Page 17

Lach

T he bayou was out of the question. Though part of me wanted to test the waters with Goemon after our encounter in New York, there was no way that Roark was letting me step foot outside New Orleans. So, instead of enjoying the calm of unloading a clip in the swamp, I found myself stuck in a sterile private range that boasted about as much charm as a hospital waiting room.

By the time we left the Avalon, stopping for our guns and to alert our people to search for the missing witch, I was on edge.

“Look at the bright side. Now you have a membership.” Roark laid his steel case onto the gun rest and unfastened it.

“How is that a bright side?” I grumbled as he passed me a box of ammo.

“It’s not like you’re leaving the city limits anytime soon.” Shaw lounged against the partition, fiddling with his earmuffs.

“Thanks for the reminder.” I slid a cartridge into my 9-millimeter’s magazine. I was not going to shoot my brother today.

He had shown up after Cate arrived at the hospital, claiming Ciara told him he needed to give Channing space to speak with his sister and to go bug me. Maybe I did need to take back the signet from Ciara if she was going to use its connection to Roark to punish me with attempting bonding. Something we had never been very good at.

“Tell me who I should worry about with the covens,” I ordered Roark as I finished loading. I had an idea after the meeting, but knowing who had volunteered and who had been forced to help the family told me who to watch out for.

Roark hesitated, his eyes flicking to my brother.

“I get it,” Shaw muttered, finally tossing the earmuffs to the side. Like our guns, his had a built-in silencer—an absolute necessity, given our advanced hearing. He stalked into his own booth.

No matter how hard I tried to keep him out of this life, he wormed his way back in. I’d hoped when he left school, he’d choose a different path.

Roark waited until Shaw started his first round. “It’s pretty clear where everyone stands.”

“The witches didn’t seem happy.” I knocked off a shot, sending it through the center of the target. The gun’s vibration in my palm felt like the promise of action in the midst of all this upheaval.

“Second Parish is torn over the bona fides. Half wanted to help you.”

“And the other half want to see me rot in hell.” Nothing new there. The coven had been here when my parents arrived to set up court, offering them a way around the curse that had stifled their magic. Not everyone who followed the goddess had agreed with bowing to the fae then. Not much had changed since, but now that their magic was back, the bargains we made with the coven were fewer and further between. “You would think they’d be happy to have me in their debt.”

“Pretty sure that’s what swayed them,” he admitted.

“And First Parish?”

“The idea came from a familiar, but you know how it is in First Parish. The vampires were all in our favor.”

But while powerful, they only made up a small portion of New Orleans’s oldest coven.

First Parish had been a melting pot since the city’s earliest days, welcoming ancestral magic, voodoo, and the darker magics as well as vampires, fae, and other species into the Quartier Enchanté, the hidden, magical heart of the French Quarter. Many of the witches who lived there had aligned with vampires for protection even though they had to come to us for magic.

“Why do I feel like I’m going to pay for that support?”

Roark snorted. “Oh, you are definitely going to pay for it. Baptiste has already made it clear that if her businesses suffer, she will cut off your balls.”

That sounded like my ex.

“And don’t think she doesn’t know you went to her brother for help with the Infernal Court,” he added.

The last thing I needed was to owe her on three counts. “What does she want?”

“To be sure that her supply chain doesn’t dry up while the spell is in effect and that the tourists keep coming.”

“See to it.” That sounded too easy.

“I think the vampires consider it a business opportunity. Baptiste isn’t the only one who brought up opium to replace clover,” he warned me.

The shit was allowed in their private dens because it didn’t affect our own business. They saw this as a chance to move in on our territory. That was a slippery slope. “Over my dead body.”

Roark lifted a brow. Poor choice of words. I aimed at the target, frowned, and sent it back another fifty yards.

“Third Parish did what they could. You know how it is.”

I nodded, sending a few more shots sailing through the target. Calling the creatures that made up Third Parish a coven was…charitable. The Marigny neighborhood had always welcomed misfits and loners of every species. Apart from the werewolf pack, the creatures that lived there kept to themselves, and they never agreed on anything. Their golden rule was live and let live—but kill anyone that’s a threat. It was a miracle any of them had committed to helping.

“Everyone is on edge because of the situation,” Roark said. “Things have changed since the curse lifted. They might help us now, but…”

“Their magic can’t touch ours.” Even with our access to the Otherworld choked, the city was built on fae magic thanks to my parents. I knocked off five shots in a row until there was a gaping hole in the head of the target.

He nodded after a moment. “We know what we’re made of.”

“They think the mark has made me soft.” I pulled out my empty magazine and started to reload it.

“It’s not the mark that everyone is talking about,” Shaw called from the other side of the booth.

Of course he was listening. I paused to reload.

Roark cast a sidelong glance at me. “What have you heard?”

Shaw had always hung with a diverse crowd. He had been the only one of us to attend the academy—a sign of goodwill on the part of our parents. Most of us had spent our time in the human world under the care of private nurses as we settled into our primes before returning to live the rest of our years in the Otherworld, where our aging stopped. But the world was changing by the time Shaw was old enough to go. He had been in the same grade as Sirius, and I’d met a few of his friends throughout the years. Vampires. Witches. A few direct descendants of the Olympians, although they rarely came this far south. If anyone knew what the other creatures of New Orleans were saying about our family, it was him.

Shaw stepped into the space behind us and shrugged. “They’re talking about Cate.”

I stilled, bullet in hand.

“What are they saying?” I asked through gritted teeth.

Roark tensed, his shoulders squaring, and I knew he was deciding if he needed to step between us.

“Rumor went around that she’s the reason you got marked by the Hunt. People are curious, asking who she is, trying to find out where she came from, taking bets on whether or not wedding bells will ring.” He grinned at that. Shaw liked Cate. “Incidentally, if you want to give me an inside scoop on that one, there are some pretty good odds right now.”

“They’ve only known each other a month,” Roark said roughly, giving no indication that he knew the truth. He was the only one, other than Cate herself, who knew with certainty that we were mates.

“Mostly, they’re surprised that she’s human.”

I finished loading my magazine and slid it in. Turning, I emptied it into the target, but the edge of frustration haunting me didn’t diminish. I didn’t need a reminder of that debate.

“Everything okay?” Shaw asked. I glared daggers at him, and he held up his free hand. “I’m asking as a brother. I swear to the gods, I’m not going to place a bet on your love life.”

“Tread carefully,” Roark advised him in a low voice.

“Everything is fine,” I said in a clipped tone. “She’s going through a lot. I thought she’d be happier to be back.”

A half truth, but I couldn’t tell him the rest. Not while Cate was still considering whether to reject the mating bond. The last thing I needed was my little brother feeling sorry for me.

But he stared at me. “She isn’t? I mean, she seemed a little emotional about Channing.”

“She was abducted,” Roark reminded us, “and she’s barely had a minute to catch her breath.”

Except I thought she loved me. She said she did, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the revelations about our mating bond had changed that. Or at least made her question things between us enough that she hadn’t believed what I told her. I wasn’t sure where that left us.

Shaw shrugged, placing his weapon on my booth’s gun rest. “Look at it from her perspective. I’m sure she’s happy to be back, but it’s just one crisis after another.” He hitched a thumb at the door. “Out there, there’s always business to deal with, and you haven’t been in a relationship in a long time.”

“And you have?” Roark laughed.

“Probably more than you have, old man,” he shot back. “All I’m saying is that maybe you need to romance her a little.”

Roark and I shared a look.

“Romance?”

“You do know what romance is?”

I frowned as I finished reloading. “I have been around a little bit longer than you.”

“That doesn’t instill confidence,” he said. “You made that bargain with her, locked her up, forced her to go to all this weird fae shit, and, by some miracle, she seems to have fallen in love with you.”

“Yes, it is a mystery,” I said in a dry voice.

“Exactly,” he said, missing my sarcasm. “You two have never even been on a date.”

I glared at him. “We’ve been on a date.”

“Sex doesn’t count.”

“We have been on dates,” I insisted.

“You dragged her to the midnight feast and a handfasting and what else?”

I frowned as I tried to remember. “I took her to the bayou.”

Roark covered a smile with his hand.

“The bayou? Everyone’s dream date,” Shaw said, rolling his eyes. “Where’s the romance? You need to sweep her off her feet. Take her to Baptiste’s place. Buy her some flowers.”

“If Lach steps foot in Baptiste’s restaurant with a date, she’ll poison him,” Roark said.

“Then find somewhere else,” he said. “You broke the bargain, right?”

“I did,” I said, studying him. “How do you know that?”

“All I’ve talked about for a week is Cate’s brother, the Wild Hunt, and this bona fides spell. You think I didn’t hear about the bargain?”

I shot an accusing look at Roark. “They were going to find out,” he said with a shrug.

“My point is that you have nothing keeping her here,” Shaw said, reaching for his gun. He swiveled back to face the target and took aim. I hated that he had a point. Before, Cate had been bound by the bargain to return to me every night—whether she liked it or not. Now? “You better find a way to make her stay.”

For once, I agreed with my brother.

I was still considering Shaw’s advice as we left the shooting range an hour later, somehow feeling heavier than when I walked inside. I scowled as the afternoon sun assaulted us. Even the weather was in a better mood than I was. The shit with Cate was eating me alive.

“What if I bought her a car?” I asked the two of them. I’d never replaced the Volvo after its urban campfire.

“A car?”

“A really expensive car.”

Shaw shook his head as he drew a pair of sunglasses out of his suit pocket. “That’s not romance. That’s a bribe.”

“She needs one. It’s not a bribe.”

“Romance is about intimacy, learning about someone by peeling back layers, sharing things.”

I stared at him for a minute before shaking my head. “I’m sorry, but where are you getting this shit?”

He’d never even brought a date home.

“I know things,” he said defensively.

“I hate to say it, but he’s right,” Roark added.

Traitor.

“Fine. No car,” I conceded.

“Take her on a date.” Shaw repeated his earlier advice.

I sighed. I’d spent the better part of the last century ghosting between the Nether Court and the Avalon, rarely venturing into New Orleans to maintain my reputation. Now, when things were at their most precarious, I had no choice but to turn to the city—and I didn’t know where to start. “Where?”

“Maybe…” Shaw’s suggestion trailed away as the light faded overhead. Not a simple cloud passing—the street darkened like twilight had fallen unexpectedly.

We all looked up as an eclipse gradually erased all trace of the sun from the sky so thoroughly that twilight faded to midnight. The sight pricked at my memory.

“Didn’t Ciara say something about a spontaneous eclipse?” I asked.

“Yep,” Roark said grimly. “There was one during the outage.”

Shaw whistled. “This can’t be good.”

No, it definitely was not.

Shaw strode toward his car, not bothering to take off the sunglasses. He opened the door to the Mercedes before turning back in our direction. “Let me know if you need help with Cate. I’d hate to see you lose her.”

I flipped him off as he slid behind the wheel.

The sun reappeared just as Roark’s phone rang. We shared a strained look. “You’d think I was a one-man customer service department.” His scowl deepened when he saw the screen, but he took the call. “Yes?”

I didn’t bother trying to listen. If there had been another outage, I’d rather enjoy a few more moments of ignorant bliss. But Roark’s face was grim when he hung up the call.

“One of our guys found the witch.”

Something in his voice told me the detail he was leaving out.

Dead .

I scrubbed at my jaw, my headache rapidly returning. “And?”

“They called us first. We better get over there. It’s…”

Enough said.

The sun slipped below the horizon in a sliver of crimson as we made our way a few blocks north to the outskirts of the French Quarter. Neither of us spoke much in the car. We’d grown accustomed to each other’s moods over the years, but this felt different somehow. I understood now why my father had released his penumbra, why Mother and Aunt Stacia had slowly grown apart. I’d never kept secrets from Roark. I had never had anything worth keeping from him. Even now, he knew more about my and Cate’s situation than anyone else, but I didn’t miss the signet ring apart from the convenience of being able to reach out to him anytime, anywhere. Roark had respected my privacy when Cate and I had finally crossed the line into being something more. But now that we were mates, she was the one I wanted in my head.

Roark drove in stony silence, ink shifting and swirling on his forearms. I wasn’t the only one with things on my mind.

He was probably thinking about the dead body waiting for us, more in control of his thoughts and emotions than I was after my disastrous conversation with Cate and the follow-up punishment of the coven meeting.

The parking garage was perched on the corner of Treme and Iberville, just far enough from the hustle of the city’s busier tourist areas to be quiet this time of day. Roark stopped the car on the street and gave me a grim smile.

“Welcome home.”

I hadn’t ventured much outside of Waverly, our pocket of New Orleans, in recent years, choosing to spend my time between the Avalon and the court. The business that drew me to other parts of the city was always bloody. This evening was no exception.

“Next time, get me balloons,” I said as I reached for the door handle. “Maybe a nice fruit basket.”

Roark didn’t laugh.

A dead witch was the last thing we needed with coven relationships strained, and we both knew it.

Plenty of blood had been spilled in New Orleans, but the price for it was higher when magic ran in the victim’s veins—and I would likely be paying it.

The humidity of an approaching storm hung in the air, along with the faint tang of copper. My nostrils flared as I picked up the scent of blood. The sidewalk’s broken asphalt crunched beneath my feet as we approached the man who had made the call.

There was a hint of menace to his human glamour, his shoulders just a little bulkier than average, his eyes slightly feral, but the rest of his features remained cool and detached.

“Garren,” Roark greeted him.

“Sir.” He straightened into more rigid attention, his eyes darting toward me.

“You’re the one who found the body?” I asked.

He nodded. “One of the men thought he saw something strange moving in the garage, and then we smelled…” His face paled at whatever his memory recalled. “Boyd is guarding it. I mean, her.”

“First time?”

Garren swallowed. “Not exactly. It’s just…”

It was different when you saw someone killed in a shootout or hand to hand, the adrenaline cutting through any shame or guilt you might feel. A murder was a different beast.

“Show us,” I said before Garren’s nerves got the better of him.

The garage was empty save for a few scattered cars. The fluorescent lights flickered in and out, casting ominous shadows on the graffiti-covered walls.

“Up a floor,” Garren said, leading us toward an out-of-service elevator.

Unless the killer had fae magic, they would have taken the stairs. We didn’t speak as we continued to them, cataloging everything around us for any clue as to what happened or who was responsible. The stale scent of urine hung in the stairwell, chasing us to the next level, but there were no signs of foul play, no signs that the witch had fought back.

“How was she killed?”

“Execution,” Garren said tightly. “It doesn’t look like she’s been dead for long. We were assigned to sweep the area. Boyd smelled the blood.”

It was hard to miss.

I glanced at Roark, trying to remember what he’d told me at the Avalon. “Did étienne say how long Thalia was missing?”

“A couple of days.” He shrugged. “We need to tell them.”

Getting ahead of this was our only option, but I didn’t relish delivering the news. “I’ll inform étienne.”

He would know how to handle the situation, but I wanted to understand what we were dealing with first. Something told me that if I went directly to the familiars, Corinne would hex me before I had a chance to explain.

Our footsteps echoed off the cement walls, the second floor entirely empty except for the fae standing guard next to a concrete pillar.

Boyd unclasped his hands as we approached. “We found her purse. It’s definitely Thalia.”

I glanced at Roark, tilting my head ever so slightly.

“Go double-check the perimeter,” he ordered the two guards, “and then get yourselves a drink, but stay close.”

They looked relieved to go. I stepped around the pillar and understood why.

Thalia was slumped face down on the filthy pavement, her blond hair floating in a pool of blood, and a single bullet wound punched through the back of her skull. Her wrists and ankles were bound with zip ties. Cruel. Barbaric. But to the point.

“Execution, all right.” Roark crouched next to her and dipped a finger in the pooling blood. “Still warm.”

She hadn’t been dead for long.

“Who does this to a witch?” He shook his head.

After the coven meeting, I had a few ideas. The trouble was, creatures usually had more creative ways of killing each other. Ones that relied on poisons and potions and were easier to cover up. There was a theatricality to this that chilled my blood.

Roark leaned closer, lifting a bloody strand of hair off her neck to reveal a symbol carved into the nape. The cuts were etched with brutal precision: a winged skull.

“Fuck,” he muttered, eyes lifting to mine. “Think that’s a coincidence?”

I did not. “It’s a message.”

One meant for me.

“Thalia suggested the bona fides.” He stood, wiping his bloody fingers on his pants. “It looks like someone made her pay for that.”

Because of me.

“Someone killed her after you sent out the search order.” I lowered my voice as if not to disturb the dead.

His eyebrow arched. “What are you saying?”

“I think we have a rat,” I said grimly. “Someone told the Hunt I was in New York and where to find me.”

“The mark,” he suggested.

But I shook my head, staring down at its grim twin carved into Thalia’s neck. “They couldn’t track me that quickly. They found me as soon as I stepped foot outside of Romy’s wards. Someone told them where to look. It’s not just that. How did MacAlister get into our court? His invitation was rescinded. Someone had to have let him in there the night he attacked Cate.”

Roark scrubbed the back of his neck. “If they’re behind this, they aren’t exactly being subtle.”

“I think that’s the point.” My mouth twisted. “Why settle for making us pay when they can make us suffer first?”

“What do you want to do about this?”

“Call Gage Memorial to send some paramedics and have Garcia do an autopsy.”

“Shouldn’t we tell First Parish? They aren’t going to be happy.”

“They’re not going to be happy either way,” I reminded him, “and I want to make sure we haven’t missed anything. I don’t want a whisper of this hitting the streets before we know. Can I trust your guys to keep this quiet?”

He tipped his head. “Let’s hope so.”

“Make sure.” I’d learned a long time ago that you had to watch your step when there was a snake in the grass.