Chapter 11 Mari
Mari
“You think he’s going to be angry that you didn’t go to the castle to update him on your progress, Mari?” Feather lifted a steaming mug of tea to her scarred lips.
She looked a little pale, and even the usually vibrant Tulli seemed to be wilting.
I could hardly blame them. Today had been a shit-show of the highest order from start to finish.
“Honestly, sweets, right now? I don’t give a fuck.”
I slumped over the table, every muscle in my body heavy with fatigue as I managed a shrug.
Once I realized the scope of the job I’d been asked—or commanded—to do, I’d enlisted Tulli and Feather’s help.
We’d managed to not only work our way through the Doves here in Rose House, but all the Doves at Magnolia and Peony as well.
Forty girls down, four hundred sixty or so to go.
I let out a groan and forked up a bite of quail, forcing myself to chew and swallow despite my stomach being in knots.
“I know it seems like a lot.” Tulli patted my hand and managed a half-smile. “But we did get three potential matches for him already.”
On the way back from the castle the night before, I’d made the executive decision not to tell them everything the Demon King had shared with me.
Adding “the world might be ending” to our current raft of problems might’ve been just enough to sink them both.
I would carry the weight of that truth for now.
Instead, I’d gone with the most believable explanation.
“The king has a weird predilection for British girls with twee magic and asked me to find one for him to bed.”
Neither of them had even blinked—it wasn’t even close to the strangest fetish a demon male had expressed.
“Is that roight, guv?” Tulli had shot back in her best Liverpool accent without missing a beat. “Well, I’ve been known to raise a cock or two from the dead, which make me a right necromancer, donnit? Can’t get more magical than that.”
It had gotten a bubble of laughter out of me, even when my gut was bloated with all that guilt for lying to them.
And after spending the day talking to a whole flock of Doves and feeling the guilt fade under the pressure of what was being asked, now the guilt was back, with a dose of heartsickness.
I’d planned to get into each of the Houses, pepper the Doves with questions I needed answered, and get out, lickety-split.
Instead, I wound up acting as therapist, and even priest, at points.
Tulli and Feather had done the same. Doves weren’t used to being asked questions about their pasts.
Once they started talking, the trauma they’d often endured to get to this awful place tended to bubble over, and a minute had turned into twenty or more.
By the time the sun was setting, I’d felt like a raw nerve, exposed and throbbing.
Because their traumas reflected our own.
Used. Forgotten. Beaten. Scared.
A shudder slipped through me that I fought to suppress.
The very thought of having to face the Demon King after being reminded of all the misery his kind had brought upon not only myself, but all these women, the men who’d been castrated…made me want to vomit.
So I’d went into full fuck-it mode and sent the note.
It remained to be seen how he would respond to the slight.
I had the sense I’d pay, one way or another.
But tomorrow was hours away, and for the time being, I was safe in my Nest with my Doves, and that was alright by me.
A place to lick my wounds a little, to gather myself for the next day’s onslaught of asking the same questions…
where are you from, did you or your family carry any tiny trace of magic, have you ever been to Stonehenge…
“I still can’t quite believe Alethea is gone.”
Feather’s whisper made my stomach turn, and I set down my fork, finally giving up on my late supper altogether.
“It’s hard to imagine. She was so full of life, her sisters must be…distraught,” Tulli said, her normally vibrant voice nearly as soft as Feather’s.
And in the next day or so, we were going to have no choice but to barge into the House Alethea was from and start asking questions while her sisters grieved. I would leave them to the end if I could, to give them as much time as possible, but I could not avoid the questions.
I pushed myself away from the table and stood.
“Since we’re closed for business anyway, I’m going to call it a night.”
They shared a concerned glance and I shook my head.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m going to be fine.
It’s just been a long couple of days. We’re going to get this job done, make sure this Jack the Ripper bastard is brought to justice, and then we’re out of here.
Nothing has changed. But a good sleep will help us all. ”
Feather’s brow furrowed and she wouldn’t meet my gaze. I bent low and pressed a finger to her chin until we were eye to eye. “Talk to me, sweets.”
“Are you sure the new king isn’t going to…hurt this girl if we find her for him?” her pale throat worked as she continued. “Because I wouldn’t like that one bit.”
“Yes,” I said, lying through my teeth. “He plans to keep her as his concubine. I’m sure she’ll have a better life there than what she’s currently living, he is not like Malach as far as I can see.”
I wasn’t sure of that at all but given that none of us had a choice in this matter, I would do my best to deliver. Because if Gabriel was right, and that earthquake was a sign of something bigger coming, the life of one was a small price to pay if it saved us all.
If this mystery girl saved us all.
Too bad there were so many that didn’t deserve saving down here.
“Let’s all try to get a good night's sleep. We’ve more of the same ahead of us tomorrow, and I doubt it’s going to get any easier.”
With that, I swept from the room, so dizzy with exhaustion, I almost took out poor Jastani, who lurched back with a gasp as I nearly barreled into her.
“You scared the shit out of me, ma’am!”
“Sorry, Jas, I am beyond tired.”
She waved me off and smiled. “Me and some of the girls are bored so we’re going to play cards in the dining room. Want to join us?”
“Not tonight. But Tulli and Feather are in the kitchen, and it might do them some good if you want to ask.”
She scurried off to do just that as I headed upstairs to the three-room suite that belonged to me as the Briar Queen. The other girls believed that Innia stayed with Tulli and Feather. With a connecting door between the rooms, it worked out.
The second I closed the door behind me, I let my breath out, feeling like a deflated balloon.
My eyes were so gritty, it was like I’d scraped them against a salt lick.
If I could string together even two or three hours of continuous sleep tonight, maybe things would seem less bleak in the morning, as I’d said to my sisters…
Relying on the artificial moonlight outside my window, I padded across the thick carpet toward the dresser and made to take off my rings and bracelet when a creak of the floorboards sounded directly behind me.
I instantly stiffened. “Who--”
The rest was cut short by the hand covering my mouth.
Jack the Ripper copycat. Here in Rose House.
My fucking house.
Sheer terror gave way to blind fury as I bit down hard even as I snapped my head back as hard as I could.
There was a guttural snarl, and suddenly, I was free.
No chance of me screaming and getting one of my Doves killed in the process. It was me against Jack.
I palmed the blade that had been strapped to my thigh beneath my dress as I wheeled around to face my attacker.
Eyes, balls, throat, in that order.
Except suddenly, the blade was at my own throat.
In my own hand.
“I’d be careful if I were you, Briar Queen. You wouldn’t want to hurt yourself with that thing, would you?”
Even if my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dim light, I would have recognized that voice anywhere, and it left my brain reeling as I tried to resist whatever force was controlling my hand.
But as I fought to pull the knife away, I realized that he wasn’t controlling my hand at all.
It was the knife that he’d somehow managed to enchant.
“What is this magic, Demon?”
“Surrender and I’ll tell you all about it.” His tone was low, but lethal, and I reminded myself that this wasn’t a male to be toyed with. He had the upper hand.
For now.
“Fine.” I released the hilt, lifting my arms high in surrender. If he’d wanted to kill me, he’d have already done it. And as much as a tiny part of my mind wondered if he might be our Jack the Ripper with how he’d snuck into my room, in my gut, I knew that wasn’t the case.
“Like many demons, I have some of the old magic in me. I’m able to manipulate metal. Among other things…as you saw during the coronation.”
So do not cross me, woman.
I heard the unspoken threat as clearly as if he’d made it aloud.
“You would kill me, then?” I rasped, still hyper-aware of the tip of the blade pricking my throat. “I thought you needed my help.”
“I do.” He swiped the back of his hand across his bloody nose, a sight that gave me no small bit of satisfaction. “Which is why you’re still alive. But you didn’t come to me as you were told, so I came to you. Make no mistake, you won’t like what happens if I must come to you again.”
The knife pressed harder into my skin until I gasped, before it dropped to the floor with a clatter. I touched the tiny spot of blood there with the tip of my finger and gritted my teeth. “Now we’re both bleeding. I guess that makes us even.”
He stepped closer and wrapped his massive hand around my throat, covering my hand with his own. Now that our faces were just inches apart, I realized my gaze was locked with his, unimpeded.
My hood.
When I’d snapped my head back against his face, it must’ve fallen away.
Panic clawed at my chest as I struggled to remember what face I’d worn last, Innia or the Briar Queen?
Or, worst of all, Mari herself?
“Plain,” he murmured, nodding slowly, before releasing me.
Why I felt that single word like a second knife wound–this one deeper, right in the chest–I couldn’t say.
I tried to step back to get some breathing room, but he advanced, until my back was pressed against the wall and he boxed me in with his arms on either side of my head.
“You must understand, I cannot afford to fail in this mission, Briar Queen.”
“I may not have come to you with my findings, but I did what you asked of me. Me and two of my most trusted Doves conducted dozens of interviews. I even have a few possible candidates for you.”
His brow rose in surprise.
“Do you, now?”
Heat rolled off him, and his woodsy scent curled around me, begging me to lean closer even as I pressed my spine harder against the stone wall at my back.
“Y-yes. I can give you their names if you just…” I managed to swallow the rest of the words before they left my tongue–back the fuck up for a second– “Let me get to my desk and write them down for you.”
His lips tipped into a grim smile.
“I would like to, but we barely know one another and I’m afraid what little trust I had in you has been broken. Given we’ve no time to rebuild it, we’re going to have to do this another way.”
Dread settled low in my belly as he dipped his head toward mine until his mouth was a mere whisper away.
“Instead of giving me their names, I’m going to need you to give me yours first, Briar Queen.”
I opened my mouth on a gasp and then snapped it shut, glaring at him.
Names held power here. The nobles allowed us to keep ours because they didn’t need them. They already held all the cards. I would not give the most dangerous demon in Seventhell mine.
I could not.
“I won’t.”
His eyes swirled with a mix of challenge and fury that had every nerve in my body alight with something I couldn’t name.
“You will give me your true name, or I will take it from you.”