The Shifting Price of Prey (29 page)

A knot inside me loosened. He wasn’t cutting me off, he was just postponing. And he was right. We did have all night to chat.
And maybe more.
And sitting in a small rowboat in the
middle of a moonlit boating lake was as perfect a place as any to do it. So might as well get the less personal stuff out of the way first.

‘Okay,’ I said slowly, then as he held out his hand in an obvious peace offering, I uncurled my legs and let him lift my other foot and slip my trainer off. I relaxed back as his
long fingers started to weave their Sokushin Do magic.

‘It may be that I could help you with retrieving the memory you wished to enhance,’ Malik said softly, ‘if you would allow me to?’

‘Thanks.’ I smiled. ‘I would, but I got what I needed from the spell’ – ID-ing Katie’s treacherous spy boyfriend – ‘but there was something
else.’ I told him about waking to find my bed covered in crimson rose petals. His frown let me know, as I’d thought, the petals weren’t down to him. I added that either I’d
subconsciously
called
the petals myself (as Finn had suggested, not that I mentioned him) or that maybe Mad Max might have had something to do with them.

‘So what do you think?’ I asked.

‘I will look into it, Genevieve.’ Malik’s mouth thinned, his thumb pressing uncomfortably hard into the ball of my foot. I tensed before I could stop. His touch danced lighter
and I gave an appreciative sigh then reluctantly got my mind back onto business as he asked, ‘Can you tell me about this connection between the Emperor and the Bangladeshi
ambassador?’

‘You know the ambassador’s wife and kid have been kidnapped?’ The story was splashed all over the news so I’d have been surprised if Malik hadn’t, but it always
pays to check. He nodded. ‘Well, I got another tarot card. It showed the ambassador under attack at the mosque by a werewolf, so I went to find out what it had to do with the fae’s
trapped fertility. When I arrived I saw the ambassador talking to this couple and my gut said werewolves. So I added two and two, rightly or wrongly, and came up with their being the kidnappers.
Then, as the ambassador wasn’t going anywhere, or so I thought, I decided to follow them to see if they might lead me to the victims.’

His hold on my ankle tightened, making me squirm. ‘That could have been a rash decision.’

He wasn’t wrong, but— I held my arm out and released Ascalon. The silver of the sword gleamed in the moonlight. ‘I have this, remember.’ He’d seen the sword once
before.

‘That sword will not protect you from everything, Genevieve.’

‘Yeah, I know that,’ I said, a little of my exasperation lacing my voice as I let Ascalon slide back into my ring. ‘But waving a magic sword around does usually make people
think twice. And I’m not totally stupid. I wasn’t planning to do anything other than observe from a distance. Plus, I left a blood trail for you to follow, if needed, and I stayed off
the “likely to be ambushed here” path.’ I winced as his fingers again dug none too gently into my foot. ‘Which was when I lost them. If I hadn’t seen you, I’d
have gone back to the mosque. And I told Tavish what I was about too.’ Sort of, anyway.

Wariness crossed Malik’s face. ‘The kelpie knows where you are?’

‘More or less.’ I lifted the tiny blue bottle from where it dangled on its chain around my neck. ‘He also gave me this. It’s werewolf repellent, and believe me, this
stuff will clear a crowd.’ I let the bottle rest back between my breasts and, as Malik’s gaze followed and lingered, couldn’t resist a little back arch, then almost swore as I
remembered— ‘Oh, and I need to let Tavish know I’m okay before midnight, so he doesn’t come rushing to my rescue.’

The boat rocked again as Malik lifted his gaze back to mine; the dangerous, dark look in his eyes sent a frisson of desire spiralling through me. ‘Then perhaps you should call him and tell
him you are safe.’ His words carried a hint of question as he offered me his phone.

I kept my eyes on his as I reached out and took it. A tension I’d barely registered left him as I did; he hadn’t been sure I’d put Tavish off. Inwardly, I smiled; good to know
Malik didn’t think anything between us was a done deal.

I sent Tavish a text, not wanting to get into a discussion as to why I was with Malik when Tavish had warned me off seeing him, then handed the phone back. ‘Thanks.’

It chimed with an answer a moment later. Malik’s enigmatic expression didn’t change as he read, then sent a short reply.

‘Do I want to know?’ I asked.

He pocketed the phone with a grim twist of his mouth. ‘The kelpie cares greatly for your wellbeing, Genevieve.’

So it had been a warning, then. Not such a surprise, really. The pair weren’t friends, and only allied with each other because it mutually benefited them both, mostly to do with keeping me
safe. And their alliance wasn’t something I was going to jump in the middle of. ‘So, anyway,’ I said, getting us back to business, ‘I was planning to go back and ask the
ambassador about Janan—’

‘Janan, Beloved of Malak al-Maut?’ Malik’s stunned question interrupted me. I opened my mouth to say yes, only before I could speak red flames of power lit his pupils and he
pulled me on to my knees before him. His mouth met mine in searing heat. Startled, I froze, as his lips met mine in a burning kiss.

Show me your memories, Genevieve.
His voice came in my mind, almost an order until he added,
Please.

Disappointment flew through me as it clicked that this was the memory kiss, the Red Shamrock blood power kiss he’d asked permission for in the hotel function room. But hey, this was Malik,
and it was still a kiss.

I pressed my body to his, eagerly returning the kiss and murmured,
See them
, in his mind.

Then I was falling, twisting like a leaf in a high wind, images from my past swirling around me in an ever-changing montage, until one particular memory hit as clear and sharp as if it was
yesterday, and not more than twenty years ago.

I
was four.

My father, tall and blond and aristocratic, was dressed in his special black suit with the satin lining, the one that matched my stepmother Matilde’s sapphire-blue eyes. We were in the
great hall of some ruined castle that was our latest home; an empty, echoing acre of grey flagstoned floor, lit by a distant fire. I stood between Matilde and my father, his hand a restraining
weight on my shoulder, fearful as I sensed their unease about the strange vampire who visited us.

The stranger faced us. Shadows writhed around him like angry spirits, shredding and reforming in a non-existent wind, shrouding his face in darkness. Only now I could see past them. The
stranger was Malik, but he was still a stranger. There was none of the warmth or humour or humanity I was used to seeing; instead a vicious cruelness sharpened his beautiful features.

‘Is this the child, Andrei?’ Malik’s low disdainful voice, with its not-quite-English accent, ran a shiver down my spine, then and now.

‘Greet our guest, Genevieve.’ My father’s hand pressed on my shoulder.

I stuck out my black patent toe, clutched the slippery green satin of my dress and bent my knee in a trembling curtsey.

Malik’s insistent fingers gripped my chin, jerking my face up. ‘The eyes are truly sidhe fae,’ he murmured, his expression as cold and hard and brutal as his fingers.
‘I am sure my master will be pleased. All that is left is to confirm the contract. I am to take a sample.’

‘Niet.’
Matilde spat out the word.

My father hissed. ‘It is but a taste, Matilde; no harm will come to the child.’ My father offered the stranger a low bow. ‘My apologies. You have my
permission.’

Malik knelt on one knee before me, avarice and an alien anticipation filling his eyes, and held up a silver dagger. ‘Janan, Beloved of Malak al-Maut. Forged by the northern dwarves
from cold iron and silver. Tempered in dragon’s breath.’ The blade gleamed red in the firelight. ‘The handle is carved from a unicorn’s horn.’ Pale light bled from
between his fingers.‘And set with a dragon’s tear.’ An oval of clear amber winked against his palm.

The part of me still in the present recognised the silver dagger. It was the one from the tarot cards. The Bonder of Souls.

In the memory Malik’s hand clamped around my left wrist, his power freezing me so I was unable to move, but I heard my bones crack, felt the pain lance through my small body. His
nostrils flared with pleasure.

The blade traced a slow, icy-path down my inner arm.

I cried, though no sound came out, my tears mixing with the thin rivulets of my blood to pool on the flagstone floor . . . as Malik used Janan to bond my soul to his.

‘Genevieve!’

The memory fled, leaving my tongue coated with the sickly sweet taste of strawberries. The taste of the Morpheus Memory Aid potion. Just my bad luck I’d have another adverse reaction to
the damn spell. Not that the memory of Malik taking my blood for his master, the Autarch, when I was four was new. I’d just never experienced it with quite such clarity before. Or remembered
Malik being quite so detached and pitiless before.

I realised we were kneeling together in the small boat, my hands balled in his T-shirt and his arms tight about me as if he thought I was about to jump. He wasn’t far wrong. My heart
thudded in my chest as I looked into his obsidian eyes, now inches away from my own, seeing the flickering remnants of the past in their black depths. ‘You hurt me deliberately,’ I
whispered, hearing both my four-year-old’s fear and my current shock in my voice. I swallowed back the ache in my throat. ‘You enjoyed it.’

‘Yes.’ His agreement was desolate in my mind.

‘Why?’

‘That was who I was, then, Genevieve.’

I stared at him, still stunned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nor would I wish you to.’ Sorrow and remorse soothed over my arm where he’d cut me then, the barest touch of
mesma
, offering apology for the pain he’d caused.
‘But I will attempt to explain, should you wish me to, though I would prefer not to do so here in the open. Nor will my honour allow me to tell you the whole of it.’

His honour wouldn’t allow him? Crap, that meant he’d given his word not to talk, which meant I’d get nothing important out of him. I clenched my fists, wanting to beat him, to
scream at him, to make him tell me now. I needed to know all of it; I’d had enough of things hidden, of secrets. But . . . I took a shallow breath, then another deeper one, calming myself. He
couldn’t tell me. And this wasn’t the time. I forced back the hurt, both physical and emotional, of the memory . . . and concentrated on Janan: the Bonder of Souls knife.

The Emperor had been holding Janan the knife in the first tarot card.

The Irish wolfhound (a.k.a. Mad Max) had dropped Janan into the snow in the Moon tarot card.

The ambassador on the Tower tarot card said the Emperor wanted Janan.

Only Janan was gone. Lost in the demon attack last Hallowe’en when a sorcerer had tried to use it to steal my body for herself. Long story short, she hadn’t succeeded, and the knife
had disappeared with her demon master.

The only way the Emperor could get Janan was if he took a trip to hell.

That wasn’t going to be an option. At least not if he wanted to come back in full ownership of his body.

But if the Emperor wanted a soul-bonding knife, it followed he wanted to bond souls.

What the hell did bonding souls have to do with releasing the fae’s trapped fertility?

Unless that was the price the Emperor wanted me to pay? My soul bonded to his? Some sort of power thing? Fear tightened my gut. What would that mean for me? Except . . . Malik had my soul bonded
to his for near enough twenty years before I’d died one too many times and the bond broke. As far as I could tell, it hadn’t done anything at all to me. Or to him.

But Malik knew of both Janan and the Emperor. He could probably join the dots much faster than me. I gave him a narrowed look and said, ‘The Emperor wants Janan.’

Something indefinable flickered over his face at my subject change, before his expression turned to his more usual enigmatic one. ‘Am I to take it your tarot card told you this,
Genevieve?’

‘Yes. Do you know where Janan is?’

His black brows drew into a frown. ‘Did you not send it to hell with the demon last Hallowe’en?’

A question. Damn it. I hated questions. ‘Yep. But maybe something or someone got to the knife before it disappeared?’

He shook his head. ‘I know only what you told the kelpie, Genevieve. That does not lead me to think that it would be possible for someone to have retrieved the knife before the veil
closed.’ Frustration threaded his words. ‘Had I been conscious at that time, I would perhaps be more certain.’

Which, with the whole ‘tranqued-by-the-bad-guy’, was about as specific as an answer as he could give. I sighed. ‘Okay, so we’re pretty sure Janan is in hell. But the
Emperor obviously doesn’t know that otherwise why look for the knife? So the more important question is: why does he want to bond souls, and whose souls do you think he wants to bond? The
kidnap victims’, maybe?’ I shuddered at that horrible thought.