Bind the Soul (6 page)

“Going somewhere?”

She recognized that confident, melodious tone. Identification of the voice stubbornly eluded her fuzzy brain as the draconian stiffened, his muscles hardening.

“What are you doing here?” he asked coolly.

“Same as you. It seems there’s something of a waiting list for Piper’s time.” The dangerous, bantering note in the man’s voice tickled her memory and it finally clicked. Shock snapped through her, followed by trembling hope.

The draconian shifted her weight in his arms. “I got her first. You’ll have to wait your turn.”

“I suspect there won’t be any turns left after your master is done with her. You would be Raum, I assume?”

“I suppose I am. And you would be a Ra bastard. I can’t say I know your name.”

Piper wanted to scream his name to sky:
Miysis
. She also wanted to forcefully remind the Ra heir that he owed her one.

“Four against one, Ra,” one of Raum’s men sneered. Apparently, he didn’t count the woman Piper had stabbed. “Fancy your odds much?”

A moment of silence.

“Actually,” Miysis purred, “it’s seventeen against four. Do you like
your
odds?”

The sneering daemon swore under his breath.

“You don’t look surprised, Raum,” Miysis added.

Raum shrugged. Piper’s head rolled limply on his shoulder. “I knew they were there.”

“I can see you’re a smart man. If you give me the girl without a fight, we won’t kill you. The Consul Jury can decide your fate. I’m sure they’ll be lenient.”

Considering Raum had kidnapped the daughter of a Consul, “lenient” wasn’t the word that came to mind. Raum shifted her limp weight to one arm, his forearm braced under the backs of her thighs so his other arm was free—to fight.

“I thought you knew me, Ra.” He betrayed no fear, no frustration, no anger. “Seventeen against one are fair odds . . . for me.”

“Perhaps. But do you think you can defeat us all
and
protect the girl at the same time?”

“You won’t hurt her.”

“Are you sure? I’m not the one Samael will skin alive if she’s killed.”

The draconian was silent as he considered Miysis’s words. “Fair point, Ra. As I see it, we have two options: Kill each other. Or walk away. I’ll concede the girl in return for your vow that my men and I walk.”

“Let you walk so you can ambush us in an hour?”

“Twenty-four hour truce.”

Miysis mulled it over. “Deal.”

No way. Was Miysis was letting Raum go to save himself a fight, leaving her vulnerable to future kidnapping attempts? His men outnumbered Raum’s four to one. Why was he bailing?

Raum shifted her back into both arms and stepped forward. Everything spun like a whirlpool. When he stopped, she could barely breathe from the dizziness.

“Otir, give me your shirt.” Miysis’s voice came from right in front of her.

Raum passed her over. Miysis wrapped her in a warm, heavy shirt and tucked her against his chest. He smelled like cinnamon and something that might’ve been catnip.

“Lift your spell,” he commanded.

Fingers lightly touched her jaw. Tingles raced over her skin and the dizziness vanished like a popped bubble. Piper’s eyes flew open. Raum didn’t pull his hand away fast enough. She snapped her teeth down hard on his finger.

He hissed and jerked his hand free. She spat out the taste of his blood and squirmed in Miysis’s grip. “Put me down.”

“There’s broken glass everywhere,” he said, squeezing until her ribs creaked.

She glared at him, surprised by the uncanny brightness of his chartreuse eyes. She’d forgotten how eerie and intense they were. His tousled, honey blond hair was exactly as she remembered, his sculpted face just as striking. He smiled pleasantly at her.

“Good evening, Piper. Are you injured?” He flicked a glance at her shirt-covered near-nudity.

Her cheeks flushed. “No.”

He nodded. “Until next time then, Raum.”

“You’re letting him go?” she hissed furiously.

“Yes.”

“He’ll just come after me later.”

“At least you’ll be alive for it.”

Scowling, she twisted to glare at the draconian as he walked away. “Raum!” she yelled.

He stopped five paces away and turned.

She searched his cold face for any sign of life. “You don’t have to obey Samael. The Consulates can protect you.”

He didn’t immediately react. Disbelief touched his features before something flickered behind his eyes. When she recognized it, her blood chilled. Pity shadowed his gaze—pity for her.

“You’re a fool,” he said without emotion. He turned away again.

“Raum, where is Ash? Raum!”

The draconian kept walking.

“
Raum!
” She lunged forward but Miysis caught her, holding her tight. “Put me down! Raum, what’s happened to him? Where is he? Answer me!”

Her last desperate cry came out in a strangled sob of frustration as the draconian and his soldiers disappeared down the dark alley.

“No,” she choked. So close. The answers had been so close.

Too late. He was gone, along with her best chance at finding out what the hell had happened to Ash.

CHAPTER 4

P
IPER
slumped at the table, forehead braced in her hands. Despair made her want to cry but there was no way she was breaking down in front of Miysis.

The Ra daemon sat across from her, waiting politely while she regained her composure. It was easier to pretend everything was okay now that she had clothes on, but she wouldn’t soon forget that he’d seen her in her undies. He seemed disappointed with her lack of gratitude but she wasn’t going to worship him for saving her.

“I can’t believe you let him go,” she grumbled to the tabletop.

“We’re very lucky Raum left without a fight,” Miysis said.

She looked up. “Why?”

His eyebrows rose. He tugged down the collar of his casual turtleneck sweater. “I didn’t stand a chance against him.”

A heavy metal collar encircled his neck, ugly against his cream-toned skin.

She straightened in her chair. “You’re still wearing that? Why?”

The collar was a magic-dampening device used to control criminals and the preferred tool of prefects, the law enforcement body that policed daemons and haemons. It was suppressing nearly all of Miysis’s magic—which was a lot of magic. Weak daemons were not heirs to a ruling family’s seat.

“I can’t get it off,” he replied. “No one can. The Gaians must have the key, because we couldn’t find it in the wreckage of the building. Until I can track them down, I’m stuck with it.” He sighed ruefully as he adjusted his shirt to hide it again. “I haven’t had the leisure of pursuing that task yet.”

She blinked, bemused. She’d seen Ash break a collar off his own neck, not once but twice; it seemed Miysis lacked that skill. “Getting it off isn’t your top priority?”

“My top priority is finding the Sahar. Which brings us to the reason I came here tonight.”

She held his stare. Dropping her gaze would be tantamount to surrender.

“Heya,” Lyre said, breezing into the room and interrupting their staring contest. He thumped down on the chair between them. His left cheek was red and swollen; she’d been right about Raum taking Lyre out of the equation before confronting her. He was lucky to be alive.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

He grimaced. “Been better. How about you? I see you found some clothes.”

She glanced at the black skirt and sequined red top she was wearing with her usual boots. She’d taken the liberty of raiding the dancers’ dressing room for better clothes than what Lilith had offered.

Sighing, she turned back to Miysis. “So what are you doing here?”

“Ah, well, perhaps you’re unaware that
I’ve been trying to speak with you for weeks.” His expression was perfectly pleasant but his eyes were slowly darkening. “I visited the Consulate to see you, but your father turned me away. In fact, he forbade me from setting foot on the Consulate grounds again. It was quite a blatant misuse of his power.”

Piper appraised him. His last sentence had sounded like a mild observation, but she suspected the Ra daemon was a lot angrier than he appeared.

“The longer the Stone remains missing,” he continued solemnly, “the slimmer our chances of locating it become. Yet Quinn seems remarkably disinterested in locating the Stone. I wonder why?”

Again, his stare cut into Piper. His irises had darkened to a shade of forest green that confirmed, yes, Miysis was angry. Very angry.

Darkening eyes was the clearest warning sign of a daemon on the verge of shading. By the time their eyes made it to black, a smart person would have gotten far away. Shading was the common term for a purely instinctual state of mind daemons entered when angry or afraid. Shaded daemons were unpredictable, unreasonable, and often explosively violent.

Piper met Miysis’s stare with a scowl, unwilling to let him intimidate her despite the danger. “Well, we’re all pissed at my father right now. How did you know I was here?”

He tapped one finger on the table. “I’ve had people watching the Consulate for three weeks.”

She opened and closed her mouth, speechless. He’d set spies on her?

“I began to wonder whether he’d locked you in the basement. I had imagined you would use your freedom more productively than,” he glanced around the room, “frequenting a disreputable nightclub.”

She glanced around the room too. It was the break room for the bouncers, on loan from Lilith. They were the only ones present. Miysis’s sixteen bodyguards/soldiers were spread throughout the club, keeping an eye on things, as was Zwi, although Piper had tried to convince the sore dragonet to take it easy; she hadn’t escaped Raum without some bruises.

“Well,” she mumbled, “it was supposed to be productive. Didn’t work out that way though.”

Miysis searched her face but didn’t press. Instead, he leaned back in his seat. “I’m curious. Why is Samael sending his henchmen to kidnap you?”

“Hell if I know,” she snapped.

He slid one finger along the collar around his neck. “Lie, Piper,” he breathed.

Damn. She’d forgotten about his truth-seer ability. He’d clearly found a way to squeeze small touches of magic through the collar.

“We can talk about that later,” he said. “Right now, I’d like to pick up our last conversation from where we left off.”

She eyed him warily. “Where was that?”

“Right after I convinced the prefects that you had nothing to do with the theft of the Sahar.”

“
You
convinced them?”

He smiled dangerously. “Yes. Do you think I’m unaware of the limitations of my abilities? I gave you an easy out.” Like his face, his melodic voice lost its fluid warmth, becoming crisper and cooler.

“I never wanted the prefects involved,” he continued. “They’re corrupt, bungling fools. I offered an easy escape for you and Ashtaroth that would make you appear guiltless, intending all along to question you in detail once we were rid of the prefects.

“But it didn’t work out like that.” He folded his arms. “You fell unconscious, and then Ashtaroth slipped away when no one was looking. Assuming I could interrogate you at any time, I took my men and went after Ashtaroth, but that slippery bastard vanished without a trace. By the time I returned to you, your father had retreated into the Consulate with all his newfound paranoia and banned me from seeing you. I wasn’t desperate enough then to invade the sanctity of the Consulate. But I’m getting desperate now. The Sahar has been missing for five weeks. My chances of finding it at this point are minimal at best.”

He pressed both hands on the tabletop as he leaned toward her. “I want to know what really happened. The whole story.”

She swallowed hard. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” she admitted. “I’m afraid of what you’ll do to me once you know.”

He relaxed slightly. “I can’t promise I’ll do nothing but I won’t punish you for deeds done. Petty revenge would accomplish nothing.”

She nodded as anxiety flared in her belly. He said that now, but when he found out the Sahar had been in her pocket when they’d first met, he would be
so
pissed. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she took a deep breath and began the long tale.

He listened silently, betraying no emotion as she revealed how her father had given her a ring box containing a mysterious silver stone. He nodded as she outlined the attack on the Consulate by the then-unknown Gaians and how the prefects had arrested her, Lyre, and Ash. His eyebrows drew together when she got to the part where they’d snuck into the medical center to talk to who she at the time had believed to be her uncle—though it had really been her father—and ran into two assassins waiting for Ash.

“Why?” he asked. “Why would Samael send assassins to kill his favorite mercenary?”