Magic Binds

CHAPTER 12

THE GUILD OCCUPIED the remains of an old hotel on the edge of Buckhead. When Curran, Barabas, and I took it over, the tower was in ruins, partially because a rogue giant had ripped off its roof trying to eat the delicious people hiding inside. The Guild had a new roof now. A new front parking lot and a new back lot too, the latter fenced in by a solid wall and converted into a training yard. Barabas was trying to push through a permit with the city that would allow us to put an even bigger wall around the building. Any time Curran got a base, he wanted to wall it in. For defensive purposes. He’d tried to wall in our street too, and it took all of us together to talk him out of it.

The Guild was looking good. We were still two hundred thousand in the hole, but we were slowly beginning to recoup that investment.

I parked in the lot. We got out and headed for the building. The inside of the Guild had gotten a face-lift as well. The mess hall was back and the food was actually good this time, which made sense because nothing offended shapeshifters more than subpar dining options. Barabas had insisted on bringing back the koi. Originally a stream had run through the hotel floor culminating in a large pond. Barabas didn’t want the stream, but he did somehow find the money for the pond. He said it was therapeutic and got two of the Pack’s counselors to back him up. Now a large pond sat next to the dining area, complete with a bridge across it. Five big koi, three gold and two white, slowly glided in the shallow water. The mercenaries kept feeding the fish and I had a feeling the koi would get morbidly obese before too long.

About twenty mercs ate, swapped war stories, and checked their gear on the main floor, waiting for a job or relaxing after one before going home. A dozen voices said hello as we walked in. A second after we stepped through the door, I realized Curran was still in all of his warrior form splendor.

“Woo!”

“Cover up!”

“Rough morning, Curran?”

Curran grinned, showing his big teeth.

“Hey, Daniels, you better put him in check. There are children present,” Juke called.

“Where?” Collins asked.

“She means you, dickhead,” Santiago said.

“Come over here and say that to my face.”

“I would, but you too ugly.”

Tension seeped out of me with every step. This I knew. This was familiar. This was my world.

Barabas waved at us from behind the glass. The previous administrator of the Guild considered himself to be white-collar and fully embraced a personal office, expensive suits, and secretaries. The first thing Barabas did was gut his fourth-floor office and sell off the pricey furniture. Then he took over the smallest conference room downstairs, separated from the main floor by glass. He sat there now, wearing jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, his desk filled with papers. His door was usually open. Mercs wandered in and out with questions. Usually Christopher hung out in the office as well, or somewhere on the Guild floor, reading a book at the table by the koi, or talking to the Clerk, depending on how he was feeling. Maggie was curled up in her little plush bed in Barabas’s office, but I saw no signs of Christopher.

If I were a winged god of terror, where would I be?

I glanced up. High above, on the massive support beams right under the newly installed skylight, a man sat, his right leg bent, his left dangling down, a book in his hand. He had no wings, but his hair was a familiar white. For months Barabas took care of Christopher. Now Christopher guarded Barabas.

“How’s our honored guest doing?” Curran called, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Doing great,” Keana, a thin, dark-skinned merc in her thirties, called out. “We got his money in an hour ago.”

“How much did we net?” Curran asked.

“The Guild took in two million, nine hundred fifty-eight thousand, six hundred thirty-three dollars and sixty cents,” Barabas called from his office.

“Yeah!” Curran pumped his fist.

The Guild erupted in cheers. I cheered, too. He was making them feel like all of them had won, forging them into a unified force, and they had no idea he was doing it.

“Why is the number so weird?” I murmured.

“We charged him his weight in gold,” Curran said. “Would’ve gotten more, but Roland bled him out and starved him, and he needs a lot of food or his body starts to cannibalize itself.”

“Where do you have him stashed?” I asked.

“Third floor, the old archive room,” Curran said. “I talked to Barabas this morning. Saiman isn’t eating or drinking. They had to put him on an IV.”

Saiman burned through nutrients the way fire burned through dry hay.

I nodded at Julie. “Come with me.”

As we climbed the staircase, I asked quietly, “Feel up to it?”

She looked at me. If she’d given me that look and I didn’t know her, I’d consider backing off.

“If it helps kill Roland, yes.”

“Good. When I talk to him, remind me to ask him for his help, but don’t tell him what I want exactly.”

PRE-GIANT, THE OLD archive room had no windows. Post-giant, it had acquired a large window shielded by thick bars in case another monster came rampaging. Saiman lay next to that window, on a bed, bathed in the sunshine streaming through the clear glass. He was pale and bone-thin, a skeleton wrapped in loose skin and hooked up to an IV bag. Normally he maintained a neutral shape, that of a man of undeterminable age, bald, with unremarkable features, neither handsome nor ugly. The creature that lay on the bed now was a foot and a half taller than any human had a right to be. Light blue-green hair framed his face. His eyes were the pale blue of thick ice dusted with new snow. Whatever my father had done to him was so traumatic that Saiman had collapsed into his natural shape.

He was gazing out the window, an odd expression on his face. Looking at him made me want to bring him food and spoon it into him until the normal, caustic Saiman resurfaced. Someone had done exactly that. Chicken soup and freshly baked bread waited on a tray by the bed. Both were untouched.

Calhoun, a short merc with a shock of wild blond hair, got up from his perch by the door. “Tell me you came to relieve me. I’m starving.”

“Knock yourself out,” I told him. “I’ll sit with him.”

Calhoun took off down the stairs. I pulled up a chair and sat by Saiman’s bed. He ignored me. Julie took the other chair in the corner.

The sun shone on us, warming up the white sheets. Small specks of dust floated in the light.

“There was a window,” Saiman said. “The cell was dark, but there was a window. Too narrow for me to crawl out of and barred, but I could see a small piece of the sky.”

“Hope is a bitch,” I told him. “It keeps you alive when all you want is to die.”

Saiman turned his head and looked at me, his eyes full of winter. “He was draining my blood. As fast as I could make it. When he took it, my body reacted and cannibalized reserves to make up for the shortage.”

“What did he do with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“There was another creature in the castle with divine blood,” I said. “An animal. A saber-toothed tiger.”

“I heard it roar once,” Saiman said.

“Why would he need divine blood?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. It rolled through his entire body. “They broke my legs. Every day before the sun would rise, they came in and shattered my bones with a hammer.”

Saiman had always been terrified of death and physical pain.

“Why?”

“With that much pain, I couldn’t slow down my regeneration. My body healed itself and there was nothing I could do about it.” He shuddered.

“It’s over,” I told him. “You’re safe.”

“Do you know why I accumulated wealth?”

“Because you thought it would shield you. But there are things in this world that are immune to money.”

He looked away from me. “I knew nobody was coming.”

His voice told me everything. He sat in that cell with his broken legs, looked at the sky, and wanted desperately to be rescued, but he knew nobody would care enough to rescue him.

“We were coming.”

“Why did you save me?” he asked.

“I didn’t.”

A trace of the old Saiman’s impatience touched his face. “Curran did it, but only because you asked him to. The money I paid the Guild is a formality. A pittance. I would’ve given Curran everything I have, but I know him. I remember our history. All the gold in the world wouldn’t convince him to lift a finger for my sake. He did it for you. Why did you ask him?”

“Do you want the real answer or the one you’re comfortable with?”

“I’ll take the truth.”

“Because you are someone I know, Saiman. You’re someone who helped me. Always for a price, but still you helped. You’re a selfish prick, narcissistic, egocentric, obsessed with your own importance, but you’re still someone I know. I couldn’t leave you with my father.”

He looked away from me again.

“If it helps, I can tell you that if I left you there, it would give my father the license to kidnap my citizens at will, and whatever he was doing with you likely made him stronger, which is bad for us, since the Oracle is predicting he will burn the city in a few weeks. Would that be easier?”

He didn’t answer.

“Rest,” I told him. “Eat and rest. You need to heal. And one more thing.”

I got up, slid the window up, and pulled the thick metal rods securing the grate up, releasing it. I strained, lifted the grate, and slid it aside. Wind blew into the room, stirring the sheets and papers on the desk.

“You’re not a prisoner. You can leave when you’re ready.” I nodded at Julie. “Come on.”

“But you didn’t ask him,” she said.

Thank you, Julie.

“I know. He’s in no shape to do it. Come.”

“In no shape to do what?” Saiman called.

“Rest,” I told him, and left the room.

Julie hurried after me. We walked down the staircase together.

“Why didn’t you ask him?” she asked.

“Because he’s sitting in that bed, drowning in his trauma and refusing to eat. Now he knows I want something and it will drive him crazy, until he finally eats, gets dressed, and comes to find me to see what was so important.”

Right now I would trade places with Saiman in a heartbeat. He could run around and do all of this bullshit, while I lay in a nice soft bed.

The magic hit, rolling over us. The electric lights in the lobby died and the blue feylanterns slowly ignited, growing brighter.

“Kate!” The Clerk called from his counter. “A call for you.”

Maybe it was the Keep to tell us if Dali was alive.

I ran down the last few steps and picked up the phone.

“Hello, Sharrim,” a female voice said. “Please hold for your father.”

“Tell him to go fuck himself.”

I hung up and turned away.

Behind me magic splashed.

“HELLO, DAUGHTER.”

HE DIDN’T.

I turned around. A wall of light bisected the Guild, showing my father, his hands behind his back. Yes, he did. Oh he did. Now was really the wrong time to screw with me.

My magic shot out of me. All of the anger I’d been trying to keep under the lid boiled out.

“Which part of ‘go fuck yourself’ did you not understand?”

His power was an inferno. “I AM YOUR FATHER. I AM SHARRUM. YOU WILL SHOW ME RESPECT!”

“Respect? You sent an assassin into my land to murder a baby! What respect? You’re a child killer.”

“IT WAS YOUR FAULT. YOU PRECIPITATED THIS THROUGH YOUR STUBBORNNESS.”

God, I wanted to punch him in the face. “You are despicable. I’m ashamed to be your daughter. I should walk the street apologizing to everyone I meet for the fact that you still exist.”

“I MADE YOU. WITHOUT ME YOU WOULDN’T EXIST. I CAN SNUFF OUT YOUR LIFE WITH A FLICK OF MY FINGERS AND MAKE A DOZEN JUST LIKE YOU.”

“Do it.” I spread my arms. “Come on. I’m waiting.”

Rage shivered in the corners of his mouth. I’d really pissed him off this time. Good. Have a taste of your own medicine.

“DO NOT TEMPT ME.”

“Why is it you haven’t killed me, Father? You murdered all of the others. My brothers and sisters. What’s the holdup?”

“I TOLERATE YOU FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR MOTHER’S MEMORY, BUT MY PATIENCE IS AT ITS END.”

Aha. “So is mine. You took my child’s caretaker and you forced her to betray everything she stood for. Julie watched her die. I hate you.”

“YOU BROKE INTO MY HOUSE. YOU UPSET YOUR GRANDMOTHER. YOU DAMAGED MY PRISON, AND YOU STOLE MY CAPTIVES. RETURN WHAT IS MINE.”

Captives. He didn’t know Curran had consumed the saber-tooth.

“I did no such thing. I didn’t go to your house. Your captive—a citizen of my land, whom you kidnapped and kept prisoner—hired mercenaries to rescue him and they did. I’ll send you the contract, so your lawyers can explain it to you. Your security is lousy, Father. I would look into that if I were you.”

“I AM SHARRUM OF SHINAR. MY LINE GOES BACK A HUNDRED GENERATIONS. I WILL NOT BE DISRESPECTED!”

“Nor will I!” My magic raged. The Guild around me shook. “I’m a princess of Shinar, granddaughter of Semiramis, niece of the City Eater, daughter of the Builder of Towers. My line is longer than yours by one!”

Shock registered on his face for a moment before melting back into fury. That’s right. You made me, now deal with it.

“You will respect my boundaries, Father. You squatted on the edge of my land and you keep trying to provoke me. I haven’t broken my word. I’ve upheld our peace.”

“BY TAKING WHAT IS MINE LIKE A THIEF? YOU SHAME ME, DAUGHTER.”

The press of his magic was almost too much to bear, but I was too angry to back down.

“I wasn’t there. I was in Mishmar, talking to my grandmother. Ask her, if you don’t believe me.”

His magic punched me. “RETURN THE DEMIGOD TO ME!”

I pulled my magic to me and punched back. The floor under my feet bounced. “No.”

The magic was so tight around me, it responded every time I took a breath.

“YOU’RE A POOR EXCUSE FOR A DAUGHTER.”

His magic clashed with mine. It felt like the air around us was breaking apart.

“Kate!” Curran snapped.

I glanced around me. The mercs cowered by the walls, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t give a crap if the entire roof caved in and crushed them all. I would not back down. Not this time.

I raised my chin. “You’ve killed your own family, Father. Even now, you’re trying to reach through time with your hand and strangle its future. You are the reason no descendants of our blood survived. You reap what you sow. I’m exactly what you deserve.”

He stared at me, his gaze boring through me. His face stretched and Roland laughed. “YOU ARE, INDEED, MY DAUGHTER.”

The light contracted, sucked into its own center, and vanished.

I turned around. The Clerk stared at me, wild-eyed. His nose was bleeding. On my right, shell-shocked mercs blinked. The closest to me bled from the nose and ears. I glanced up. Saiman stood on the third-floor balcony, his face bloodless. Above him Christopher gripped the balance beam, staring at the spot where my father had been, his ruby wings opened wide, his face twisted by fury.

Juke wiped the blood from under her nose and looked at it.

I’d done it again. Damn it. I’d let the magic drag me away from who I was.

“What the hell was all that about?” Juke asked. “All I heard was a weird hissing language with some ‘fucks’ in it.”

The tension hung in the air. I had to say something to break it. “This is nothing. You should see the fit he threw when I told him I wasn’t coming to visit for Christmas.”

Barabas laughed.

The mercs looked at him, then back at me.

“Family,” Curran said, putting his arm around me. “Can’t live with them, can’t kill them. You ready to go home, baby?”

“Sure,” I said.

Outside I stopped. “I did it again.”

“I know,” he said.

“I’m trying.”

“I know.”

I had to try harder. “He really wants Saiman for some reason.”

“Did he mention the tiger?”

“He thinks we stole it. You still feeling okay?”

“Yes.”

I glanced at him. “Why did you eat the tiger?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It was a compulsion. I saw him and I had to make him not be.”

“You worry me,” I told him.

He pointed back at the Guild with his thumb. “Pot, kettle.”

Some pair we made. There was nothing left to do but go home. I could use a quiet afternoon and a big early dinner before we figured out our next move.

“CAN I TALK to you?” Julie asked me as we pulled into the driveway in front of our home.

“Yes.” I knew that tone of voice. Something bad always followed that tone of voice. Something like “I crashed the car” or “I accidentally set the school on fire.” I couldn’t take more bad news today.

Curran and Derek went inside. I leaned on the trunk of the car. “What is it?”

She stepped close to me and whispered. “Adora is staying in George and Eduardo’s spare bedroom.”

“What?”

Julie went to the Jeep she or Derek usually took to Cutting Edge, pulled her backpack out, and ran back to me, digging in it.

“He sent some people after her a few hours after you left. I had to move her. The hospital wouldn’t let her stay. Here, they took pictures for insurance purposes and I got the extras.”

She thrust a stack of Polaroids at me. The first one showed a wall covered with blood. A big spurt of bright red blood, then the characteristic wave pattern as the victim stumbled along the wall. Arterial spray. Another Polaroid, more blood. I flipped through them. Blood on the floor, blood on the walls, headless body, another body crumpled up, a third corpse sagging in the corner, more blood, bloody sheets, and finally Adora, kneeling in the blood and sitting back on her heels, her sword in front of her, a big angelic smile on her face.

Why me?

“She said Roland’s people tried to bring her back and she told them she didn’t want to go.”

Well, at least she made a choice instead of blindly obeying. “So you took her to George’s house?”

“I didn’t know where else to put her. If I put her into one of the other houses, Curran would smell her. George has people working on her roof, so there are new smells all the time.”

“My old apartment?”

She opened her mouth. “Oh. I didn’t think of that.”

“Did you at least tell George who she was?”

“Yes. George was okay with it. She told Adora that if there was any trouble, she would sit on her.”

Coming from an enormous Kodiak, that was no small threat.

“She also wrote down all the sahanu information you wanted.” Julie dug in her bag. “It has some blood spatter on it but you can still read some of it . . . Kate?”

I hugged her. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow. Tonight we all need to rest. And we need to take time to remember Jezebel, because there might not be much time tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she said.

We went inside.

My aunt tore through me like a hurricane. “You left me behind.”

“Yes, I did.”

“You will not do that again.”

“Yes, I will, if I find it necessary. Bringing you to the Pack would’ve resulted in us being torn to pieces.”

Erra squinted at me. “What happened?”

“For two years a shapeshifter woman took care of Julie and acted as my bodyguard. I trusted her with my life and the life of my adopted child. Tonight he made her try to murder my best friend’s baby. She failed but she injured the Beast Lord’s mate.”

Erra peered at Julie. “You told me this one was dead.”

“I didn’t want you to kill her,” I said.

Erra peered at Julie. “You gave her our blood?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You like horses, child, don’t you?”

Julie looked at me.

“Go ahead and answer,” I told her.

“Yes.”

“And wolves. You have an affinity for wolves and wolflike dogs. They make sense to you.”

“Yes.”

“What color is my niece’s magic?”

“It’s difficult to describe.”

Erra glanced at me. “You have a child of the Koorgahn. And a throwback to a pure-blood, too. Look at that hair.”

Koorgahn? She probably meant kurgan. The only kurgans I knew about were the burial mounds peppering the old Russian steppes, Asia, and southern Siberia. The kurgans served as burial mounds for the ancient race of Scythians, and the earliest ones dated sometime around the ninth century BC . . . They were blond. The ancient Greeks described them as red-haired or fair-haired with blue or gray eyes, and the mummies the archaeologists pulled out of the ancient grave sites matched that phenotype.

“Who are you, child?” Erra asked.

“I’m her Herald,” Julie said.

“At least you have a Herald. You’ve done something right. I need to speak to my niece alone. We’ll talk more later.”

Julie looked at me. I nodded and she went deeper into the house.

“My father has been talking to her,” I said.

“Of course he has. He always wanted one, but they were a proud people. He couldn’t buy a child of royal blood and he couldn’t broker the marriage of one of his offspring to theirs. First, they knew his reputation, and second, they were afraid to lose the Sight. It was believed that a mixing of two powerful bloodlines could produce a child unable to see magic, and they wouldn’t expose one of their own to that risk. When it was clear that magic would vanish from the world, her people killed themselves by the hundreds because they were going magic-blind.”

My aunt, the downer.

“Binding a child of the Koorgahn. A dangerous game you’re playing, squirrel.”

“I was trying to save her. She was dying of loupism.”

“Yes, they are susceptible. Wolves, horses, and birds of prey, those are her things. That’s how they came to battle, riding their horses, guarded by their birds of prey and their wolves. Your great-grandfather fought a bloody war for thirty years just to keep the people of Koorgahn out of our valley as they were sweeping west. How ironic that you would find one in this age and in this place, yet have no idea how to use her.”

“I don’t want to use her. She is my kid.”

Erra sighed. “We’ll talk about this and what happened today later. Now I will go and see if your ‘kid’ knows the extent of her powers.”

“Good luck with that. I can’t even get her to clean her room.”

I turned and went upstairs. I locked the bedroom door and walked into the bathroom. Curran was already in the shower.

I stripped my clothes off and went in there with him.

He stared at my body. I looked like a gang of street thugs with steel-toed boots had worked me over. I stepped under the water and hugged him.

He hugged me back.

SOMETHING TOUCHED MY ear. I shrugged off sleep long enough to open my eyes and saw Curran holding the phone. For me. Ugh.

“Yes?” I said into the phone.

“What do you need?” Saiman asked.

Well, he didn’t last long. “Let me make you a list . . .”

“Do spare me the smartass comments. What do you need me to do?”

“A way to kill or contain my father. Failing that, I need a record of what he wrote on my skin.”

“Your office in two hours.”

He hung up. I opened my eyes and looked at Curran. “What time is it?”

“Six o’clock.”

“You let me sleep for four hours straight?” I’d stay up all night.

“Sixteen,” he said. “It’s six in the morning. You needed it.”

After the shower I’d crashed. The thing with my aunt had taken a lot out of me, and the thing with Andrea’s baby didn’t help either. Sooner or later, you had to pay the piper. I dimly recalled waking up at some point, because I had dreamed Dali died and Jim wouldn’t let me go to her funeral, but exhaustion had soon dragged me back under.

“Did you have dinner last night?”

“Yes. The kids and I went to George and Eduardo’s,” he said. “Mahon’s bear guards arrived with honey muffins and roasted deer and we all ate ourselves into a coma.”

“That’s nice.” I hugged my pillow. “Will you wake me up in an hour?”

He picked me up and stood me upright on my feet. I punched him in the neck. Not very hard and not very fast. I missed.

“The medmage is here.”

“I don’t need a medmage.” I yawned.

He picked me up, carried me into the bathroom, and set me in front of the mirror. I had acquired a lovely reddish-purple color. Both of my shoulders had turned raspberry red. The edges of my wounds were puffy. Irene must’ve had something nasty on her blades, or maybe Mishmar wasn’t the most sterile environment to get cut in. My left hip, my knees—and probably my back, judging by the lake of pain that pulled in my trapezius muscles—were a deep blue, too.

“My impersonation of a peacock is proceeding as planned.”

“Not funny.” Curran’s expression could’ve stopped a raging bear in his tracks.

I had tried to seduce him after the shower but he wasn’t having any of it. He packed me into the bed, and I was making some sort of smartass quip about his new powers post-saber-tooth-devouring, and then there was nothing. Here’s hoping I didn’t fall asleep in mid-sentence.

Yep, I probably did.

In fact, I could totally sleep more. I could lie down on this nice cold floor and nap. I yawned again.

“Curran, where are you going?”

“To make breakfast.”

Sleep evaporated. My eyes snapped open. If I didn’t get downstairs in the next ten minutes, he’d smoke out the kitchen again with bacon.

I made it down in time to save the bacon from a terrible fate. Curran had brought in Nellie Kerning, one of the medmages the Guild frequently hired. She had set up camp at our dining room table. She was short, plump, and in her early fifties. She also took no prisoners, which was why Curran must’ve called her in the first place.

“Strip.”

I pulled off most of my clothes, leaving on my sports bra and underwear. A woman had to have limits. Nellie examined me.

I caught Curran giving me an interested look. Was he actually . . . Yep, he was checking me out. Yeah, where were you last night, buddy? I would’ve stayed awake . . . Well, no. Probably not.

“Did you play tag with a rock troll?” Nellie asked.

“No.” My aunt played tennis with me against the walls. But explaining that would cramp my style.

Where was my aunt?

Nellie sighed. “Why does everyone have to be a hard case? Is it in your job description?”

“Yes. Also I know a were–honey badger you would really like.”

“Mm-hm. Let’s see if we can salvage this mess.”

She was fifteen minutes into the chant when Andrea and Raphael walked through the door, followed by Robert.

“Would it kill you to knock?” I asked.

“Would it kill you to lock your door?” Andrea marched over to me and handed Baby B over. “Here, hold my kid.”

Oh boy. I took Baby B. She looked at me and yawned.

Raphael very carefully avoided looking at undressed me and went into the kitchen.

“First, Dali survived, so you can stop freaking out,” Andrea said. “And don’t get any ideas about things being awkward between us because of what happened. Things are not awkward.”

“Things are awkward,” Robert said. “Your father ordered a hit on the heir of Clan Bouda, and his assassin injured the Consort.”

“Done,” Nellie said. “I’ll bill you.”

I waited until she left, gave the baby back to Andrea, and pulled on my T-shirt and my shorts.

“Is she recovering okay?” I asked.

“I’m forbidden to answer any questions,” Robert said.

“What do you mean, forbidden?” Curran asked. The tone of his voice wasn’t friendly.

Robert stood a little straighter.

“He means Jim flipped the fuck out.” Raphael stole a piece of bacon off the plate. “You and everyone who separated with you are on the Do Not Talk To list. He can’t forbid you to visit the Keep because it’s against the law, but your access will be severely restricted. And he gagged anyone employed in an official capacity, like Robert here. But unlike Robert, I don’t hold an administrative position outside my clan, so I don’t care what the fuck he thinks.”

Andrea grinned at him. Somebody had earned a whole bunch of awesome husband points.

“He’s thinking with his gut instead of his brain,” Raphael said. “Nobody realized Jezebel was a double agent, so in his mind, if she was one, anybody could be one. His gut reaction is to shut down the flow of information, fortify, and . . .”

“Retaliate,” Curran said, his face grim.

“He can’t retaliate,” I said.

“I can’t answer questions,” Robert said. “But I can listen to advice. He didn’t forbid me to listen.”

“Is there proof that Jezebel acted on Roland’s orders?” Curran asked.

Robert didn’t answer.

“Probably not,” Andrea said. “If there is, that information hasn’t been shared with us.”

“In the absence of proof,” Curran said, “to outsiders this looks like one member of the Pack attacked another. It’s a Pack matter.”

“If Jim retaliated in force against my father, it would mean a declaration of war,” I said. “He and the Pack are within the land I protect. Roland wants war, but he doesn’t want to break the treaty. He will seize any opportunity. Jim’s actions will be viewed as an unprovoked attack.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Curran said, watching Robert. “He’s made up his mind.”

“What would you do if your mate was stabbed in the heart with a silver blade?” Robert asked.

“I would wait until I was absolutely sure that I could destroy my enemy,” Curran said. “I wouldn’t throw my people away. He can’t kill Roland, Robert. He doesn’t have the resources. All he can do is kill some of Roland’s people and a lot of his own. Roland’s forces are disposable. Our people, the Pack, are not.”

“The future is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

They looked at me.

“We worked so hard not to provoke him and it doesn’t matter in the end,” I said. “The battle will happen. We can’t stop it.”

Curran looked at Robert. “Tell him that after he goes through with it, Roland will retaliate in force. Tell Jim he knows where we live. We’ll be here.”

“Tell him that he is endangering every person in the city limits,” I said.

“Hypothetically speaking,” Robert said, “if the attack happens, and Roland retaliates, what will you do about it?”

“She is a princess of Shinar.” My aunt burst into existence in the middle of the kitchen. “It is by the grace of her mercy you are still breathing.”

Robert stumbled back. Raphael’s hands went to his knives. Andrea bared her teeth, cradling Baby B. You could hear a pin drop.

“I have family in town for the wedding,” I said into the silence. “My aunt, Eahrratim, the Rose of Tigris.”

Curran covered his face with his hand.

“Your pathetic castle is in her domain,” Erra said. “She can level it with a thought. If your Beast Lord picks a fight with my brother, how will you survive without her to shield you?”

“We’ll fight,” Robert said, his body tense, ready to leap and tear.

“And when fire rains from the sky and the earth opens to swallow you, who will you fight then? How much damage will your claws do to a flood? Tell that to your king, half-breed.”

My aunt vanished.

Andrea pivoted to me, her mouth open, and shook her finger at the spot where Erra had stood.

“Long story,” I told her.

“Tell Jim that after he has his fun, we’ll be here,” Curran said to Robert. “Tell him that help is here. All he needs to do is ask.”