Page 18 of Broken Souls

Seven

HIM

I head downstairs to talk to Mother, needing to ask her a question before I meet with Aleric. I find her in the kitchen, sitting at the counter, her hands pressed to the wood as she hums. She’s talking to it – or rather, toher. To the monster who died and whose ashes have been magically mixed into the twisted knots of the zebrano – an old companion of hers called Olivia.

She looks up as I enter the kitchen. She slides her hands across the counter in a farewell, then stands as I reach her.

“You can’t trust him,” she says.

“You trusted him to save Khalid,” I counter, referencing a call she made to him three months ago. For how much she claims to hate the vampire, he was the first one she thought of to help her.

“I have something he wants,” she says tightly. “You do not.”

“I have the resources to save his Family.”

“The only person that fucker cares about is himself,” she scoffs, for once not being the perfect pleasant lady she was raised to be.

“Then why would he agree to the meeting?” I ask.

“To lure you in and kill you.”

I shake my head. “He can’t afford a war on both sides.”

“He’ll sacrifice his whole Family for –” She stops as she presses her lips into a thin line.

“What does he want with you?” I ask softly.

She shakes her head. “That’s between me and him.”

“Will it interfere with the alliance?”

“No.”

“The meeting?”

“No.”

I want to trust her, but she’s lied to me for too long about other things. “What did he ask you for in exchange when he saved Khalid?” I ask again, this time not as a son but as her Boss.

She lifts her chin. “Please don’t press this.”

I don’t say a word, letting my silence speak for me.

“He wants me to put on lotion every night.”

My eyes narrow. “Lotion?”

“Yes.” The word is ground out, and I know there is more meaning to the simple action. Something she despises.

“That’s what he asked for when he risked his life to save Khalid?”

My brother was on a job as the reaper, hunting down an ally turned traitor. He was cut to pieces, nearly lost both his hands, and only managed to take down his opponent by using the reckless power of a spoken spell before he passed out from blood loss.

But I saw the two marks on the traitor’s neck when I collected his body. There were teethmarks beneath the cut of a knife, and Aleric had blood on his mouth that night. Khalid didn’t kill the traitor – or at least, he didn’t kill him fast enough. The man would have ended him in his final moments if Aleric hadn’t arrived and ripped out his jugular.

Which he supposedly did simply in exchange for Mother applying lotion every night?

It doesn’t make fucking sense.