“Who’s that?” Delilah asked.
“My maker. I can kill him after sundown. Even in his shadow form. No one else. Is that right?”
“Yep,” she said. “No one else. Well, that’s not exactly true,” she said, tapping a finger on her bottom lip. “His father, mother, or maker could kill him as well. A wife, if he’d been sworn to one. It’s a real tangled web when you get right down to it. Like a family tree of death.” She giggled, which put her weirdness factor through the roof, and then she turned up the volume on the TV.
“And the Lyhtan?” I spoke over the noise. “Raif said we are equals in the gray hours. Can we kill one another then?”
“As far as I know,” Delilah said after some consideration.
I slumped down on my bed, dead tired and emotionally spent. I’d let Xander play me like a fiddle, all because the words sounded pretty coming out of his mouth. I’d never thought of him as anything more than a man. But he was, and had always been, the king, and I was simply his pawn. Not a subject, not even a woman. Just something to use. I could be discarded as easily as I’d been picked up.
The sour feeling of betrayal in my stomach bubbled up and lodged near my sternum. Without thinking, I let out a primal scream. It felt good to vent the rage trapped in my chest. I ached a little less by releasing that scream. Delilah didn’t even flinch. She watched her shows as if I weren’t there, oblivious to my display of temper.
I jumped from the bed like it was on fire and tucked a dagger into my belt. Swinging a black jacket over my shoulders, I stalked toward the kitchen.
“Where are you going?” Delilah asked, saccharin sweet.
“Out.” I didn’t have the patience for more than the one word.
“I’m supposed to go with you when you go out,” she called after me.
I paused at the counter and stared at the bottle of anti-Lyhtan goo, wondering if I should stuff it in my pocket. I didn’t. “No. I don’t need you tagging along right now. Stay here, Delilah,” I said. “I’ll be back in a while.”
“Tyler’s not going to be happy,” she said.
I stalked to the lift and shut the gate in front of me. “Do I look like I give a flying fuck?” I asked.
“I don’t know how you look,” I heard her say as the lift began its descent. “But you sure don’t sound like you do.”
I stared from the street toward the iron gate of Xander’s place. It looked less menacing in the light of day. The house sat deep in Capitol Hill, which was a better place than Belltown to remain obscure. The area reminded me of the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Grunge met grandeur, and the seedy, dirty, and half-crazy mingled with the haughty, spiffy, and wealthy every day. Of course, wasn’t that the case almost everywhere? Old cities were the perfect melting pots. Ever expanding, always making room, modern architecture never steamrolling over classic elegance. Flashy condos felt right at home next to early-1900s Victorians. A twelve-million-dollar mansion could sit beside a rundown motel and it didn’t bother anyone. Well, maybe except for real estate agents. But social variety made it easy to hide, and I had no doubt Xander had picked the area for its eccentricity.
The winding driveway was bordered by manicured grass and tall shrubs, and the entire property had been barricaded by a tall stone wall. I bypassed the iron gate, complete with guard station, scaled the wall, and dropped to the lawn on the other side. I didn’t exactly want my presence announced. If I’d been bolder, I would have stomped right up the driveway. But since meeting Xander, I’d lost a little of my pluck.
I found a set of double doors toward the back of the house and used them to gain entrance. The house wasn’t quiet or noisy; it just bore the normal sounds of day-to-day bustling. And though I was sure I’d be outnumbered if it came down to a fight, somehow I didn’t care.
A daytime wraith, I crept through the many rooms of the ground story with an assassin’s stealth until I found what I was looking for. Xander sat at a desk in a large office, his head bent low over something of interest. I moved to the doorway and took the dagger blade side in my hand. With speed and precision, I pulled back and threw. The point buried itself in the wood inches from his head. How I missed, I wasn’t sure, because I aimed for the middle of his high-and-mighty forehead.
I pitched forward as a heavy foot made contact with the back of my knee. I twisted as I fell, landing facing my assailant. Reaching out, I grabbed the offending foot and turned it sharply. Anya’s startled form flew in an acrobatic roll before she crashed to the floor beside me. I reached an arm to the ceiling and jerked, bringing the full force of my elbow down on her chest. I owed her a hundred times over, and payback is a bitch.
My training finally proved useful. I rocked back and kicked hard, propelling myself from the floor to a standing position. Dragging her sorry-ass, leather-covered body beside me, I brought up my knee and sunk it into Anya’s stomach, eliciting a grunt, before I threw her back and kicked again, this time at her ribs. It was when I reached to pull at a hank of her long, flowing hair that I felt a soft touch at my shoulder.
“Stay your hand, Darian.” Raif. Damn him. “You won’t get what you’re after by beating her.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but it sure feels good.”
I had forgotten about Xander, having become so enthralled with giving Anya a proper beating. But I noticed from the corner of my eye that he stood. As Raif asked, I refrained from further damaging Anya’s not-so-gentle form. That’s not to say that I didn’t accidentally stomp on her instep when I brought my foot down.
“Who’s the mark?” I shouted at Xander. “I want his name.”
“Darian . . .” he said in his infuriatingly soothing voice.
“Who?” I screamed this time. My chest heaved with my breath, and I felt the sting of angry tears behind my eyes. The rush of rage through my body was tangible; I heard it in my ears and tasted the gall of it on my tongue. “Azriel!” I shouted. “It’s him, isn’t it? There’s no magic weapon but me! You are a liar!”
I didn’t care what Raif thought of me at that moment, and I sure as hell didn’t care what Anya thought. I was too pissed to care about anything. “Azriel isn’t dead, is he?” So many lies . . . first from the very one who made me, and now from a king, his father. I couldn’t breathe, I was drowning in lies. “He’s alive! All this time, you knew and you said nothing?”
“Leave me with her,” Xander said. Raif helped Anya from the floor. The door closed behind them, and I was left alone with the King of Deception.
Rounding the desk, he came to stand before me. He looked deep into my eyes and laid his hands on my shoulders. He sighed.
“Don’t,” I said, bringing my arms underneath his, brushing his hands from me. “I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work this time. I don’t care how beautiful you are or how sweet your voice sounds in my ears. I’m done with you, and I refuse to allow you to seduce me into doing anything for you. Magic blade, my ass.”
He took a step back. “I never told you there was a magic blade. That was Azriel’s lie. My only sin is that I withheld information. I never played you false.”
A lie by omission was still a lie in my book. My anger boiled to the surface again. “Pretty talk,” I said, “and nothing else. You never played me false, but you played me, all right. Not anymore, though. You can go to hell.”
“I need you,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I answered.
“He’s banded with the Lyhtans and is gathering an army. He plans to overthrow me, and if he succeeds, it will be the end of our existence as we know it.”