Page 109 of Broken Souls

“Blo´dyrio´?”

“Gaera, with the antler coming from Halzaja.” The plane of the angels and demons. Kezja alicorns spend their entire life in the air, so when their horn falls off after the mating season, they’re incredibly rare to find due to not having any way to track the creatures down – and that’s if they end up on land. With the majority of that world covered by water, with only one major landmass surrounded by a few dozen islands, most of the horns fall into the sea. Only one horn is found maybe every hundred years or so. There are boats that try to follow the alicorns around during mating season, but the seas are rough and dangerous and full of monsters looking for their next meal. Some people try to chase them from the air, but that is the territory of the angels, and they do not take kindly to trespassers.

Her eyes widen. “Holy shit. How much does this cost?”

Well over seven figures, and that was before the shipping and smuggling costs. “Less than the value of you talking to me,” I murmur.

Her mouth closes tightly as she looks away. She puts the wand down, her body language closing up.

“Shit. That came out wrong. It’s not a trade, Micha. You don’t have to talk to me to use it. It’s yours.”

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she picks up the wand again, and as she turns it over in her hands, she says, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Micha. I took your magic. This is my apology to you.” The silence that stretches is uncomfortable and heavy, and I fish around for something to say before I remember what I came in here for in the first place. “We found Talon,” I tell her.

Her entire body stills like the poise of a snake about to strike. She slowly raises her head, her eyes burning with rage. “I want to be the one to kill him.”

I shake my head. “He’s up in Alaska, and you haven’t even used the wand yet.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

“The town doesn’t have any roads, and we can’t fly in without Talon running. Khalid’s going to have to phase with Vlad to get there, and he can’t jump that distance in one go.”

Her jaw tics, as does the pulse at her temple. “He blamed me, Varius. He fucking set me up for you to torture.”

“I know.”

“And you’re telling me I can’t even kill him?”

“If he was here, Micha, I’d let you, but you can’t phase while pregnant. We almost already lost the baby once –”

“Because of you! Because of him!”

“I know –”

“Do you? Because you don’t seem to fucking give a shit.” She jumps to her feet, the wand pointed down at her side. The purple lines glow, the magic in it feeding off her rage. “You don’t even want to go after him yourself!”

“Of course I do,” I say tightly. “But some of the capos are already wondering if he’s even guilty. They want any excuse to turn against me and put Leno on the throne. If I go after him, it will tear this Family apart. We cannot survive a coup when we’re at war, and I will not risk your life and that of our daughter’s for one moment of revenge.”

She grits her teeth. Her lip wobbles as she glares off in the distance, but she does not argue with me. She doesn’t say anything at all, and I exhale harshly. Knowing she can feel the bond even if she doesn’t want it, I push as much love down it as I can.

“Micha, I care for you. More than anything –”

“Except for this Family,” she says bitterly.

“I have a duty to this Fam–”

“What about your duty to me?” she shouts, her voice raw as she turns back to me. “You say you will kill anyone who makes me wet. You called a waiter who gave me his number and fucked me on the line so he could listen to my screams as you had your men cut off his balls and force him to eat them. You tattoo me, say I am yours to protect and care for and all that shit, but you won’t kill the man who caused you to torture me? What the fuck kind of bullshit is that!”

It’s my turn to grit my teeth. Because I want to kill Talon slowly for her. I want to carve off every inch of his skin and make him eat it as I go, using magic to keep him alive. But I can’t be the one to kill him when he was loved by all the other capos and was the one the soldiers went to when they had a problem. He might not have been my Underboss, but he had the people’s ear. His absence has already increased tensions, and his death will twist that even more. I cannot be the one to kill him.

Breathing out heavily, I hold her gaze. “Talon will die,” I say. “That has to be enough for you.”

Then I turn and leave the room to go find the reaper because I know that if I stare into those pain-filled eyes any longer, I will do something stupid like kill the man whose death will start a coup.

Thirty-Seven

HIM