Blade Song (31 page)

“This is the contract we discussed, Ms. Colbana. As you’ve completed your assignment for the Cat clan, I’m anxious for you to get to work on this promptly. We need to know who is behind this.”

Damon’s shoulders tensed. He stared at Es, an unreadable look in his eyes.

Es simply watched me with a smile.

I swallowed as I heard Annette’s voice drop into a growl over the phone. “Who do I hear speaking, Damon?”

“It’s a Green Road witch, Lady.”

“A witch…”

Pretending oblivion seemed best. Bending over the table, I studied the contract. “And the terms are as we discussed?” It looked fair. Legit. And real as all get out.

“Of course. We can only pay five thousand, I’m afraid. We aren’t a rich house, but I believe you understand the importance of seeing this through—whoever has been preying on the NH children needs to be caught. You already have information in your hands so you are far more suited than anybody else,” Es said quietly. Then she leaned forward, a smile in her eyes even though her face was solemn. “And I offer something that has more value than money. You already have a few friends among our house, but I offer kinship. While you do this job, you’ll have whatever protection our house can offer and if you find us answers, I’ll apply to the Order of Witches to have you honored with the designation of kinship. It’s not often granted to those outside our order. We’ll offer you aid just as we’d offer it to any of our house. When you have need of us, we’ll be there.”

I stared at her. Was she serious? Allies. Real,
true
allies, I realized. But was she
serious
?

Es smiled serenely. “It’s all in the contract, Kit. The very valid, very legal contract. One of my granddaughters is human—not a drop of magical blood and she went into law, specializes in NH rights. She did the contract for me last night and delivered it this morning. Sign it and I can offer you a protection that you’ll not find elsewhere.”

I snatched the pen out of her hand so fast, she chuckled. Hell, I’d planned on seeing this through anyway.

“Put the investigator on the phone,” Annette demanded. “I want to rehire her immediately, Damon. I want answers and I’ll pay her one hundred thousand whether she finds the culprit or not, but she has to return to Orlando
now
.”

I was already signing my name.

“Lady, I’m afraid she’s already contracted elsewhere. I’m deeply regretful.”

I slid him a sidelong glance. He was still staring at my wrist.

She continued to yell at him.

I listened. Drank a cup of coffee and finished half of a second cup before she finally seemed to recognize the futility of it. “You will not be bringing the investigator back when you return to East Orlando, will you, Damon?”

He sat across from me, long legs sprawled out, bracketing mine. His thumb stroked over the smooth surface of the scars. “I will not, Lady. My humble apologies,” he said.

I managed to keep my snort behind my teeth, but only because I knew she’d hear it.

“Very well. You’ll return with Doyle.”

I scowled, thinking it was weird that she hadn’t asked about him at all.

A snarl ripped through the air.

“
No
.”

I tensed. Damon’s hand tightened on my hand and he looked up to see Doyle standing just inside the protective entrance to the healing hall. Doyle crouched down, his eyes bouncing between Damon and me before landing on Damon. Muscles rippled, bulged and I could see stripes ghosting on his skin before disappearing. “No,” he spat again. “I won’t go back.”

Rathi
—

My gut went cold as the sight of him and fear chittered like a caged beast in the back of my head but I slammed it down.

“Doyle,” I said softly. “Your aunt was worried for you. She just wants you home safe.”

He snarled and the sound of it echoed through the small room. “The fuck she does. Do you know why I ran? So I wouldn’t have to go back to
her
.” He slanted a look at me, and then his head cocked, lingering on the way Damon gripped my wrist. “I won’t go back—I won’t—”

He lunged at me.

Damon shoved me aside.

I had my blade in the next second, rolling across the floor and coming up in crouch.

The phone lay on the floor and I could hear Annette talking, her voice calm and cool, as though Damon still held the phone instead her nephew, caught in a half-shift, pinned to the wall.

“Shut it down, kid,” Damon panted. “Before I have to hurt you.”

Doyle just struggled harder. I stared at his blue eyes and felt his fear dancing over my skin.

“If the boy doesn’t return home, the investigator will not be paid and her life is still forfeit.”

Oh, screw this. Sneering at the phone, I snatching it up. “Listen, Alpha. I can’t make him come home if he doesn’t want to. And if I recall shifter law correctly, once he’s hit his first shift, the Assembly will see him as an independent in his own right, meaning he can make his own judgment. Now…by
our
contract, you hired me to
find
him. I have unbiased witnesses, a Green Road witch who can vouch that he
has
been found. Now whether you decide to pay or not, I did my job, but if you don’t pay me, I’ll make sure every fucking soul in the south knows you don’t honor your fucking word.”

Damon swore and I looked up. I saw the words in his eyes, but I was fed up with having that crazy woman try to terrify me into
anything
.

“Do you understand who you are talking to?” she whispered.

“Yes. A woman who is about to go back on a contract she made. The kid was found. Job completed. End of story.” I hurled the phone at Damon, but he had his hands full with Doyle’s struggling body and it bounced off his shoulder.

Es caught it.

I closed my eyes as she lifted it to her ear.

Shit
.

I’d just drawn somebody else into the mess.

“Would this be Annette?”

“I’ve no business with you, witch. There is no trouble between us.”

“Of course not. We’ve always accommodated each other, the Cat Clan and the House of Witches…have we not?” Es smiled as she moved over to study Damon and the struggling boy. “Your nephew has successfully shifted. I witnessed it myself last night. As a speaker for the Assembly, I’ll be happy to register his status for you.”

Doyle stopped struggling.

Damon cut a look at Es.

She turned away and continued to pace. “He’s in an emotional state after his ordeal. Perhaps he just needs time to acclimate. However, I understand that you might be distraught at his behavior. That would certainly explain your behavior in recent moments…despite the fact that Colbana did in fact successfully complete a job. A job she’ll naturally be compensated for.”

Silence reigned.

It was finally broken by the sharp sound of the Alpha’s voice as she said, “Naturally. I’ll have the funds deposited once Damon returns. He’ll see to it.”

“Wonderful. I’ll see you in session.”

Es disconnected the call and laid the phone on the table by the contract. “Well. That was pleasant.” Then she frowned and looked at Doyle. “Really, boy. Control yourself. If you can’t discipline yourself better, you’ll end up as crazy as your aunt.”

Doyle flinched.

Es looked at me. Her eyes went cold and bright. “This isn’t over between you two. She fixates and hates blindly. You just became her enemy.”

“I think that happened the minute I was hired for this job. No matter what the outcome.”

“Entirely possible.”

“You…you’re leaving me?”

I stood in the hallway, very much out of Doyle’s line of sight, although I knew that wouldn’t make much difference.

He could scent me, hear me.

Although at the moment, he was focused on nothing but Damon.

Damon, I could see. He stood at edge of the hall, right where it bended out of sight, head angled down as he looked at the kid. “I’ve been called back. You might have decided to fly solo, man, but I’m still part of the clan and unless I cut ties, I have to answer to the Alpha. You know what happens if I don’t.”

“How can you go
back
to her?”

I closed my eyes at the sound of his voice. He sounded like what he was, really. A scared kid. A lonely one. Even if he did grow three inch fangs when he was pissed. Tiger, I was thinking. He shifted into some kind of tiger. I’d seen stripes trying to come through on his skin.

I figured that meant the Queen Bitch was a tiger, too.

Queen of the Jungle. She probably liked that.

Enemy…my hand tingled.

Now I had two of them to deal with. And those were just the local ones. Heaven help me if my grandmother ever decided to acknowledge my existence again.

But those were problems for another day.

“If I don’t go back, you know what happens. I’m rogue and they send everybody after me,” Damon said, his voice hard and flat.

“Then just take her out!” Doyle half-shouted.

“And step into her shoes? Shit. Grow up, kid. It’s not as simple as that.”

Damon’s eyes cut my way and then he looked back at the boy. “Stay here. Out of trouble…the witches here can help if you start feeling shaky. They’ve done it before and Es is decent people. And…” his voice dropped to a threatening growl. “Keep your eyes, your paws, your thoughts off what’s mine. Because I
will
be back…and as much as I love you, Doyle, you won’t stand a chance if you hurt what’s mine.”

Doyle muttered under his breath and swore. He walked away; although I couldn’t see it, I knew he was gone. The intensity in the air faded and instead of two angry shifters hovering nearby, there was only one.

My one.

He looked at me and then jerked his head as he headed outside.

There was a car waiting.

Es had said it was on loan.

It was long, lean and black, a throwback from the days of those old muscle cars and it looked like it might have been made just for him. As he leaned back against it, he stared at me with fury dancing in his eyes. “You had to do it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.” I thought it all through one more time. Then I nodded. There wasn’t anything I would have taken back or changed. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Fuck.” He bit it off and turned away, hands braced on the hood of the car.

“Can you take her?”

He tensed. “Don’t start on me, damn it. I hear it from Doyle all the time; I don’t need it from you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

His snarl seemed to echo for miles. “Yes!” He whirled around and stormed up to me, closing a hand over the front of my vest as he hauled me onto my toes. “I can. But it doesn’t mean I will. I don’t want to lead her fucked-up clan of maniacs and that’s what I’d have to do if I killed her.”

“She doesn’t lead. She terrifies and abuses.” I lifted a hand to his cheek. “I know what your Alpha is like.”

“No,” he said, his teeth clenched. “You don’t. You don’t have a fucking
clue
.”

“I think I do.” Studying his unyielding face, I brushed my thumb over his lip. “She’s like my grandmother.”

His lids flickered.

“You want to know why I don’t flee when I’m afraid?” I said softly.

The hand clutching my vest let go and he spun away from me.

“You asked about my back. Aneira children are placed on the training field when we are strong enough to lift a training sword. I wasn’t strong enough until I was six. I was slower. Weaker. I had the shit beaten out of me by cousins who were better than me, more skilled.

“The teachers pushed me hard, but they weren’t cruel. Then my grandmother started coming to practices and…” I shrugged. “I was eight the first time she took a whip to me. I wasn’t fast enough during one of the exams for the year-training. I failed. So I was whipped…in front of the rest of the students, in front of the teachers, in front of my cousins.”

I gave him a faint smile as he stared at me, his eyes so dark they were nearly black. “You probably figured out we weren’t exactly attending public schools or anything. This was at Aneris Hall—my family home, and there, my grandmother’s word was law. My blood is too weak to be a real warrior in her eyes, but she’d beat as much human weakness out of me as she could. I passed the exams when I was nine, but I stumbled at the end and they took off points, so she beat me again. After that, it was like she found reasons to do it often. Sometimes it was a monthly event. It got to be where everybody knew I’d be whipped when the school session closed. A few parents could make up reasons to not attend, but a lot of them would just sit there…and watch while she whipped me.”

“Enough,” he said.

“No.” I caught his shoulder, shoved my right arm in front of him. There were no scars—the healers of Aneris Hall were skilled and while they’d hurt me like hell, they did it without leaving a mark. “Remember when you told me I couldn’t hold my blade forever and I told you otherwise? It’s a skill I learned young—after my grandmother broke my arm when I was eight, and again when I was fourteen. All because I lowered my guard. I was
eight years old
the first time and I lowered my blade, Damon. I’d been practicing for four hours and I was tired. I lowered it and she broke my arm. The next time, I was a skinny, underweight teenager. I weighed eighty pounds and my weapon was a two-handed battle axe designed for a man more than twice my size. I dropped my guard in practice and while my aunts watched—
my mother’s sisters
—that evil bitch broke my arm and busted my collarbone.”

“Stop it,” he snarled. He gripped my head between his hands, pressing his brow to mine, eyes squeezed shut. “Just…stop, damn it.” A shudder wracked him. “Why tell me this now?”

“They could have stopped it. My aunt Rana would sometimes look at me with pity in her eyes. There were times she’d slip me food, or when my clothes were falling apart, she’d make sure I had something else so I wasn’t walking around naked. Others would look away from me because they couldn’t stand the shame they felt—I
saw
that on them. Some of them pitied me, but they were terrified of her. And if enough of them had said something, or if they’d all stood together, they could have stopped her. And Rana was strong enough to stand up to her, but she never did. So I suffered for it. Right now, the entire clan suffers because of one crazy bitch. And you’re strong enough to take her out?”