Page 40 of V for Vilified (Hunter V #4)

The surge I felt, it was his power. He’d used it on his brother. So, their bond didn’t protect them from one another? Hope took root inside me, and a plan stitched itself together, one piece of information at a time.

Phillip’s note came to mind—a reminder I was a goddamn Hunter. I wasn’t some untrained novice. I was a weapon. It was time I started acting like one.

“Dagon,” was all the tall villain said next to me.

The brother on my left was already moving. He took hold of Rayis and then they were gone.

Aram’s hold on me tightened as he walked forward. “Continue.”

It took a second, but voices eventually trickled back in. The music started again. The beautiful Fae all around us returned to their partners and their dance. As if nothing happened, the party continued exactly how he commanded it to.

Aram led me to the long table at one side of the room and pulled out a chair for me. I took it, but my mind was bombarded by moves I should make and questions I should ask.

I didn’t need to be careful with him like other enemies. Aram wasn’t going to kill me, but I did need to be intentional so I could get the most out of everything I did. Who knew if and when he’d find a way to keep me out of his head.

Kate was in the seat next to me, scanning the food in front of her with a skeptical eye. “Is this…safe for human consumption?”

I didn’t expect him to answer, but he did. “It is. A bit different from what the humans in your realm normally eat, I admit, but hardly unpleasant.”

It was so odd to be sandwiched between my best friend and enemy, carrying on with their mundane conversation like it was completely normal and not totally fucking weird we were all here together.

But I had bigger fish to fry, so I left my friend to figure out what she wanted to risk putting in her mouth.

“Your family was killed by a Royal Siren?”

Okay, not subtle, but I wasn’t expecting an answer. I’d hoped the blunt question would summon a memory I could dive into without him knowing. The string of emotion was promising, but unfortunately, no memory.

Damn.

Aram stared down at me before grabbing a few things and arranging them on my plate. Then he poured a glass of blue liquid I could almost guarantee was Blue Magic. Or at least something like it. To be safe, I wouldn’t touch it.

“You’re not being very subtle, little hybrid,” he taunted.

“Not really my style,” I retorted with a shrug, fiddling with the things on my plate.

I played up my boredom, but it was all a ruse so I could search our connection for anything I could exploit.

“You were the one who wanted a chance to prove who you are, so prove it. What happened with your family?”

My gut twisted as his expression darkened and he took a sip of what was in his cup. Anger blossomed inside my head, but as if he’d wiped it away with a glance, it was gone. “It’s not a tale fit for our first outing as mates, but should you truly want to know, once we’ve returned to our chambers—”

He was cut off by Kate gagging next to me. Something she’d been attempting to eat fell out of her mouth onto the plate. “Ew, gross. That’s a texture I didn’t even think possible, and one I hope never to have in my mouth again.”

I couldn’t help myself. Kate brought out the immature girl in me. “That’s what she said.”

Kate was in the middle of washing down the bad taste in her mouth, but that, too, ended up on the plate. “My dude! That’s cheating. You can’t drop a joke in the middle of enemy territory.”

Aram laid his cheek on his hand like he wasn’t the pretend god of an entire realm, just a dude out to dinner with two chicks sputtering nonsense. “Is that how you really feel, little mate? That I’m your enemy? What has the Daughter of Shadows and Dark King said about me, I wonder…”

Before I could reply with something vague, Kate, being the ever-astute Watson she was, immediately replied, “Oh, a lot. You’re one crazy mofo.

And just so you know, I might be human, but I once stalked a guy across town who called V a ginger whore and kicked him right in the balls.

Right. In. The. Balls. You don’t scare me with your charming Sephiroth act, mister.

I see right through you, and my foot was born ready to bring hell upon your balls. ”

I covered my mouth with a hand, so close to breaking down into a snickering mess. I was a goddamn Hunter and I still couldn’t stop my shoulders from shaking. “Pretty sure he ended up in the hospital, didn’t he?”

“Oh, yeah. Police got involved. Parents. It was a mess, but I don’t regret it. I hope I sterilized the bastard,” she rambled.

I’d nearly forgotten about Aram until he chuckled, and it brought my eyes back over to him. “I’ll endeavor to remember your threat and act accordingly.”

Kate narrowed her eyes, then slowly reached for her cup. “See that you do.”

The melody changed, and so did the dancing. I was momentarily lost to the sight, magic sparking and swirling through the air. I counted a few pixies in the crowd despite Big’s assurance the Nether Royals weren’t fans. Interesting. Then my eyes locked on a pair of wings that felt oddly familiar.

Wait a second…

“Goth Tinkerbell Dude?” I mumbled, caught on the giant in the middle of the swaying mass, his familiar eyes on me. But as if he’d never been there, he was gone.

Kate sniffed a piece of food that resembled bread, not trusting it in the least. I wanted to ask her if Big followed us here, but I couldn’t risk it in front of Aram.

“V?” Aram said right into my ear, and I went rigid. “Recognize someone?”

I worked hard to keep my pulse slow and calm. “Speaking of that, how did you recognize Jo?”

“Jo?” His head tilted with the name.

“Uh, Johara,” I went on, testing her name on my tongue. “The Daughter of Shadows.”

“Ah.” His smile faded. “She’s the spitting image of her mother.”

I gasped as another flood of emotion washed through my head. A swirling memory took root. I didn’t think, just reached out to it and fell into a confused vortex of images.

I was suddenly not in the ballroom with Aram and his court orgy. Cobblestone stretched from my left and right but became blurry and unrecognizable after a few feet. Faded and colorless. Only bits of what was in front of me were crystal-clear.

In front of me was a woman who was nearly identical to Jo aside from marginal deviations in her face shape and mouth. Her green eyes blazed, darkness sweeping around her like an angry cloud, crawling up her hour-glass figure like the hands of Hell reaching for freedom.

On the ground was another woman with long black hair that shifted over the stone like a river.

One arm was draped above her head, the other falling across her waist. She was breathtakingly beautiful and clearly a Fae, but for some reason she didn’t sparkle like I expected.

Her face had paled and was directed straight up at the sky, her red eyes open but lifeless. The word ‘dead’ echoed inside my head.

This was Aram’s mother.

I—no, he —dropped to his knees, a powerful influx of his magic making the ground beneath him quake. “You’ve killed them all, and for what, Hera?” I heard him snarl, my mouth moving with his. “Power? Well, you can’t have it. I’ll destroy you the way you have my clan, mark my words, Eishic.”

“Not if I kill you first,” Hera whispered, her lips slanted in arrogance. Her shadows slowly crept across the ground toward us.

But Aram was swiftly on his feet, his wings flexed and his stance ready to fight. His brothers appeared beside him.

Somehow, I knew they hadn’t been bonded before this, but they were after their mother’s power passed to Aram.

In that moment, their brotherly bond was forged.

It was how their kind survived—generations of power.

It wasn’t only their mother’s they’d gotten; it was their entire clan whose power they now wielded.

Still, it was his mother’s power he used.

“No,” Aram growled, his voice wrapped in silvery magic, “You’ll do it for me.

Go eliminate anyone responsible for what occurred here, starting with those closest to you, the Originals.

Leave no offender who took part in today’s massacre alive, and when that’s done, end your life and do the realm a favor. ”

I was slammed back into my body, my chair skirting back, but Aram caught it before I hit the ground.

Overwhelming despair made it hard to talk. Everything he’d felt when his mother died came crashing down on me. The intense sadness and rage, the never-ending regret and shame. His grief swallowed me whole.

“Little mate?” he asked on a soft whisper. “What did you see? What has made you so sad?”

I swallowed, cursing myself for not being better at this. Tears tore down my face, and I rushed to wipe them away. I used what little thought I had left to construct a lie that wouldn’t give me away.

“I miss everyone.”

Shaking, I slouched in the chair and ignored the prick of his disappointment at the mention of everyone else. The intense emotion finally started to ebb away, and I sucked in a grateful breath.

I didn’t know how to interpret what I saw and felt, but what I did know was there was more to this than what Jo and Cash thought and what the rest of the realm had theorized about them. What I saw didn’t back up the claims.

They’d said it was Aram and his brothers who destroyed their people, not Jo’s mother and whoever was referenced in his growling speech. Not only that, but something clung to that memory—regret, fear, paranoia.

It was a brief thought after I moved away from the memory, but I got the sensation that he was still looking for Hera, like he didn’t believe she was dead. If Cash broke through his coercion, then it wasn’t totally crazy to think Hera could as well. But I needed more.

I needed to find out what really happened with the Originals and if Aram and his brothers were really the ones behind the Organization. Something was off here, and I’d get to the bottom of it.