Crowned by Fire (15 page)

His lips crushed against hers, scorching her with an intensity that was frightening, made more so by the fact that he was fully dressed and she was wearing next to nothing. Gloved fingers ran along the edge of her robe, tracing bare skin as he nudged it apart.

Catherine clapped a hand over the robe to keep it from falling open. “You can't be the Shadow Thane.” Just speaking the words numbed her lips, as if saying them aloud made the evil real. “You can't.”

“I can conjure dragons,” the witch said, very softly, and she felt a cold breeze curl around her, like the coils of a serpent.

“
Not real ones.” The dragons from her dreams had sounded just like the middle-range notes of a French horn and they had been huge, the size of whales.

She shook the haunting sound of the dragons' phantom cry from her head.

“If you are the Shadow Thane, why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?”

The witch's expression went blank. “I don't know,” he said shortly.

He's lying
, a voice whispered.

“
The Council wants to meet you,” the witch spoke into the silence. Apparently he had tired of the subject. “There is a formal dress in the armoire that befits the occasion. You will accompany me.”

The Council—the same group of Others she had spent her whole life trying to avoid. “What did you tell them?”

“Very little.” His eyes flicked over her, mockingly, like a slap. “That should tell you something.”

Maybe
, Catherine thought, as he left,
but what?

Finn felt the darkness inside him shift as he closed the doors to the hotel room behind him. Shuddering, he deactivated the ward and leaned back against them.

Last night, he had dreamed. He had seen the way the world ended, in ice, dragon fire, and shadow. The shape-shifter had been with him, too—only, she had been dead.

Because he had been the one to kill her? He couldn't remember, although he assumed so. The more he thought about the prophecy, the more he was stricken by its potential relevance to him.

Catherine yanked open the door. She hadn't seen him, and brushed against him as she stepped over the threshold. The black strapless gown fit her too well for his own state of mind. He offered her no compliment, instead of shoving a black jewelry box at her. “Everyone there will be ornamented,” he said. “The less attention you call to yourself, the better.”

Inside was a gold necklace dripping emeralds. With the black gown, it looked understated, as he had known it would. The green picked up the olive notes in her skin. It was stunning.
She
was stunning.

“
I don't want these,” she said. “I can't accept them.”

“
I'll have them back at the end of the evening,” he said shortly. “It was a loan, not a gift.”

And while the flush of embarrassment in her face was gratifying, it didn't quite compensate for his frustration. Because he
had
intended them as a gift, and the rejection stung. Karen, he knew, would have accepted them without a second thought.

But Karen hadn't been attracted to him. She might have seen the emeralds as blood money: her due accord for entering in to what she had seen as a loveless marriage of convenience.

In the limousine, he watched the shifter pour herself a glass of wine he knew she wasn't old enough to drink. She filled it to the brim and drank it all down. He suffered this, but when she started to refill it, he pulled the glass away so firmly that he ended up snapping the fragile glass at the stem.

“
Look what you've done,” she said, setting the wine bottle down. “You broke it.”

“
You shouldn't be drinking.” Finn kicked the broken glass aside with one polished shoe with more force than necessary. “I won't have you embarrassing me.”

“
But fucking me as perfectly acceptable?” she asked him blithely.

Finn shook her. “Don't say such things,” he said. “You will get us both killed tonight.”

“You mean, I'll get killed,” she said. “There are different rules for princes.” She flicked the gold braid on his uniform and his skin buzzed where he felt the fabric shift against his chest. “But then, that will save them the trouble of killing me for being a black—”

He clapped his hand over her mouth, cutting her off. “As for that word,” he said coldly. “Don't even think it because if that word gets out, you will die where you stand.”

Finn leaned back against the limousine's leather seat. His head ached. He had gotten no sleep at all, and his eyes felt as though they had been rubbed with sand. The shifter had precious little reason to trust him. He could well be the man who ended the world, and ending
her
would only be a small stepping stone on that path to darkness. But his path had never been one of evil, only righteousness.

He had never killed a shape-shifter who didn't deserve it. But she wouldn't see it that way; she would paint him as some sort of eugenicist.

Finally, he said, “I suppose you'll just have to trust me.”

Her unwillingness to do that was inscribed all over her face.

The Council headquarters had been hastily decorated for the impromptu meeting. Ordinarily, Finn would have escorted his female accompaniment on his arm, but since Catherine was a shape-shifter such a gesture would only draw speculation and disapproval. He settled for letting her walk at his side like an equal instead of several paces behind him, as was customary. Even that would scarcely be tolerated.

There was a lot of security tonight, which meant his father was present, as he had feared. Finn looked for him and found the older witch with little effort. Royce Riordan had always craved respect, and was seated at a makeshift throne in the center of the room. That didn't surprise him. What did was the way he was staring at the shape-shifter with what looked like recognition and something else that bordered on hatred.

But the expression was gone before Finn had time to properly gauge it and weigh it against his father's aura, reduced to a mild frown of censure.

Royce was wearing a uniform similar to Finn's, although his was midnight blue instead of viridian. Also, Royce had a fourth stone—tourmaline—where Finn only had three. Formal ceremonies like these only served to reinforce Finn's innate sense of failure, and he often had the sneaking suspicion that his father was glad for the excuse to rub those shortcomings in his face.

Suppressing his irritation, Finn bowed to his father. Royce beckoned him closer, eyes on Catherine.

“Is that the one?” he asked, carefully omitting the use of a gender-based pronoun. It was a common dehumanizing tactic employed by older witches.

Catherine had gravitated towards Raj Briyet and Cheyenne Whitefoot, the two shape-shifter Council delegates. They were referred to, mockingly, as
“tokens” by the other Council members and rightly so; although acting members, they had very little say and were often excluded from meetings on more serious matters, albeit not provably.

“
Yes,” Finn said, after a pause. “She is the shape-shifter who assisted me in retrieving the
Grimoire
.”

“
The 'routine investigation'?” his father asked. “The shifter whose animal was missing from the index?”

Finn hesitated. “The very same.”

“It is still blank,” Royce said. “What
is
she?”

Finn paused, struggling to remember what the vampire had said. “I'm not quite sure,” he said mildly. “Some sort of bird.”

“Good gods,” Royce muttered in an undertone, “you didn't bed her, did you?”

“
What do you take me for?” Finn hissed—through his teeth, so he looked like he was smiling. A number of Others were watching; he wasn't about to cause a scene—yet. He very well might before the eve was up.

“
Not a fool,” said Royce. “However it is reassuring to have one's beliefs confirmed periodically.”

“
Your faith in me is so comforting.”

Royce was not one to play games. “Why does her aura look like that?”

Finn closed his eyes. Others were studying her too. This was what he had been afraid of. But refusing to take her to the Council would arouse even more suspicion. It would make it look as if she had something to hide.

He glanced in the shape-shifter's direction, did a double take. “I hadn't noticed,” he said again, more briefly this time in order to truly illustrate just how inconsequential he found Royce's observation. “I imagine it's from being in close contact with me.”

He couldn't tell whether his father believed him or not. Probably not. The fact that his father said nothing to the contrary wasn't necessarily a good omen, either.

“
You said her family was forced to relocate?”

“
Yes,” Finn said again.

“
Good,” Royce said decisively. “Then they won't be able to seek revenge when she's dead.”

The world seemed to halt.

Finn paused, thinking he couldn't have heard his father correctly. “Excuse me?”

“
I know the type,” he said, watching Catherine with the expression he'd seen upon entering the hall. “She's far too uppity. Tensions with the savages are high. A single spark would incite them to rebellion like the bloodthirsty beasts they are—and that creature over there burns like a spark. I want her extinguished.”

“
I was under the impression that this ceremony was created to acknowledge her—”

“
Yes, yes,” Royce said, waving him off. “It wasn't my idea, although I admit that it may placate the savages, seeing one of their kind thrown a bone and then patted on the head. Cheyenne and Raj certainly seem quite pleased. They don't have to know how the story ends.” He turned back to Finn. “When the ceremony is over, take the beast somewhere quiet and kill her.”

“
If that is your wish, Father,” Finn said stiffly.

Royce clasped his arm briefly. “You are ensuring the continued peace of our people,” he said. “My son.”

(One by one, they all will die….)

Peace was easily obtained, Finn thought darkly, if everyone in the world was dead.

It looked as though there would be a scene, after all.

Catherine was dizzied. She didn't like large gatherings even at the best of times, and surrounded by witches who would have killed her without a second thought, she felt like running from the room.

She remembered what the witch had told her, about other witches recognizing her for what she was on site, and each suspicious stare instantly gained a whole new dimension of terror.

Don't even think it. You heard what he said.

She found herself drinking far too much, and even though the witches had to have guessed that she was not yet twenty-one, none of them made a move to stop her. A few were even sneering, as if she were confirming all their negative stereotypes about shape-shifters and their savagery.

“Take it easy,” a woman said, gently removing the glass from her grasp. “You'll get sick.”

The strength in her fingers identified her as a shape-shifter. Catherine looked up and found herself gazing into the level eyes of a very beautiful woman. She had high cheekbones, clearly defined in her oval face, and long hair that hung past her waist. When she smiled, the delineated planes of her angular face rearranged into something that was impossibly, inhumanly beautiful.

“You must be Catherine Pierce,” she said. “I'm Cheyenne Whitefoot.”

“
Nice to meet you.” She was wearing a uniform similar to the witch's, although red instead of green, and Catherine said, “I didn't know there were any shape-shifters on the Council.”

A man nearby laughed. It was a harsh laugh, but not entirely unpleasant. “We're the best-kept secret of the place,” he said, and his yellow eyes flashed with contention. She could sense his animal, but wasn't quite sure what it was. Something winged and fierce, she thought. It would have been rude to ask. If he wanted her to know, he would tell her.

“Who are you?” she asked instead.

“
Raj Briyet.” Instead of shaking her hand, he gave a slight bow; most shape-shifters eschewed physical contact since it could be interpreted as aggressive. Or, in the case of male-female interactions, sexual.

Catherine breathed out slowly. “A pleasure.”

“We could say the same,” said Raj. “It is rare to see a shape-shifter recognized as being anything other than a savage.” He lowered his voice. “I'm fairly sure they think we have nightly bacchanals and dance naked at Beltane.”

“
I think you're describing college students, not shape-shifters,” Catherine said wryly.

“
Oh, right,” Raj said. “I forgot to add cannibalism.”

Cheyenne wrinkled her nose. “Speak for yourself.”

Catherine smiled a little. She liked these two; they reminded her of someone, her parents maybe. They seemed quite affectionate towards one another, too.