Chapter 28 #2
Then Malachi’s face goes pale with fury. ‘The hunter knows?’
‘Yes.’
His head jerks as if struck. ‘You told her before us?’
‘This petty jealousy is unbecoming, Malachi.’
His eyes blaze. ‘You think it’s jealousy? You have a death sentence hanging over you. Over all of us. One that you kept secret from us. And you—’
I move before he finishes.
One moment he is at the table. The next he is pinned against the wall, my hand at his throat, claws spread over his heart. Stone cracks behind him.
‘I can hasten that death significantly right now if you wish,’ I say quietly.
His pulse hammers beneath my palm. Anger still burns there, but beneath it is hurt. Old. Raw. Impossible to mistake.
‘We would do anything for you, sire,’ he says, voice strained. ‘You know that.’ A beat. Then softer, surrendering to the hold. To me. ‘Anything.’
‘Sire,’ Aaron says carefully. ‘He speaks from fear, not disloyalty.’
Luca’s voice comes rougher. ‘He’s an ass, but he’s our ass.’
A low murmur of agreement moves through the room.
The fury drains from me in an ugly drag. They are right. I should have told them.
I release Malachi and step back. He regains his feet instantly, pride reassembled but not untouched.
‘I did not tell you,’ I growl, ‘because I intended to bear this mark as long as possible without burdening you with a deadline you could not change.’
Aaron’s gaze is steady. ‘Your suffering is our burden, sire. Whether you grant us leave to carry it or not.’
Luca thumps a fist to his chest. ‘We are in this with you.’
Malachi’s voice is rough but unwavering. ‘To the end.’
The others echo him. Different words. Same vow.
Something in the chamber shifts, old blood-bond flaring hot and bright. Loyalty. Rage. Affection. Promises of violence and devotion.
It touches me more than I care to admit. And because I sense the questions about the mark firing through their thoughts, I lay it all out for them.
Then I nod once. ‘Then prove it with discipline. Aaron, trace the relay channels tied to Tezra’s contract. Luca, reinforce perimeter shadows and keep your temper sheathed unless I say otherwise. Malachi—’ I hold his gaze. ‘With me after I make one call.’
They disperse at once, purpose replacing shock.
When the chamber empties, I reach for the secure line and dial Rafael Navarro.
‘Brother. It’s been too long. Or perhaps not long enough.’
I hear the smirk before he finishes the sentence.
Rafael Navarro has always sounded one breath away from laughter or violence, often both. He treats most things as a joke until his claws are out, which happens faster than wisdom recommends and more often than diplomacy allows.
‘There’s a reason for that,’ I say. ‘We do not do well in each other’s company.’
‘Ah, you wound me.’
‘You’ll survive.’ I do not bother with pleasantries. ‘What were you doing in my territory?’
Silence hums across the line.
Even from nearly a thousand miles away, I feel the shift in him, humour draining out, tension tightening where mockery sat a moment before.
‘Careful where you level such accusations, Valentin.’
‘Do you deny it?’
‘I deny it because it is insulting,’ he says, each word edged now, ‘and incorrect. But I’m curious why you think I visited you.’
I let the silence stretch.
He exhales. I picture him pacing, hand at his jaw, eyes narrowed at nothing. ‘Rumours travel,’ he says, tone lighter but forced. ‘They say your countdown has finally arrived at your door. Perhaps you’re scenting ghosts because time has made you sentimental.’
He is fishing.
He wants to know whether the mark has awakened. Whether I am weakened. Whether New York is about to become vulnerable. ‘If I had become sentimental you would already have noticed the decline in standards.’
He laughs once, sharp and brief. ‘Still insufferable. Good. I’d hate to think mortality improved you.’
I do not reward that with a response.
‘This is easily resolved,’ he says, more measured now. ‘Extend an invitation. I will examine this evidence you claim and settle the matter in person.’
Rafael is reckless, arrogant, greedy and too fond of turning diplomacy into theatre, but I know his tells. I hear sincerity now, and something he would rather bite through his own hand than admit.
Alarm.
At the accusation. At the implication that a scent tied to him has moved through my city without his sanction.
‘Very well,’ I say. ‘Consider this a formal invitation. But be warned. Violate my hospitality in any way, and it will be considered an act of war. Agreed?’
‘Agreed.’
I do not like how quickly he says it.
‘Oh, and Navarro,’ I add, because I know him too well to leave the obvious unsaid, ‘you may bring three of your Seven.’
‘Four.’
My teeth grit. ‘Fine. Four.’
His satisfaction is audible. ‘I will be there at sundown.’
The line goes dead before I can revise the terms.
And as I lower the phone, wondering whether I have made a strategic correction or a spectacular error.
I suppose I will know in six hours.
Malachi’s voice enters my mind, composed now, stripped clean of the earlier fracture.
I will inform the others to prepare for his arrival.
Do so.
But even as I move to the door, issuing orders in my mind before I speak them aloud, my thoughts are no longer on Rafael Navarro’s imminent arrival.
They have swung back, maddeningly and obsessively, to my little hunter.