Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
The air was heavy with the scent of night-blooming flowers, their perfume almost suffocating in the enclosed garden space. All of them encased in iron rings, jagged metal barbs facing inward to keep them from outgrowing their carefully arranged spaces.
Lest they grow wild, after all.
Moonlight streamed through the gaps in the carefully arranged foliage, casting dappled shadows across the stone path. The home of the Rosov family had gardens that were renowned for their beauty, but tonight they felt like a labyrinth designed to trap unwary visitors.
Nadi kept to the shadows. From her vantage point behind a large decorative urn, she could see both vampires clearly while remaining hidden herself.
Braen walked with the confidence of a predator in his own territory, seemingly unfazed.
If he knew this was a blackmail attempt, it didn’t seem to bother him.
“You know,” he said, pausing by a fountain depicting a mermaid-like fae with an eerily familiar face, “I was always waiting for our bad blood to come calling. I had hoped you would be the one to end me.” He ran a finger along the mermaid’s stone cheek. “I assume you plan to kill me tonight.”
“This isn’t about our old history.” Raziel shrugged, though his voice held an edge that suggested otherwise.
“Isn’t it?” Braen turned, brown-and-red-flecked eyes glinting in the moonlight. “Though I suppose nothing is ever simple with the Nostroms. Especially not with you.”
Reaching into his pocket, Raziel held up the ledger. “This is simple enough. You’ve been running a trafficking ring from your club, selling fae to the highest bidders. This would destroy the Rosovs completely, Braen. The elders of every vampire clan would blacklist you and your entire family.”
Braen froze. “You were involved…” He grimaced. “I should have known that was a coordinated attack. That delicious little creature was working with you the entire time?” Chuckling, he stroked a hand over his smoothed-back hair. “Forgive me for underestimating you.”
“Forgiven.” Raziel tucked the ledger back into his pocket. “Zabriel is marrying Lana. And they need you removed from the equation. This shameful business—”
“Which they all know I conduct—” Braen snarled, his fangs extended in a sudden burst of fury. “Those hypocrites! Loathsome slime! My siblings know full well what I do! What I enjoy! And half those elders you speak of are in that damnable book you’re holding!”
“I don’t doubt it.” Raziel shrugged again. “But I have a job to do. And here we are.”
Braen took a deep breath, smoothing out his suit coat. And let out his lungful of air in a long, heavy, weary sigh. “Yes. Here we are. Volencia’s attack dog has come to feast.”
The words hung in the air between them, heavy as an approaching thunderstorm. For a moment, neither of them moved.
Nadi shifted slightly, trying to get a better view while staying hidden. There was something in Braen’s tone—a familiarity, a bitterness. It was clear to her before now that his relationship with Raziel was more than just political, but now it was confirmed.
“This doesn’t have to end in blood.” Braen’s hands fidgeted at his sides. “I can close the operation. Disappear. I’ll give you proof of my death for you to take back to Volencia.”
“And you think a token will work?” Raziel smirked. He took a step closer to Braen, his movements fluid and precise. “She won’t rest until she has reports of your death from people she trusts. People other than me. And do you know why?”
Braen’s expression remained impassive, but something flickered in his eyes. “Enlighten me.”
“Because she doesn’t trust me, Braen.” Raziel circled Braen slowly, danger in every movement. “And she never has. Certainly not when it comes to us. Not after what she did to us.”
Braen grimaced. “And you have the audacity to tell me this is about some false wedding. Some political bullshit. This is about what she did to you. What she really made you into. The monster that’s standing in front of me.
The one who would kill me on a whim. The one who forgot all those sweet words he told me as the sun came up over the horizon. I know what really happened.”
Raziel hesitated as he stood in front of Braen, uncertainty in his expression.
Nadi tensed, sensing the shift in the atmosphere. This was veering away from their plan—Braen was supposed to be distracted by the blackmail, giving her a clean shot from the shadows. Instead, he seemed to be drawing Raziel into some dangerous verbal dance.
“And what exactly do you think you know?” Raziel’s voice had dropped an octave, taking on a dangerous edge.
“I know what she did after she found out about us.” Braen’s hand slid over Raziel’s shoulders, his brown eyes locked on Raziel’s crimson ones.
“How she turned me against you. Made me believe your affection was nothing but manipulation. Just your hypnotism at work.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Imagine my surprise when I learned years later that your gift doesn’t work that way at all. ”
Raziel had gone absolutely still, his face a careful mask. But Nadi could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands had curled into fists at his sides. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Braen raised an eyebrow. “She came to me, you know. The night before you and I…” He trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air.
“She showed me reports of your ‘episodes.’ The bodies. What you’d done to your former lovers.
Told me how you’d been manipulating my emotions all along.
That nothing I felt was real. That was why she told me I had to drive you away.
She told me I needed to betray you. To make you feel like it was your choice. ”
Nadi’s mind raced. What was Braen talking about? She knew Volencia was cruel to Raziel, but this sounded like something more manipulative. More subtle.
“She lied.” Raziel’s voice was tight.
“Perhaps.” Braen hummed, deceptively lighthearted.
“Or perhaps you’re the one lying now. Who can say?
Volencia certainly made it impossible to tell.
” He moved closer, until he was mere inches from Raziel.
“I think she couldn’t stand the thought of you having connections outside the family.
Someone who might see beyond the Serpent to the man beneath.
So she severed them. All of them. Can you imagine my surprise that you turned your new wife?
Tell me. Did you do it to spite your cunt of a mother? ”
Raziel hesitated, frozen solid, as if he were one of the statues in the garden. “No.”
“For power, then?” Braen laughed. “The cowgirl can’t have any kind of leverage.”
Raziel stayed silent.
Braen’s eyes went wide in shock. “You’re kidding me. Tell me you’re fooling me! Oh, Raziel, Raziel. My handsome, cruel, wonderful Raziel… you can’t mean it.” Reaching up, the smaller man took the Serpent’s face in his palms. “You can’t possibly love her.”
Silence. It echoed. Nadi’s ears rang with it like they had after a grenade was thrown into the middle of her wedding. Raziel, do something—say something—why aren’t you talking?
Raziel’s control was slipping. Whatever had passed between the vampires long ago was too personal, too volatile. Too dangerous.
“Why are you telling me all this now?” Raziel deflected from the topic of Monica, and for the first time, Nadi heard something like uncertainty in his voice.
“A shame. I wanted to hear you say you loved her.” Braen’s smile was almost gentle, a stark contrast to the hardness in his eyes.
“As for why now? Because I want you to understand why I’m going to enjoy killing you.
” His hand moved in a blur, and suddenly he was holding a gun.
“It’s nothing personal, old friend. Just survival. ”
Three shots, muffled against fabric and flesh.
That was all it took.
Fuck. No. No!
Raziel staggered backward, crimson blooming across his white shirt. One shot to the chest, two to the stomach. The shock on his face was genuine as he fell to his knees, blood spilling between the fingers he pressed to his wounds.
That was too fast. Braen had broken the script. Raziel had allowed himself to get suckered in.
Nadi froze, her heart hammering in her chest. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. Raziel was supposed to distract Braen while she moved in for the kill—clean, quick, untraceable. Not this. Not Raziel bleeding out on the ground with Braen standing over him, gun still raised.
“Do you know what the worst part was? About being with you?” Braen asked, crouching down to Raziel’s level.
“The uncertainty. Never knowing if what I felt for you was real or just another one of your mind games.” He pressed the barrel of the gun against Raziel’s forehead.
“In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter.
The result is the same. Now… are you truly you, I wonder?
Or your little fae shifter pet? Time to find out, I suppose. ”
Nadi was moving before she’d fully processed her decision, her form shifting as she stepped from the shadows. No longer a servant but a predator, sleek and deadly. The knife she’d kept hidden was now in her hand, its blade gleaming in the moonlight.
“I have to admit,” Braen chuckled down at Raziel, “if it is you, I’m a little disappointed. I expected more of a fight from the Serpent. Any last words before I send you to join all those humans you’ve commanded to their deaths?”
Raziel was too good to give up her approach.
Too good to reveal that Nadi was already in action.
He merely smiled up at him, his teeth already stained with his own blood.
“I thought I loved you, once. That wasn’t a lie.
But now I know what love is, Braen”—he coughed—“and I love her with an intensity and passion that you have never known in your life.”