Carnival of Secrets (16 page)

Kaleb screamed, swallowed, and tried to sound unaffected as he asked, “How about a little warning?”

Aya looked like she might fall over.

But Zevi was as calm as he always was when he was working. “You tense up if I warn you.”

Kaleb winced as Zevi took one of the bandages and smoothed it across his rib cage. “Then why do you warn me sometimes?”

“So you don’t know
when
to tense.” Zevi took another bandage and methodically layered it over the first one. “Open the bin and grab me two more.”

Without a word, Aya did as Zevi directed.

“You, sit up.”

Kaleb smothered a curse as he obeyed—and another one when Zevi grabbed his legs and dropped them over the edge of the bed. Humming now, Zevi wrapped bandages all the way around Kaleb.

In a few short minutes, Kaleb’s chest was wrapped, and the pain-relief concoction in the bandages was seeping into his body. Zevi helped him to lie back. “I need to check the other wounds before morning. I’ll wake you.”

As the blissful numbness hit him, Kaleb told Zevi, “Thank you.”

Zevi nodded, brought over a mug with willow bark, poppy extract, and who knew what else, and then he walked to a pile of blankets in front of the fire. Without any seeming discomfort at resting in front of an outsider, he stretched and settled himself on the blankets. He was snoring before Aya could close her mouth.

A
YA HAD NEVER SPENT
much time around the curs. They were, by nature, not very embracing of outsiders. These two acted like she wasn’t there, or maybe this was restrained for them. If so, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see them relaxed.

She wasn’t sure what to do. Kaleb was a ferocious fighter, but he wasn’t cold or cruel here in his home. It was like he was a completely separate person from the cur she’d seen fight.

Because he’s at home or because of Zevi?

“Should I go?” Aya asked in a low voice.

“You don’t need to whisper.” Kaleb’s gaze fell on the snoring cur. “Zevi will sleep unless the threshold is violated or I call for him. He’d sleep through the excesses of the Night Market right now.”

“Is that . . . normal?”

“For Zevi or for a cur?” Kaleb started to reach for the mug Zevi had left beside the bed, pursed his lips, and lowered his arm. “Or do you mean is the way he shoved my bones back normal?”

“Any of it?” Aya walked over and picked up the mug. “Actually,
all
of it.” She handed him the mug.

“Hard to say. The bones, yes. They need rebroken so they set right. He broke them, and now I will stay still and drink the nasty concoction he has for aiding in mending them.” He drained the mug. “And, yes, the sleep thing is normal for Zevi. He feels safe when I’m home.”

She waited, not quite sure what to say or do.

After a few moments, Kaleb looked up at her. “Not that I’m complaining about this new side of you—I appreciate the help tonight—but I’m pretty sure you didn’t show up to learn how to nurse a battered cur.”

Unlike Kaleb, Aya didn’t have a warmer side she wanted to share. In an expressionless voice, she asked, “You’ve heard about the new competition terms?”

“The winner gets to mate with his daughter or with him,” Kaleb said flatly. “Why are you telling
me
?”

“I don’t want to breed with Marchosias or with anyone. If I had, I would’ve wed Belias. I refused. I want to rule.” Aya sat tentatively on the edge of Kaleb’s bed. “When I realized the competition didn’t specify gender, I thought I’d found the answer: a woman can rule in The City by winning Marchosias’ Competition, but now, winning would force me to do the very thing I am trying to avoid.”

Kaleb’s gaze swept her from head to toe, and even injured, he was clearheaded enough to assess her like she was wearing a red mask. “Do you oppose the act too?”

“No.” She tilted her chin up. “But you know that already. You’ve had your scabs bring you what they know of me and the other contenders—as I have of all of you.”

Kaleb laughed. “Right now, I’m not feeling as confident that I’m still a contender.”

“You won’t be without help,” Aya said.

To his credit, Kaleb didn’t deny the truth. “I can’t forfeit, and I’m not looking for a protector, especially one who killed the last daimon she took to bed.”

Aya barely resisted flinching at his mention of Belias. “I’ve sufficient wealth to take care of you both. Neither of you would need to do mask-work again.”

“I’m a
cur
. Curs don’t forfeit. I’ll win or die fighting. If I die, Zevi will need—”

She interrupted, “If you die, you’re no use to me. I need you alive.”

“Do you?” Kaleb gestured at his bandages. “Then we both have a problem.”

“If I’m going to avoid breeding with Marchosias, I need a protector. You’re my best option.”

When he didn’t reply, she added, “I have a plan. I know protector arrangements are usually about money, but I have that. I need your ferocity.”

Kaleb glanced back at Zevi, and she saw the struggle he faced. As a cur, he had two competing interests: to protect his pack and to counter any challenge.

Finally he looked at her and said, “How can you help me?”

“I can weaken your opponent, so you’ll win.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Then, I’ll forfeit and offer a blood oath as your chattel in public. For one year, you’d be
my
protector. If I’m your property, no one—even Marchosias—can claim me. If you take me as a bloodmate, only you could impregnate me, and we can agree privately not to do
that
. I’ll buy time, and you’ll survive the fight. I can help you win. You’ll get the prize and the girl. All I need is someone strong enough that my being . . . property is believable.”

Kaleb shook his head. “If I accept you as mine after he made this announcement, I look like I’m rejecting Mal—Marchosias’ daughter. No deal.”

“Then I’ll move in as
Zevi’s
bloodmate for one year. You can announce that as your price: you accept my forfeit in exchange for the right to gift me to your packmate.” Aya’s temperature dropped as her mind filled with fear that she couldn’t entirely quell. “You’d still own me.”

“Why would you do this?” he asked, not unkindly.

“I can’t breed.” She shuddered. “It’s the one thing I can’t do. All I want is to rule, to make The City be the place it could be. If Marchosias is already noticing me, do you think he’ll lose interest? If I win, I’m his. If I forfeit a fight and am an unclaimed breedable woman, the odds of him not claiming me are so slim as to be laughable. And if I have a child . . . I’ll lose everything. You understand”—she glanced at the sleeping cur—“what it means to risk it all for something or someone. I want to serve The City, and if I have a child, I won’t be able to.”

Kaleb’s attention was fixed on her now, and as he watched her, Aya knew that he also had secrets that would cause her problems she couldn’t see yet. She hadn’t survived this long in The City without learning to read the clues people didn’t think they revealed.

Does he suspect me as well?
He’d be a fool not to.

Finally, he said, “I’ll only accept your offer
if
you can guarantee my win.”

“I can do it.” She held his gaze. “My kill count will be yours, too, if I’m your chattel.”

Kaleb paused as that detail settled on him: with her kills added to his, he’d be ranked first by a huge margin. He could win the whole competition without killing anyone else in the fights. “And all you want . . .”

“I won’t breed under any circumstances. That term must be inviolate,” she stressed. “If we do this, if I’m bound to you or to Zevi, I’ll not bed down with whoever I’m bound to.”

“Agreed, but if I win and breed Marchosias’ daughter, I will live in the palace. That will mean that
you
will live within Marchosias’ reach too.” Kaleb spoke very clearly. “I cannot tell him you are for Zevi’s uses exclusively. He’d kill Z, and anything that results in injury to Zevi is a no-starter.”

“If you gift me to Zevi as a bloodmate, only he can get me with child,” she murmured. “If I have to be lent to Marchosias or anyone else, I’ll do it. All I ask is that you help me avoid one thing. Everything else is negotiable.”

After an indeterminate number of moments during which Kaleb stared silently at her, he nodded. “There are knives on the fire. The short one is silver. If you grab it, we can do this once it cools.”

Aya walked to the fire and retrieved a knife from the saltwater that was boiling over the low flames. A flicker of magic went through her as she cooled it down to a slightly less horrible temperature. She wanted to get this done before Kaleb could change his mind.

“It must not have been in there long,” she lied evenly. “We can do it right now.”

She pressed the edge to her palm and then held the knife out to Kaleb.

Once he’d cut his hand as well, they clasped their palms together. “I’ll support you in acquiring his daughter. I’ll support you in the fights, give you my kill count, and be yours to command. For the next year, starting in this moment, I’ll do all you ask in exchange for your protection,” she swore.

“I accept you as my property, Aya. I will protect you from harm and keep you safe from breeding with Marchosias—or any other daimon—in exchange for your support,” Kaleb vowed.

She released his grasp and carried the knife to the fire. With her back to him, she whispered a simple spell to make him sleep and then said, “Thank you.”

And then she left the two sleeping curs, so she could begin to procure what she needed to help Kaleb survive.

M
ALLORY’S BODY ACHED LIKE
she’d been thrown into a pit of burning coals, swarmed by ants, and doused with ice water. She stared up at her ceiling, thinking about Kaleb in an attempt to distract herself from how absolutely wretched she felt. It didn’t improve how she actually felt, but it was a great way to fill the hour.

Despite her best intentions, she’d fallen asleep before Adam was home again. She’d heard him come in late at night to check on her, so she knew he was okay. She,
however
, felt far from okay. When she woke early that morning, she couldn’t get out of bed. She tried, but even the thought of standing seemed exhausting. She didn’t know anyone who got as sick as she did—at least, no one who got this sick but didn’t go to a hospital. Her father always fixed her, but he never explained
why
she got so ill. She’d told herself time and again that maybe these episodes weren’t weird, but the older she got, the more she knew that they were about as weird as women who exhaled birds—and beautiful guys talking about “belonging” after one kiss.

Even if she hadn’t felt horrible, she would have wanted to stay in bed thinking about Kaleb. He seemed so
ab
normal in her world. What was normal for the daughter of a witch who spent his life running from the daimons he’d robbed wasn’t exactly the kind of normal that she wanted.
Kaleb is.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how to have a relationship if she had to lie, and she was certain Adam wasn’t going to allow her to tell a human about witches and daimons, and after the daimon encounter, she wasn’t at all sure she’d be able to keep Kaleb safe even if she
could
reveal the secrets she knew.

The reality was that she did need to deal with her version of normal, though. She sat up and swung her feet to the floor, fighting the urge to simply yell for her father. She didn’t, but she didn’t get any farther either.

She wasn’t sure if it was a minute or an hour later, but he tapped on her door. “Mallory? Are you awake?”

“I am.” She sat on the edge of her bed with her quilt wrapped around her like a cloak. Even bundled up, she felt cold.

Her father opened the door and then paused, wearing a look of panic that made Mallory think that the worry lines around his eyes were deeper than they had once been. The plain oxford shirt and dark trousers he had on told her that he had been heading in to the new office early.

After a moment, he came to the bed and put a hand to her forehead, checking for fever. She felt the cold metal of the single ring he wore even after her mother had left.

Mallory had been through this enough times that she stayed still as he felt her ears and forehead with the back of his hand and then tilted her head to look into her eyes. She waited while he felt under her ears for swelling and then inevitably started asking questions. Her mind felt too fuzzy to try to figure out what to tell him.

“Are you dizzy? Sore throat? Nauseous?” He stepped back and watched her as he spoke.

“No.”

“You’re freezing.”

“I know.” She felt guilty even though she didn’t choose to be cold. “I need to talk to you.”

“Just a minute,” he said, and then muttering quiet curses, or possibly spells for her health, he walked out of the room. In only a few moments, he’d returned with an electric blanket. He wrapped it around her, plugged it in, and left again. In short order, he was back with a glass of hot water into which he’d stirred some herbal concoction made palatable with plenty of sugar and a touch of lemon.