’d made this choice to stop the bloodshed. Defection at this point could only make things worse.
So I sat and waited for sunset and Lucius’ summons.
Sat and wondered whether he would simply kill me where I stood when I finally faced him.
If I died, would I have changed anything? Probably not. The lords of hell would have a place for me and I wouldn’t protest that I didn’t belong there.
But I didn’t want to die.
Determined not to give Lucius any cause to find fault with me, I changed out of the clothes Simon had given me at the hospital, putting the soft green cotton away, carefully buried at the bottom of a drawer where nobody could find it. Maybe one day I would let myself look at it again. Maybe one day I would be able to remember without feeling as sick as I did right now.
Or maybe one day I just wouldn’t care anymore. Who knew?
I dressed myself, instead, in my version of Court dress. Black trousers, a shirt of black silk that glimmered like stars reflecting off water at midnight, and a black velvet jacket cut away from the waist so I could easily reach my weapons.
I rebraided my hair, twisting each tail tight and jabbing pins in with more force than necessary. I had just secured the last braid into place when the key turned in the lock and Ricco flung the door open.
“Hello, slave,” he said. “Lucius wants to see you.”
I ignored him and finished my work before turning to face him, my expression held carefully unmoved. “I’m ready.”
He shook his head, his grin a slash of malice. “Wouldn’t want to be you right now. Boss has been highly unhappy since you went away.”
He was trying to scare me. I didn’t let him see that I was already scared. Ricco’s posturing hardly registered in light of the fact that I was about to face Lucius.
I didn’t wait for Ricco to try manhandle me out of the room, simply walked past him and out the door, heading for the hall. The corridors were unusually busy for so early in the night, groups of Trusted scurrying here and there. Making sure their masters were ready for the Court, no doubt. A few of them glanced at me with fear as I passed.
I ignored them. I was too busy trying to stay calm, to move like I didn’t care. The warrens smelled like the Blood. Scents of death and pain. All too familiar. All too subtly enticing. Under the fear, the need prowled, alive again as the places and smells I associated with Lucius filled my senses.
The hall was, as I’d expected, full. It wasn’t as silent as the last time I’d been summoned here. This time there was a murmuring whisper as I passed through the doors, Ricco at my heels. The ranks of the Blood turned to inspect me as I passed and not all of them looked kindly on me.
Danger.
The sensation of peril crept around me like a fog. Surrounded by predators. What was to stop any one of them leaping out and trying to kill me? Nothing.
Nothing perhaps, except for the man I walked toward.
Lucius sat, half sprawled in his chair as if bored by the proceedings, but the pinpoint focus of his regard as I approached gave lie to his pose of indifference. His face might have been a polite blank mask, but his eyes burned. I didn’t know whether fury or another emotion fueled the red threads in the brown depths, but at this point it didn’t particularly matter.
I had made my choice.
Now I would live or die by it.
The tension in the room thickened, settling around me like fog. Hate and rage and fear rode the air, brushing my face with chilly fingers and closed around my throat to choke off my breath and dry my mouth.
I told myself it was nothing out of the ordinary, that this was just the usual atmosphere of the Court, but in truth it didn’t feel normal. But I didn’t know if it was the atmosphere that had changed or whether, having spent time in a place where not everyone lived their days shrouded in fear, I now knew the difference.
Lucius was a study in black and white this evening. More white than black, in fact, as his brocade coat was white, as was his shirt. A dull dead white like fresh bone. Was he planning to decorate the pale expanse of brocade with another color before the evening was out?
His fingers splayed over the arms of his chair, the ruby rings glinting darkly, the only hint of color apart from his eyes.
I stopped at the customary distance from his chair and bowed. “I have returned, my Lord.” I’d decided that the only way to play this was to act as if I had been held against my will. Anything else would only be a quick passport to the lower realms.
Lucius stayed silent. The back of my neck prickled as I kept my bent pose, instincts screaming that I was completely exposed.
Behind me, Ricco made a small satisfied noise and shifted. Drawing a weapon perhaps?
The silence stretched and thickened. Then, just as I was readying myself to reach for my dagger, Lucius waved a hand, permission to rise.
“You left us, my shadow.”
I straightened slowly. Lucius’ face was grim and the red in his eyes had brightened. “I was taken, my Lord. Unwillingly.” I fought the urge to step back. This close I could smell him, and his scent brought the need scorching to life. I wanted to run. I wanted to throw myself at his feet.
“Taken by who?”
There was no point lying. He knew very well where I’d been and who had held me. “The sunmage and the Templars, my Lord.”
“And how did they hold you so long, my shadow? You who slip through the night unseen.”
This part would have to be a lie. “They used the sun, my Lord. I could not shadow to escape at night and by day I was guarded.”
“You should have tried to escape.”
“I took the first opportunity to return.” I willed him to believe me, even as I wondered exactly why I’d been so stupid as to put myself back in his grasp.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
He straightened abruptly, rings sounding dully against the wood of the chair as he tapped his fingers. “You could have escaped days ago. You were in the border boroughs with the sunmage. You could have killed him and left. Instead you killed a Beast.”
The words were icy. So cold I could almost feel the room chill around me. For a moment everything seemed to grow dark, as though the candlelit lamps had all guttered at once. Even the need retreated as fear thickened in my belly. One wrong word and it would all be over. “I did not think it wise to kill him before witnesses, my Lord. I am known to be yours. The humans would use that against you. So I bided my time. I knew you would come for me.”
“The Kruegers are unhappy with their loss.”
It wasn’t as though any of the Beast packs were that well disposed toward me to begin with. “He would have killed me,” I said. “He attacked us with no quarter.”
I didn’t know if that was strictly true or what the Beast might have done had I not reacted so definitely to his assault, but right now I was building the case for me to keep my head. So I would tell the tale my way.
Behind us the Court stood in frozen silence. Anticipation joined the roiling atmosphere, as each of them waited to see what happened here. No doubt most would be trying to guess which way the dice would fall.
Lucius’ hands stilled. The lack of movement was more unnerving than the slow tattoo of the rings. “You could have left with the Beasts at the hospital.”
“Perhaps. If I’d killed the sunmage. Which again, would have led trouble back to you, my Lord. Not to mention there was a troop of Templars nearby. The Brother House is right beside St. Giles. I did not think we would make it back here. So I chose to let the humans believe I was on their side.” I held my breath. In this situation there was no use simply groveling. Lucius had to believe me. Otherwise I would just be marking time until he had me killed.
Lucius tilted his head at me. “So you only had my welfare in mind? How gratifying.”
“She lies, my Lord,” Ricco said from behind me.
My hand dropped to my dagger but I didn’t move. Ricco wouldn’t dare to attack me without Lucius’ permission. So I needed to watch Lucius. “I am telling the truth, my Lord,” I said.
“Do not listen to her,” Ricco snarled. “She will betray you, my Lord. I will prove her lie in blood.”
Lords of hell. A blood challenge. I hadn’t anticipated such a thing. Nor did I think that Ricco had the wit to come up with such a ploy by himself. He would not risk his neck without some promise of high reward. The question being who was pulling his strings—Lucius or some other player. I wished desperately I could turn and see the rest of the Court.
“On your blood, liar,” Ricco said with increasing vehemence.
The snarled challenge hung in the air. I stayed where I was. “Fight me,” he went on. “You don’t deserve to live.” He sprang, raising gasps. I moved too, though he was faster, as the Blood always are. His first blow struck my cheek, snapping my head back. I spun away, settling my dagger into my hand. Lucius hadn’t moved from his seat; instead, his face was amused as he watched us.
“My Lord?” I gasped, as Ricco attacked again. Another blow connected. I wanted to shadow, but to do so when Lucius had not given me permission to defend myself would be foolhardy.
Lucius smiled at me. “Challenge has been made. One of you will die, shadow,” he said. “If you wish to prove you are still mine, then I recommend you ensure that it isn’t you.”
Kill or be killed. That was clear enough. Disgust clogged my throat. This was the world I had come back to. But at least here, the victims weren’t so innocent. I didn’t like Ricco but I didn’t wish him dead. But I wasn’t willing to die to let him prove that he was worthy of Lucius’ regard.
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