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Chapter Thirty-Two

Julian’s palm collided with Jade’s cheek.

Instant pain burst across her face, her world spinning as she plunged to the ground. The sound of her hip hitting the corner of the desk breached the room, but it didn’t overcome the noise machine still churning on its maximum sound setting.

Toppled from her feet, she gripped the short carpeting as stars danced behind her eyes. Jade didn’t know what was more disorienting: the fact that she’d been slapped or the fact that it had been Julian’s hand.

“How dare you keep secrets from me,” he hissed. “You are mine , woman, and I will not tolerate your disloyalty.”

Head still spinning, Jade played the fool. “Prime?”

“Netarios is supposed to be dead, and here he is, living and breathing,” Julian snarled, his normally handsome features sharpening to take on a sinister look. “The hunters cannot be trusted with the simplest of tasks.”

Everything in her revolted. “You hired the hunters?”

“Of course I did, Jade. You know, your innocence is really quite trying at times.” He fisted his hands on his hips, peering down at her with vicious contempt. “It doesn’t matter; you won’t remember this conversation anyway.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Netarios or Niko or whatever that weakling calls himself is supposed to be dead. And he will be.” Julian remarked, unbothered. “This time, the one I send after him won’t fail.”

When he picked up the cardinal sculpture on her desk, she leapt to her feet—but not quickly enough. The piece that Niko had created for her shattered into a million pieces at Julian’s feet. With it went any remaining trust.

Fear soured into anger.

Jade had never seen this side of Julian.

Once she’d believed him to be a good man—the savior of their race.

The Sagani standing before her now was an entirely different creature.

The ugliness below the surface she’d glimpsed every so often had finally boiled over.

Why he was letting her see it was even more disconcerting.

“Why do this, Julian? Niko has done nothing to you, and you’ve taken everything from him.”

A dark, sinister expression twisted his features as he cleaned his hands of the cardinal’s dust. He displayed no regret or guilt, an outward symptom of his inner demon.

“Your mate knows the truth, and that’s why he’s got to go. He can’t be allowed to live. He was meant to die four centuries ago along with his parents, and I despise loose ends.”

He knew . Somehow, Julian knew that Niko was her mate. It should have been impossible. Niko’s prime hadn’t been able to tell when their bond appeared, and he’d been surprised when Niko had told him—Jade knew that much. Something else was happening here.

“You know about our mating bond?”

He gave her a dark look. “You can’t hide your bonds from me. Just like you can never hide yourself.”

The truth hit her like a bolt of lightning. The hunters had known where they were because Julian had known where she was. She could never hide her magical signature from her prime, and they’d gotten to Niko because she was with him.

Once more, her tongue got her into trouble. “Why are you telling me all of this? Don’t you fear I’ll be a loose end?”

Danger lurked in Julian’s expression. “I’m a great many things, Jade, but know this: I’ll never fear you. Now, use that keen and penetrating mind to decipher why.”

Beneath her skin, her leopard leapt to the forefront, hissing viciously as her hackles raised. As she had so often, Jade prepared to shove the cat aside, but the conditioning wavered.

Nearly every time Jade went to legion lands, her leopard became hysterical. She had never made the connection that it was truly only Julian that made her inner predator uneasy.

The truth of the situation came to her the more she thought about it.

While the immortal psyche could be coerced, the animal beneath it—of lesser intelligence, so Julian had said—could not be.

Her leopard’s hysteria, and even the brief episodes of lost time she’d experienced, could all be contributed to consistent use of manipulative magic.

Deep, debilitating fear lanced through her.

Coercive magic, with so few test subjects and little research conducted on the ability, was poorly documented. So why, with Julian’s powerful ability, had he not volunteered?

The reason came immediately: because he didn’t want anyone to know what he could do.

It made her wonder how many times he had coerced her to forget, and her leopard had remembered. How many times had he shown her violence and wiped the slate clean afterward? How many times did he disclose the ugly truth and then made her believe the lie?

“Why are you doing this?”

Julian had expected her question, and gleeful amusement that turned his gaze dark. “It’s the same questions every time, Jade. You’re delightfully repetitive.” He mimicked Jade’s voice, “Why are you doing this? Why did you send me away?”

Chills raced over her skin. “You sent me away?”

The amusement faded. “Of course I did, you fool. If your snow leopard managed to shirk its chains, you’d be useless to me. Besides, I’d grown tired of keeping your delicate heart innocent to all of this. Manipulation takes energy, and I rarely like to expend it. I take it.”

Julian loomed over her. “I don’t accept this type of disloyalty, Jade; not from you. I haven’t come all this way to be foiled by the son of a dead man.”

His magical energy pulsed in the air around her. As Jade prepared for the fallout, she gathered her own magic, intent on standing firm and resisting whatever would happen next. It danced across her skin, building in intensity as she stared Julian down.

Having phased a handgun into his palm, he commanded her, “When you’re alone with Nikolas, you’ll take this gun and shoot him in the head. Do not leave him alive.”

She shook in terror as he dropped the solid weight into her hands only seconds later.

Undaunted by her shock, he continued speaking. “When you’re finished, you’ll forget this entire charade happened, you’ll forget your infatuation with Nikolas Church, and you’ll come back to me in legion territory where you belong. Become my willing, tediously boring little slave again.”

Manipulative energy, abrasive against her skin, began to suffocate her. It pressed against her free will with vicious intent. As it savaged the edges of her psyche, something stopped it from bleeding further into her mind and taking root.

She didn’t give in. Nothing and no one could make her hurt Niko.

Baring her teeth, she hissed, “You’re insane to believe I’ll kill my mate!”

Julian’s features twisted, his anger morphing to surprise. His coercive magic had just failed.

Jade was now a loose end.