Page 11 of A Token of Blood and Betrayal (Kennedy Rain #4)

I sat behind the desk in The Rain’s downstairs office and woke up my laptop.

My parents’ computer was useless, not only slow, but I couldn’t access much more than Word because all the important programs were password protected.

I’d considered hiring someone to hack into it somehow, but I couldn’t risk a human seeing references to paranorms, and I didn’t trust paranorms to keep their digital intrusions to a minimum.

A new computer was way toward the bottom of my fix-and-upgrade list. My current financial situation was unsustainable.

I knew it. Lehr knew it. Arcuro had known it too, and Jared?

Yeah. He definitely knew it as well, and as long as The Rain was in debt and barely making the bills month to month, I’d be at risk of having to ask Jared or Lehr for money. That money would come with strings.

That’s why I was sitting in the office. I was determined to make progress on my plan to make The Rain fully independent. It would be a sanctuary for all paranorms, even the ones who’d pissed off the powerful.

It took more time and energy than it should have to register a domain and set up the secure email address I’d promised Jared.

It was just past two a.m. I’d slept normal hours before returning to The Rain.

I’d tried to adjust, but my circadian rhythm was screwed up.

My brain wasn’t functioning optimally, and I needed more sleep.

I couldn’t crawl into bed now though. I couldn’t waste the small amount of time I had to circumvent my fey bargain.

Yawning, I picked up my phone and tapped on Jared’s name. It rang twelve times before it clicked but not because Jared answered. It went to voicemail with no hello or introduction.

I ended the call and tried again. When it clicked this time, I heard a clink in the background. Glasses maybe?

“Jared?”

“Speak,” he ordered.

My jaw clenched.

“I set up the email address,” I said, barely keeping irritation out of my voice. “It’s kennedy@. Are you—”

“I will make it known.”

“Wait!” I yelled because I just knew he was about to hang up. “Are you able to speak privately?”

“No.”

God, he could be so difficult sometimes! “I need to talk to you. Now.”

A short pause, then, “Is it Deagan?”

“No. Something else. Can you go somewhere private?” Vampires had excellent hearing. I couldn’t risk anyone else learning about Garion.

“I am occupied,” he stated.

“This is important.”

“As is this.” He ended the call.

He ended the freaking call! If I’d had enough money to replace a broken phone, I would have launched mine across the room.

I tugged on an edge of the pink camo tape crossing the torn seat of the chair beneath me.

I wasn’t going to beg Jared to talk to me, but I needed information.

Would Nora know anything about djinn and fey bargains?

Most older werewolves, Lehr included, held a long-standing hatred of fey.

They were blamed for outing the wolves a couple of centuries ago.

Younger wolves like Nora and Blake didn’t harbor the same resentment—they were open-minded—but they might have learned things from Lehr. Plus I did owe Nora an explanation.

Closing my laptop, I left the office and headed to the basement.

The entrance was located in the west wing behind a locked door marked Staff Only Staff Only.

I used my key to get in, then headed down a flight of stairs until I reached a second door.

My hand was on the doorknob, about to turn it, when a series of thumps came from the other side.

I frowned. What was that? If Jared had still been there, I would have made an assumption, turned around, and marched right back up the stairs.

The thumps stopped. I started to turn the knob…

And they started up again, quicker this time. Maybe Nora was in trouble.

I shoved open the door.

Nora stood alone in the center of the basement.

I quickly scanned the room. A king-sized bed dominated the far wall, covered with a black satin duvet and half a dozen neatly arranged blood-red pillows.

To my right, two comfortable chairs sat on either side of a small round table, and a few feet away from that, an open bottle of wine rested on a wooden mini-bar.

“Get out,” Nora ordered, striding toward the wall on my left. Due to the way The Rain was built, which defied nearly every architectural principle ever established, I couldn’t see around the outcropping she disappeared behind.

“I need to talk to you.” I took a few more steps into the room.

That’s when I saw the throwing knives embedded into a wooden board.

A paper had been pinned over the painted target in the center.

It looked like it might have been someone’s silhouette, but it was so torn up and mottled with holes that I couldn’t identify the person.

I figured there was a fifty-fifty chance it was me.

“You need to leave,” Nora said. She pulled the knives from the board, returned to her position in the center of the basement, then very deliberately focused on me. “I might miss.” She launched a knife without looking. It struck the paper where the neck would have been. “Badly.”

“Garion is a djinn.” Might as well yank that Band-Aid off fast.

Nora froze mid-motion, a second sharp blade poised near her ear. A few seconds passed before she threw the knife. This time, it hit halfway between the edge of the target and the bull’s-eye.

“That’s why I was downstairs. I was talking to him before Jared showed up.”

She launched a third knife. Of course she wouldn’t make this easy.

“I found his token in my mom’s jewelry box,” I said. “And I’m trusting you with his secret.” Please don’t let that trust be misplaced. “I wanted Garion’s permission before I told anyone. That’s why I didn’t say something earlier.”

She finally turned to look at me. “Your bargain with the night king. He demanded the djinn and token for the key to the envelope your parents left you.”

I nodded.

She snorted. “And now you want to save him.”

“He’s a friend,” I said. “And for whatever reason, I agreed to the bargain. I have to do something.”

“No. You don’t.” She turned back to the target. “And I can’t help you. I don’t know anything about djinn.”

“But you know the fey.”

“I know you shouldn’t break a bargain with them.” Her last dagger soared through the air and hit high. “Did you talk to Jared about this?”

“I tried calling before I came down here. He’s too busy doing ‘important things’”—the air quotes were obvious in my tone—“and couldn’t spare a second to talk.”

Nora retrieved the knives, then returned to her spot.

“Can I try?” I asked, motioning to the blades in her hand.

Ice-blue eyes studied me a moment before she shrugged, then handed one over.

I squared off to the target, lifted the knife to my ear like Nora had, then I let it fly. It bounced off the board just outside the paper target and clattered to the floor. My mouth tightened into a frown.

Nora launched two blades. Both hit within the blue circle. Show-off.

“You have to give the token to the night king. Jared will tell you the same thing.”

“There has to be something we can try.”

“We”—she bull’s-eyed her next dagger—“won’t help you do anything that might threaten your well-being or the stability of the Null.”

“Garion’s given me until dawn tomorrow. Twenty-six hours. If you won’t—”

“Even he knows you can’t fix this. Take his advice.”

She handed me another knife, and I launched it harder than necessary.

It ricocheted off the board and then skated across the cement floor, spinning for a surprisingly long time before it finally came to a stop.

I glared at it. I wanted to stab or strike something, and these blades weren’t cooperating.

“Thordis taught me to throw,” Nora said. “She’ll teach you if you ask.”

“I’d do better with ninja stars,” I grumbled.

“Over there.” Nora waved a hand toward the mini-bar. I hadn’t been serious, but sure enough, several shuriken were set next to the open bottle of wine.

Well, why not?

I walked to the mini-bar. Four identical “stars” rested on top of a flat, black faux-leather case.

Carefully, I picked one up. The blades curved out from the center like wolves’ claws, ready to rip and tear and maim.

Only the tips were sharp though, which allowed me to hold it closer to the center without slicing my fingers open.

I picked up a second star, then returned to the middle of the basement where Nora waited.

Nora bull’s-eyed yet again.

I lifted my first ninja star and launched it. It struck the forehead area of the paper and stuck—

The star dropped to the floor.

Annoyed, I pressed my lips together and waited for Nora to let fly her next knife.

We alternated turns again, her throwing twice, me once, her once, then me again, then her twice more before we gathered our weapons. Eventually my stars did embed and stay. Most didn’t hit the paper target, but it was still strangely satisfying to slice into the wood.

Tension began to ease from my jaw and shoulders.

For close to ten minutes, we flung our respective blades.

My arm was beginning to hurt, and my aim worsened.

When I missed the board completely and embedded the shuriken into the wall, I decided to call it quits.

This had cleared my mind, but I needed to fill it with ideas to save both Garion and myself.

“You could always tell my father you’re meeting a royal fey.” Nora placed her knives on the mini-bar beside my ninja stars.

“I don’t want to kill anyone.” Kill anyone again, I added in my head.

I was directly responsible for the deaths of at least three paranorms within the same number of months.

I didn’t regret ending Arcuro’s life, but ending Shelli’s a few days ago and one of her werewolf allies several weeks before?

Those didn’t sit right. Both had been defenseless when I killed them.

The first had triggered the magic that protected my family from paranorms who intended to do us harm.

I’d ended the werewolf’s agony with a blade through his heart.

I’d ended Shelli’s with one slice across her throat. Because Lehr had insisted.

Nora grabbed an extra glass from beneath the mini-bar. “You are such a human. The world won’t bend to your will just because you want it to. You have to make a choice between the future of one paranorm and the future of many. You know what the right decision is.”

“I don’t accept those choices.”

She filled the two glasses with the last of the bottle of red wine. “I know. So either me, Jared, or Blake will be around to save your ass again when things inevitably go wrong. Go get some sleep. You look like shit.”

A smile spread across my face. “I should be offended by your last comment, but I think you just admitted you like my ass.”

She shot me a disdainful look, her gaze filled with her typical daughter-of-the-alpha arrogance.

“No need to deny it,” I said, my voice chipper as I backed toward the basement stairs. “I won’t tell a soul.”

Her expression remained cool and aloof, a perfect mask to conceal emotions, which werewolves considered a weakness. “I might have to keep you alive, but that doesn’t mean I have to like you.”