Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1) (29 page)

Field-promoted they might all be, but Toria should never have doubted any of her command’s abilities. Max had overseen their training, after all.

The orange auras flared neon at Renan’s wordless battle cry. Toria surged forward with the others when the three Romans scattered from their positions, blades drawn and arrow knocked. A feline scream echoed through the trees.

Renan tackled one to the ground, where they sprawled for a second before grappling each other for the Roman’s gun. The rearmost scout was jerked back into the trees, bow bashed from his hands, and Toria thought she saw a glimpse of golden fur and snarling teeth. Then she had no attention to spare for the fight, clashing swords with the leading attacker.

She deflected his gladius aside with a screech of metal, knocking into his chest with her shoulder before rebounding away. Ari stood ready to cross blades with him while Toria collected herself and prepared to attack once more. Wishing for the wicked point of her rapier, Toria thrust her sword toward the scout while his attention was on the other woman.

But Octavian wouldn’t send green troops out. With a dodge bordering on elven or vampiric grace, the scout extracted himself from between them. The tip of Toria’s sword left a light scratch on his chest plate, nowhere near the shoulder joint she had targeted.

A gunshot rang out, and Ari screamed. Another crack, and the scout in front of her, preparing for a charge, dropped to the ground with half of his face splattered away in a mass of blood and shattered bone.

The day-to-day Toria would feel horror, revulsion, fear. But that Toria was gone, replaced by one in full battle mode. In stark contrast to her younger self, who’d impaled a vampire and dropped into immediate panic and shock, now she whirled around in search of the next danger.

Ari’s scream. The other girl had collapsed to the ground a few feet away, blood gushing from her stomach. Renan’s initial target lay sprawled on the ground, unmoving, and now he helped Toria confront the remaining Roman scout.

When Toria spun on him, he dropped the gladius in his hand and drew a small knife from behind his back. Renan was closest, and he dove forward. But the Roman raised his arm in one smooth motion and the knife embedded itself in Renan’s chest.

Renan’s momentum kept him falling forward, and he crashed to the ground.

Before Toria could react, another gunshot rang out and a matching bloom of red appeared at the scout’s throat. He collapsed to the ground, twitching.

With her magesight still active, Toria stared at Renan’s and Ari’s dark bodies. This was…not how the skirmish was supposed to go. Taba trotted out of the underbrush, his muzzle dripping with blood. He sniffed each body, then padded over to lean against Toria’s side. His shoulders came above her waist, and she buried her fingers in the fur behind his ears.

Syri emerged from the trees, slinging the rifle back across her shoulders. She knelt next to Ari to check the woman’s wounds. Toria approached Renan’s body and rolled him onto his back. At such close range, the Roman’s knife had buried to the hilt in his chest, right where his heart was. Despite the futility of the motion, Toria felt for a pulse in Renan’s neck. Nothing. Perhaps that was a blessing. Dirt and dead leaves coated his face.

The reality and terror of this situation would come crashing down on her the second she stopped to reflect. But right now, Toria was in control.

“How’s Ari?” She rose to her feet and turned to Syri, who’d placed her hands on Ari’s chest.

The elven woman shook her head. “Too much blood loss, too quickly.” Her voice quiet, Syri pulled her hands away and rose to shaky feet with Toria’s help. “I’m sorry,” she said without preamble.

“Not your fault,” Toria said. “There was nothing we could do.”

“No, it’s still my fault,” Syri said, an ashen tint to her skin. “Renan blocked my shot. I couldn’t get the Roman until he was down.”

Toria wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist and gave her a squeeze. “You did what you could. We all did.”

Taba licked at Syri’s fingers.

“What do we do with them?” Syri said, tilting her head toward the scattered bodies.

“Right now, nothing,” Toria said, much as it tore at her stomach to say it. “We still have to meet up with the others. We remember this spot and come back for them later. Taba, I’m assuming you’re stuck in that form for a bit?” The wereleopard nodded his head once, so Toria went to collect his clothing and shove them in her pack.

The birds were coming back on rustling wings, but she didn’t know who else might have been attracted by the gunshots. “Okay, guys,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Now they were three.

Victory stood above Fabbri while the woman blinked her eyes awake in Daliana’s dim sitting room. “Good,” she said. “You’re up. Finally.” Whatever Syri used to
knock the woman out had been powerful. Daliana feared messing around with the spell to encourage Fabbri’s return to consciousness. So they’d been forced to wait.

Not an easy task while her daughter was possibly in mortal danger. Victory sprawled back onto the armchair. Another elf had smuggled Victory here earlier, smothered in the back of the town-car with blankets and magic.

Fabbri pushed herself to a sitting position and stared around the room in incomprehension. “Where the hell am I?” Then, the reality of her current situation and pajama-clad form sank in. “You kidnapped me!”

“Yes, that seems to be going around,” Victory said.

Daliana entered the room bearing a tray with three mugs and a steaming pot of coffee. “Would you care for any breakfast before we get started, Emily?” she said after setting the tray on the low coffee table before the couch.

Through half-lidded eyes, Victory repressed a smile at Fabbri’s fearful reaction. The woman clutched her blanket around her, staring back and forth between the two nonhuman women. “Get started with what? Torture to go along with the kidnapping? The council will hear about this.”

“Oh, relax,” Victory said. “There is no council. We disbanded it when we declared martial law.”

“But, Sethri would never...”

Victory straightened, drawing Fabbri’s strict attention. “Sethri’s dead. Your people killed him.”

She expected immediate cries of denial and outrage, perhaps accusations of lies. But Fabbri could not fake her look of absolute dismay. Showing more compassion than Victory was currently capable, Daliana sat next to Fabbri and placed an arm over the other woman’s shoulders. In her shock, she didn’t even recoil from the elven woman’s touch.

“They were only supposed to follow you,” Fabbri said. “And spy on you. After what happened to Mikelos and the others, I didn’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“It sounds like you’re no longer in control of your own group,” Victory said. “You weren’t around when we discussed meeting with the Romans. That means someone else on our side of the council is reporting to you. And I need to know who.”

Fabbri kneaded the blanket in her hands, and Daliana covered the awkward silence by pouring coffee.

Victory could be patient. Unfortunately, Fabbri was too smart to try to meet her gaze. That would have gotten immediate results.

“Bethany?” Fabbri did not react to Victory’s guess, but she continued on. “It would make sense. She’s been privy to every major meeting since all this started but she’s not a real councilmember.” She wished Toria were standing by her side to let her know whether the woman lied or not.

“You know, I could start naming names,” Victory said, “and eventually I’ll figure out who.”

“Why?” Fabbri said, not taking the mug Daliana offered her. “So you can torture them for information instead?” Daliana set the disregarded mug on the tray in front of Fabbri and handed Victory the third.

Victory inhaled the warm aroma in favor of snapping right back at Fabbri. She needed this. It was approaching midafternoon, a time when all good vampires should be in bed. Preferably with their daywalkers snuggled up beside them, but Mikelos was still trapped in a hospital bed. She always forgot how much she counted on his steadying presence until he wasn’t there next to her.

“Look,” she said. “I know you think I’m lower than scum because I’m not human. We were looking forward to having a rational conversation with you about this. But you’re really not helping.”

“Besides,” Daliana said. “I’m definitely against torture. I’d hate to have to get all the blood out of my carpet.”

Fabbri continued to stare down at her hands, still not convinced by their assurances.

“I have been starved into a blood rage so fierce that I’ve killed an innocent child,” Victory said, avoiding Daliana’s eyes by swirling the coffee around in her mug. “I’ve been staked outside to wait for the sun to rise. I’ve had the skin flayed from my back.” The chill in her own voice surprised her.

“And I’ve had iron spikes driven into my body to watch the skin sear around them,” Daliana said, her voice cool. “We have been around a very long time, Emily. Despite our earlier flippancy, we understand the gravity of this situation. But rest assured there are lines we are not willing to cross.”

A thick silence filled the room before Fabbri spoke. “Where are the two who went after you guys? I don’t figure you let them get away after...after what happened to Sethri.” Regret seeped through her words.

“Right below us,” Daliana said. “We’re keeping them in my basement, but they’re quite comfortable.”

Still knocked out, last time Victory checked, tied up and thrown together on an old mattress. Close enough.

“Not with the police?” Fabbri said.

“Not now,” Victory said. “The police force is spread rather thin at the moment, since the Mercenary Guild went to confront the Romans.”

“They will stand a fair trial,” Daliana said. “Just because we’ve placed the government on temporary hiatus doesn’t mean we’ve exchanged justice for vengeance.”

Daliana had done some fast-talking to convince Victory and Max not to throw the men through a few windshields of their own. In retrospect, Victory figured that was out of her own self-interest, considering the elven woman’s town-car seemed the logical nearby target.

“So,” Victory said. She drained her coffee in a final gulp. “I can go back to guessing, or you can tell me who your insider is. Or have we not reassured you enough yet?” Despite the coffee, her patience was coming to an end.

Fabbri clutched the blanket on her lap with pale hands. “The weresnake. Lorus.”

Customs Master Rhaavi took one look at Toria, Syri, and Taba, each splattered in blood, before handing over the keys to a pickup truck. Syri climbed in the passenger seat, and Taba, back to human form, hopped into the bed. They careened down back roads at speeds high enough to make Taba yelp every time she went over a pothole. No time to waste. They had to make it back to Max, warn him of the infiltration of their forces, and break the bad news of the deaths.

Her first command, too. After this, she would never be responsible for anyone other than herself and Kane ever again.

Not that she’d done a stellar job of keeping Kane safe.

Despite her best efforts, they were still late to the secondary meeting site. Max hobbled up to the truck as Toria stepped out of the cab. A red-tinged bandage bound his left calf above an incongruous bare foot. “We found the wrecks,” he said without preamble. “And Freya. You guys are okay?”

“No, sir,” Toria said. Taba vaulted out of the truck bed behind her, and she stifled a jump when Syri slammed the passenger door. She still felt small and lost, even surrounded by the rest of the mercenary company and warmed by the summer sun. “We were ambushed on the way to the docks by three scouts. Renan and Ari were also killed.”

“Damn,” Max said. “They’re pulling out all the stops. No prisoners?”

Toria gestured to the empty truck. “No survivors on their side. Syri’s a good shot.”

Max clapped the elven girl on the shoulder. “Good girl. Taba, report to Genevieve. You two, come with me.”

Even with Max’s injured leg, they jogged across the clearing to keep pace with him. “What happened, Max?” Toria said. “Are you okay?”

“Lucky shot grazed my leg and shredded my boot,” he said. “They were ready for us.” A cluster of Max’s more experienced mercs crouched around a map on the ground. “Now, I need you to tell me exactly where this ambush occurred.”

Toria started to triangulate between the docks and their original starting position, but Syri was faster. “There,” she said, jabbing a spot on the map with her finger. We left the bodies there.”

An older merc placed a small red sticker on the plastic map at the point Syri indicated. A dozen or so other red stickers littered the area of the map between them and the river.

“The main force didn’t follow us back,” Max said. “But you guys ran into one of the trios of the scouts slowly infiltrating our side of the border. We know one thing for sure, though.”

“The bastards don’t know what’s coming?” one of the older mercenaries said, noting map coordinates on a pad of paper.

“Something like that,” Max said. “A frontal assault isn’t going to work for us. We need to resort to more interesting methods. Whether your mother likes it or not, Toria, she’s about to get recalled.”

Victory managed not to drop her empty mug. “What?” When Fabbri had denied Bethany, she wasn’t sure who she’d been expecting. But she had to admit that Lorus sat pretty low on the list. Now she was confused. “Why the hell would he do something like that?”

“That badger-woman was supposed to be the scapegoat,” Fabbri said. “And Lorus never told me his motives. But he knew I was not pleased with the state of Limani’s government system. He’s the one who suggested that I run for council.”

Not able to restrain her combination of nervous energy and anger any longer, Victory placed her empty mug on the tray and rose to her feet. Though she didn’t resort to outright pacing, Victory crossed to the mantel and drummed her fingers against the wood. “This is insane.”

The doorbell rang, and after a penetrating look in Victory’s direction, Daliana left the room. She imagined the other woman was checking to be sure she wouldn’t do anything to Fabbri while unsupervised. But now Victory had a different target.

Fabbri had pushed herself back into a corner of the couch. Before Victory could snap that she wasn’t going to eat her, Daliana appeared once more.