Soul Kissed (27 page)

“I killed him for
you,
Cari,” Scarlet said.

“Well, surprise!” Cari’s cheer came out pissed. “You can’t kill him this way.”

Movement brought Cari’s attention to the door, where Stacia and Zel peeked, their faces white. Accomplices.

Cari drew them inside the office with a glare. “Did you know she was going to do this?”

Stacia looked like she was going to bawl.
Grow up.
Zel looked back and forth from her mother to Mason and back to her mother’s bloody hand—
yeah, that’s blood all right
—while shaking her head no.

Seemed that they hadn’t known. It was something, but not enough. They’d tricked her, the head of their House, on purpose.

“Dolan House cannot fall to Mason Stray,” Scarlet said. “Not while I draw breath. I swore to your father—”

But her father was dead. It was time everyone accepted that fact.

“Mason—” Cari slid her gaze his way. “My stepmother and stepsisters have colluded to deceive me.” Scarlet had been pushing the boundaries from the moment Cari’s father was in ashes. But Cari wasn’t six anymore. She was twenty-six, the head of the household by blood, the Dolan. This stopped now. “As you’re the injured party, you can say whether this House will continue to shelter them.”

At least there wasn’t a plague outside the wards anymore, thanks to Mason. Not that her family would ever thank him.

“You can’t mean it.” Scarlet’s voice had dropped an octave.

“Cari!” Stacia gasped, as if she’d been hurt.

Cari stood and faced Scarlet again. “You’ve gone too far this time.” They could’ve killed Mason. “And the world is just going to get worse. A mob on our freaking doorstep and you stab the man I love, the man I bring home to help me keep this House strong. No.” Cari glanced back at Mason, who looked sad and in pain and miserable. Poor man, having to deal with this crap. He’d bolt if he were smart. Why would he ever bring his son here?

Too late. She was keeping him.

“Cari—” he began.

No. He had to understand, too. They could not doubt the people inside their House. “Do they stay or do they go?”

“You’re not serious,” Zel said. “The plague will—”

“Plague’s been resolved.” Just fear left over. “But who knows when the next one will hit?” If Maeve doesn’t tear apart the world first.

“They stay.” Mason tried to pull up a smile. “I’m fine. Scarlet missed all the important parts anyway.”

Cari had known he’d say that. But they couldn’t let Scarlet just go wash off her hands. She’d just. Stabbed. Mason.

“But they shouldn’t go to Brand’s party,” he added.

Silence from her stepfamily. Parties were their playground, so their punishment would hurt. They would not see Dolan get its honors, and that was something, too. The celebration didn’t belong to them after this.

Cari took a deep breath. “Look, you should know that Mason and I are a done deal. I’m going to claim him, and someday soon I hope he’ll propose.” He just had to make that ring first. “If you can’t live in the same House, then you can pack up and go. But if you stay, you will not plot against him or me ever again.”

“I won’t abandon you,” Scarlet said.

The aforementioned promises to Father.

“Easy. Then don’t.” Cari looked over at her sisters. “Think about it.”

Then she turned her back on them and knelt again at Mason’s knee. “Can you move yet? Can I help you upstairs?” Weak smile. “Can you wear a tuxedo tomorrow?”

 

 

Oh, how wonderful! Gifts, large ones, all lined up in a row.

Maeve commanded Shadow to raise her up. She peeled off the lid of the first offering and delighted in the screams that erupted from inside. Surprises always delighted her. Inside was a cluster of little souls, quivering together, candies all of similar flavor. She debated which to eat first and made up a song to help her decide:

With each soul, she would grow. Already her sight grew long, her strength deep.

A lash of Shadow flicked down out of the sky toward a morsel with purple streaks in her hair. Maeve wondered what the girl’s soul would tell her about the world.

A hammering sound brought her attention down to the wide, gray path out in front of the house. The world of this time had so many toys. Shiny boxes rushed by; others with flashing lights circled as if to entrap. The houses nearby were emptying—her candies rushing to save themselves. But really, where could they go to hide from her?

Maeve raised the little human as she tilted her head back and opened wide. With a squish grip, the soul slipped out of its ruby-wet casing and fell down her gullet. As it began its burn in her breast, she tossed the empty shell aside, flicking bone salt from her fingertips.

This bite was just mature enough to have tasted her first passions.

Breathless anticipation with a slight scent of fear. The tremor of the first touch. A delicious invasion that ripped innocence away.

The girl still had the
before
and
after
in her mind.
Ah,
that’s
how Time works,
Maeve remembered. She’d forgotten how it strung out in this world, because it didn’t exist in the Other. Time. It was important, always changing, moving, and impossible to catch.

She peered back into her gift box, wanting to know more.

 

 

“You should have told us.”

Alarm throbbed through Mason, slugging into the ache at his gut and rousing him from a slightly feverish doze. The Order knew about Maeve. It had only been a matter of time. Where was Cari? They couldn’t have her.

“Mason,” Jack said, starting toward where he sat. He had to have been let through the wards by Brand’s Lakatos. “The fae queen has killed twenty-three people in the space of a day. You should’ve told Laurence immediately that she’d crossed.”

A body count already?

“How many mage lives did Xavier take?” Mason returned as he struggled to stand. He was better than he’d been a couple of hours before, but still felt like shit. Cold, stinking shit.

“What’s the matter?” Jack’s attention dropped to the blood speckles bleeding through Mason’s shirt.

“You can’t have her.” Mason tilted his head at a strange sound—oh, right—the mob had grown. Now their cries were a constant fuzz of TV static.

“I’m not after Cari,” Jack said, swatting the idea out of the air. “I’m after information. Starting with what happened to you. I heard you’d had your throat cut. What is—?”

“Throat was yesterday. Scarlet tried to kill me today.”

Jack was shocked silent for a moment. Good. Mason needed to catch his breath in case he had to punch the angel’s face in.

A pathetic kind of pity washed across Jack’s features. “Kaye told me you and Cari were something together. Good for you. But for the love of God, sit back down. You don’t have to fight me.”

Mason kept standing. “How many human lives are you willing to sacrifice for Cari’s?”

They had to be thinking it: End Cari, end Maeve.

Jack shook his head. “A direct assault on Cari wouldn’t work now that the queen has crossed. Laurence would’ve told you that if you’d been forthright with him.”

“Cari says she’s still connected.”

“Yes, certainly. But if she’s anything like the last Dolan who permitted the fae queen to pass over two thousand years ago, then Cari is near immortal right now. Nothing can kill her.”

“You can’t harm Cari?”

“No. It’s too late for that. It’s what Xavier had been trying to prevent. What else haven’t you told us?”

Mason searched his mind, but as he was going lightheaded, he couldn’t think of anything. Oh. “Liv Walker.” How could he have forgotten?

“We heard about that, too. Walker House has petitioned the Council for your death and for Dolan to pay a settlement in lieu of talion for Livia’s life.” Talion, a death for a death.

“Groovy,” was all Mason could muster. He blew out his breath and lowered himself back into the chair. Point was . . . Cari couldn’t be hurt. Jack couldn’t hurt her.

“Besides,” Jack said. “Humanity stands to lose more lives if Cari doesn’t speak on Kaye’s behalf tomorrow. The other Houses will come armed to depose Brand and kill me. You must be prepared for bloodshed.”

“And here I thought it was a celebration in our honor.” Bloodshed had to be averted; Fletcher would be there.

Relief washed over Mason at the thought. Fletcher would be there. The ache in Mason’s belly eased.

“Is there anything else you haven’t told us?”

Mason shook his head. “The fae crossed. Cari spoke to her, tried to command her—”

“And?” Angel bastard actually seemed hopeful.

Mason popped that bubble. “The fae couldn’t be stopped.”

 

 

Bran was playing combat games on the big TV in the entertainment room, but Fletcher wasn’t going to play with him.

No way in Hell. Fletcher’s guts were tied up because of Bran. They were supposed to have been friends, but not anymore. Never ever again. Death first.

Last night Bran had started his story by saying Fletcher was going to grow up to be an assassin, just like his dad. Well, Fletcher now knew the first person he wanted to kill: Bran, the person who’d reached inside him with a hand of Shadow. If all of Webb House’s stories came true, then the assassin one would, too. Fletcher wished it with all his heart. The assassin story had been told over the same candlefire as the story that he belonged to Webb. There’d also been something about the pale hand of a lady, but that just sounded creepy, plus girls were gross.

“Fletcher.”

He refused to look at Mr. Webb in the doorway. They could make him do
some
things, but for everything else, Fletcher would fight. He knew how to be mean.

Bran looked over at his dad though, and his character in the game was shot in the head with machine-gun fire. Blood and gray matter splattered. Good idea. Maybe that’s how Fletcher would kill him.

“Fletcher, you’ve been traded,” Mr. Webb said. “To Dolan House for business concessions. I have no idea what they’ll do with you there. I can’t have a traitor in my House, you see, though you will always and forever belong to Bran.”

Bran creeped his eyes over.

But Fletcher wouldn’t look at him either.

“Do you understand?”

Fletcher couldn’t speak anything against Webb House. He understood that much. And he understood that no one wanted him anymore, too.

But that didn’t mean he was going to answer Mr. Webb. Not a chance.

Mr. Webb clucked his tongue like a chicken. “I’ll be turning you over to Dolan this evening,” he said. “See that your things are packed.”

 

 

Cari had three gowns to her name. She almost went with a deep purple, just shy of black—classic, elegant lines—but ultimately opted for a silvery blue corseted sheath. Something about the way the shimmery cloth was tooled on the bodice reminded her of armor. And after all, she was going to war.

“Diamonds,” her stepmother said from the doorway. Her expression was as hard as the stones she spoke of.

Mason had opened the door and was standing two feet from his would-be mother-in-law. If he was worried about another surreptitious attack, his bland attitude didn’t show it. He was letting them both know that he was here for good.

Cari hoped her stepmother was paying attention.

“Thank you,” Scarlet said to Mason as she stepped inside, each word a precious pearl from her lips, and then crossed the room.

It was a start, so Cari lifted a velvet box for Scarlet’s inspection. The necklace within was a broad band of concentric white stones set in platinum. The earrings were short fat drops.

Appreciation bloomed over Scarlet’s features. “Yes, these will do nicely. May I?”

Cari nodded and her stepmother fixed the jewels around her neck. They both looked in the mirror together to study the effect. Mother and daughter. Almost.

“I only want what’s best for you,” Scarlet said.

“He is best.” Cari put the bobs in her ears.

A ripple of emotion crossed Scarlet’s face, quickly concealed. “If you love him, he must be.” She rounded on Mason, who stood ready in his tuxedo, off to the side, waiting for them to finish. “Home by midnight?”

His brow furrowed in consternation, lips parting to form what had to be a diplomatic reply.

But Scarlet stalked regally back to the door. “For pity’s sake, it was a joke.”

 

 

Mason’s mild smile at Scarlet’s turnabout faded as helicopter rotors chopped the air somewhere outside Dolan House, drowning out the cry of voices. “The mob is growing.” Television cameras were pinned on the house all the time now. Law enforcement couldn’t hold them all back, and Brand had argued against a military intervention. There was no way on or off the property anymore, except with Brand’s help. Dolan House was officially under siege.

“Can’t do anything about them now.” Cari wrapped silver gauze around her shoulders. “We need to settle the conflict over the Order first, so that the fae can get her due attention.”

“The fae queen isn’t just your problem anymore.” They were a couple.

“I brought her.” Cari’s guilt. She might be the only mage to have guilt. “The lives she’s taken are my responsibility. Thank God mages don’t go to Hell.”

Mages rarely invoked God, so Cari had to mean it. Mason wanted to argue that this wasn’t her fault. Blame belonged squarely to Xavier, who’d forced the issue when he’d tried to kill her. But then Cari would just argue back that Maeve would have found another way to get through her into the world. And that would start Cari contemplating her weaknesses, when she needed to be strong.