Chapter 16 Gabe
Gabe
“Another Dove has been slaughtered, Your Majesty, near the House of Lotus and Glass…”
Rufus’ words buzzed in my head. That was where Marinnia had gone for her interviews. An image of her in her gray cloak, body spread eagle and throat cut, was so strong I was up and to the closest window before Rufus quit speaking.
If she’d been killed, it would be on me for sending her out there, searching for the key.
Had I truly thought sending Harald with her would be enough to dissuade the killer? As impulsive as she was, she could’ve easily given him the slip.
I dove from the window, snapping my wings out, using my momentum to propel myself as fast as I could toward the Dove’s district. I didn’t even have to know where the House of Lotus and Glass actually was. I only needed to look for the running humans…the women clinging to each other, weeping.
Someone pointed and I banked to the left, following their direction, finding another group—this one made up of guards.
I dropped to the ground between two houses, and put a hand on the stone building, forcing myself to take a slow breath. My heart was pounding as if I’d stepped into a battle—a sensation I was not unfamiliar with, only…I was barely exerted from the flight here.
Too attached. You are far too attached to her already.
The guards shifted around the scene and there was a flash of gray skirt.
No.
“Move!” I bellowed the word and the guards scattered.
Surely, I would know. I clenched my fist, wishing I’d had time to grab the Prism. Surely, I’d be able to sense if she was no longer of this earth…
My vision narrowed on her material, refusing at first to see that the Briar Queen stood before me. That she was not the woman on the ground.
“Your Majesty.” She dipped into a shaky curtsy, the lower half of her face pale. Her lips trembling.
I looked past her to the body splayed on the dirt…or at least what was left of it. The woman’s belly and chest had been torn apart, her face eaten off, limbs snapped into ragged shards of bone and shredded flesh.
“What are you doing here, Briar Queen?” I growled as I stalked closer, the smell of blood only heightening my agitation.
“Sire, she came to identify the Dove…we couldn’t because…”
I didn’t look away from Marinnia as the guard spoke. “And do you know who she is?”
“Franny,” Marinnia murmured, still holding her curtsy steady while her voice shook. “She was always so proud of those boots. She got them at the market a couple years back. Said they were one of a kind.”
Franny.
She’d been on my list of girls to interview today.
“Document it all, take her to the morgue with respect,” I snapped the orders, and chose not to think too much about what I did next.
Stepping to Marinnia’s side, I scooped her up and launched us both skyward, my wings spreading wide.
She didn’t gasp and pull away…though a sob escaped her as we climbed, her arms tightening around me. “It’s my fault,” she said over the rush of the wind around us. “It can’t be coincidence. I named her as one of your potentials and now…now she’s dead.”
“That is not your fault.” I didn’t think about where I was going, only that I knew she had to get away from this darkness, this death that this fucking realm could never seem to escape.
“Hang on,” I murmured into her ear. Her legs came up and wrapped around my waist, locking tight to me as I took us through a natural cavern in the rock wall, one I’d escaped in more than once as a boy.
The darkness hit first, and I slowed my flight until the glow from my intended destination lit up the stone around us. Marinnia’s arms didn’t ease off, nor did her legs, but there was nothing sexual about it. Her whole body shook, trembling as if she were freezing.
I tucked my wings and dropped us to the black sand beach.
Her head lifted and I wondered what she saw.
“I came here as a boy,” I said, my voice echoing against the chamber. She didn’t lift her head, her face buried firmly against my neck.
“Marinnia.”
Slowly she lifted her hooded face.
At first glance, I knew this place wouldn’t look real, even to someone used to the strange and unusual.
The cave curved like the inside of a giant ribcage, all stone and shadow, but it was the light—those impossible shafts of blue that fell from the opening above the center, right over the water, like something poured rather than shone.
“Is that… sunlight? It looks, softer somehow. Thicker?” Her question told me she was fighting through the shock of seeing the horrific murder scene.
I kept a hand splayed across her back, moving slowly. “I always thought it was as if the sky melted and slipped through the ceiling. It’s why I came here. The light reflects all the way down one of the worm shafts in the desert.”
Slowly she slid out of my arms, her feet touching the edge of the water. It doesn’t ripple the way it should. It glows strangely with the muted sunlight. A quiet, luminous pool, catching the falling light and holding it, reluctant to let it go.
“Is this a sacred place?”
“I used to think so, but it is just a place to escape.”
Her arms stayed around me, her body pressed to mine as we stood there, staring out at the unbelievable beauty of a mere cave. A place where gods could have formed, a place where you could believe in the unbelievable.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“Because you needed a minute.” I didn’t want to think about the other reason I’d brought her here, where I could hold her as gently as she needed for at least a little while. “I thought…I thought that it was you on the ground, Marinnia.”
She finally turned to me then, and when I moved to lift the hood, she stopped my hand. “No. If you thought I was plain before, the tears will not have helped.” A shudder rippled through her. “You could have called me to you, instead of flying to the scene.”
She was right, but the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. I was not sure I wanted to tell her the frantic need to find her, that it had blocked out everything else and had even stolen my logic from me. “I was already in the air when the thought came to me.”
A soft snort escaped her. “Liar.”
I smiled, though she couldn’t see it. “How do you know?”
“Heart rate picked up, for two beats.”
Damn, there she was again, being all perceptive and shit. “Marinnia—”
“As beautiful as this is, Demon, we must go back. My girls will think something happened to me.”
I held her firm for a long moment. “Something did happen; you saw something you never should have been exposed to.”
A heavy sigh slid from her, one that felt like exhaustion. “Demon, do you think it’s the first dead body I’ve ever seen?”
Slipping my one hand up to cup her cheek and turn her toward me, I slid my thumb along her jawline. “No, but it is likely the first werewolf kill you’ve seen, and those can be exceptionally brutal. I wanted to give you…something else to put your mind to.”
Her mouth tightened. “So, you believe it. That there are two killers then? Or one that has escalated to a more violent way of killing? A shifter could have slipped through pretending to be human. Perhaps he is growing bold?”
Her fingers tapped on my chest, a rolling pattern that seemed to sync up with my heart. One of the tricks that she’d picked up as a Dove?
I didn’t care. It felt good.
Stupid of me though, to be proud of how quickly she bounced back from seeing a horrific scene. She was no doubt telling the truth that she had seen much death in her life in Seventhell, given how quickly she had stepped back into trying to solve the murder.
“Only they don’t like to hunt alone unless they’re rogue, exiled from the pack.”
In the back of my head, I couldn’t help but think of the ousted shifter, Maverick. The one who had built a small army of rebels and tried to take the throne from Diana by turning himself into some sort of super wolf.
The drumming of her fingers stilled. “Franny was on the list…the one I gave you. What are the chances?”
Lying to her would do me no good. I kept my voice steady and even as I told her the truth of it. “I have the list on my desk; a few could have seen it.”
A sob half slipped out before she put the back of her hand to her mouth.
“This is not your fault, Mari.” I shortened her name, felt her start and gave her a gentle shake. “Whoever did this is a monster, killing the innocent. He’s been killing longer than you even know.”
I told her what Luc had found on the other levels, within the morgues. “He’s been practicing,” she whispered. “Just like Jack the Ripper. And Jack’s last victim…it was more like this one, an absolute massacre of the woman’s body.”
“How do you know so much about Jack the Ripper?”
She tried to pull back but I held her to me, giving her what support I could, and she leaned back to me, the smell of her heady and sweet.
“Just one of those stories you hear, and it stuck with me.” She took a deep breath which pressed her breasts tighter to me. “We must go back. My girls—”
As much as I might have wanted to keep her here…
to keep her safe, she was right. We couldn’t stay much longer.
Even if there hadn’t been a witness, there was no question that this latest murder, or at least what had happened to the body afterwards, was the work of at least one wolf.
Which meant no political diplomacy or arranged marriage was going to save me from being challenged for the throne.
Many of the nobles already believed I was in league with the wolves.
The fact that any got into The Spire…as far as Seventhell, even?
This would be considered proof of my treason.
I needed to speak to Diana or Raven to see if they had any intel on Mav’s whereabouts.
If he was still here in Seventhell, I needed to deal with him as quickly as possible.
He’d tried once to gain the power of a key.
If he’d risked coming down here? He was still on the hunt for one to make his own.
I needed to talk to Myrr. Maybe the old Oracle would be able to see something that could help…
“I will take you back to the castle.”
“To the Dove District.”
I snorted as I yanked her against me, preparing to take flight. “Do not think you can direct me, Marinnia.”
Her arms were once more around my neck, and she hooked one leg over my hip, holding herself to me. It should have been awkward, but all I could think was that I wished we could have stayed in that hidden cave and left the world behind for longer.
“I would never think such a thing, Demon.” Her voice was muffled, but…was that a softness when she spoke my name?
She looked up and I smiled down at her. “Liar.”
Her lips twitched upward and with that small curl, I knew our time here was done. The cavern that had been my respite and escape had given her a moment to collect herself away from the ugliness of the world.
A world that was about to get so much uglier…