Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Nadi didn’t know where she was being taken. A bag had been put over her head. No one was speaking to her. She had no clue which end was up. No one was hurting her either—so at least there was that.
It was clear who was to blame for this. Mael and Lana.
She tried to piece everything together in her head.
It had all happened so quickly. They had hired the fae to crash her own wedding.
But why? To what end? It was obvious their goal was to remake the politics of Runne in the name of some new world order, but—
Oh.
Fuck.
The men storming into the room hadn’t been after her, had they?
They had been after Volencia.
She started to laugh underneath the hood. And she laughed hard. The whole thing had been a setup to murder their mother to get her out of the way. And Nadi had gone and done their job for them.
And they had Raziel. But he had been alive, last she’d seen. Why? What purpose did he serve?
Either way, she was alive. And that meant she might have a chance at escape. She had a chance to get out of this alive, somehow. But getting out with Raziel? That would be much harder, if not impossible.
Part of her should be fine with that. Willing to say Fuck it, good, let the bastards sort their own shit out. But the other part of her wasn’t willing to let him go. Especially not now, after realizing she had foolishly…
Did she even want to escape with him anymore?
Mael’s offer was still on the table. And it was tempting.
Raziel was now very clearly the losing side.
Mael and Lana had won. They had the fae working with them, and they had played everyone—including her and Raziel—like chumps.
It would be suicidal to side with Raziel.
But…
No. Now wasn’t the time to start thinking about how she did or did not feel.
She was sitting in the back of a car. At least she hadn’t been crammed into the trunk this time.
They had taken her somewhere, then loaded her into a building, then loaded her into another car, then another building, and then into another car.
She had been allowed to sleep for a little while—and then another car.
How many hours had passed, she had no idea. She was just told to “Get up.” “Get in the car.” “Sit down.” And she silently obeyed. Now wasn’t the time for games. Now was the time for waiting. And listening.
When they pulled her out of the car that last time, she heard something interesting.
Water.
More specifically—the ocean. They were at the docks. But… why?
She’d been asking herself that a lot lately.
When someone pushed her up onto a surface that clomped under her feet, and angled upward, she realized she was on a gangway. She was boarding a ship. She could hear an engine idling. A boat. A large boat.
The Nostrom yacht, maybe? Why in the name of the moons were they bringing her on the yacht?
To take her back to the family estate, maybe. To sacrifice her and throw her into the pit where Monica should have gone in the first place. It’d be a fitting place to hide the body of the woman she was still pretending to be, even if Mael—and therefore, she assumed Lana—knew her secret.
But she was only guessing at all of those things. The person gripping her by the upper arm dragged her along the deck of the boat—it was definitely large judging by how long it took to bring her to where they were going. They shoved her down into a chair.
Finally, they ripped the bag off her head.
Blinking, she tried to focus her eyes. She hadn’t seen light in who knew how long.
“Sorry for the treatment, beautiful.” It was Mael.
He was seated in another chair across from her.
She was on the Nostrom yacht, she was right.
“We had to get Raziel and ‘Monica’ out of there before our people and the Rosovs demanded proof of both of your heads on pikes. They’ll follow us to the ends of Runne now, but not with that mad dog and his new wife in tow.
There were conditions. I’m sure you understand. ”
She studied him curiously for a moment. Sitting next to him on a three-seater were Zabriel and Lana. She furrowed her brow at them. “I…”
“First, can we drop the pretenses?” Mael smiled. “I would love to see your real face, Nadi.”
She glanced at the men and vampires standing around the deck, all heavily armed, and hesitated. “Well, that answers the question on whether or not Lana knows.”
“I was the first one to suspect. You think my dear dunderhead of a brother put it together on his own?” Lana chuckled and snuggled in closer to Zabriel’s side.
The other vampire draped an arm around her, kissing her temple.
Lana had changed out of her wedding dress into a less ornate affair.
“But he was the one who figured out from one of his associates that you were fae.”
Leaning back in the chair, Nadi turned her attention back to Mael. “This associate. Who are they?”
“A young man who you used to know, when you were young.” He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and pulled out Braen’s leather ledger.
He flipped back through several pages. “Kalo Lohti, to be specific. Remember him?” Finding the page he was looking for, he placed the book down in front of her.
There, clearly written, was Kalo’s name.
As having sold six fae into Braen’s… care.
Nadi’s heart lurched in her chest. For two reasons.
The first was the simplest. She did remember Kalo.
She had pretty much grown up with him. The Lohtis and the Iltanis were clans that met frequently to trade, and often intermarried.
He had been a bossy, older boy who had teased her about her tail and she had threatened to drown him a few times.
Her mother had always warned her that the teasing meant Kalo would ask for her hand someday.
Nadi would just laugh and repeat her threat of drowning.
The second reason she had a pang of pain that made her visibly wince, however, was far more complex. Raziel had given the ledger to Mael.
It hadn’t been locked up in a safety deposit box like he had told her. A stabbing pain made her wince as she realized this was precisely why she had always worked alone. He’d lied to her.
And Lana was too perceptive to miss the flash of emotion that crossed her borrowed face. “Oh, you didn’t know that Raziel gave us the ledger?”
It seemed Mael was quick enough to put it together on his own. “What did you think he was going to do with it, love?” He frowned. “Use it to find your people and free them? Keep it safely tucked away? Trust you with it?”
Trust.
That was the issue, wasn’t it?
She had just been starting to trust him.
Her jaw ticked, and she stayed silent. “Kalo told you about me.”
“When I asked him about anyone he knew who might be able to shapeshift between faces, he offered the whole story to me for free.” Mael shook his head. “That alcohol you lot drink is something else. How do you pronounce it? Ghripsa?”
Nadi smirked despite herself. “Ghri’sa.”
“I had already given my word I wasn’t going to kill you.
He just seemed happy you were alive. I think he might be harboring a bit of an old crush.
” Mael closed the ledger and tucked it back into his coat, sitting back in his chair.
“Lana and I had nothing to do with the death of your family. That was Volencia and Raziel. And you already got your revenge on one of them today.”
“Good job with that, by the way.” Lana laughed. “Crushing the skull! You really did hate her, didn’t you?”
“We have taken the precaution of severing her head from the neck. They have already been cremated separately and the remains will be scattered on opposite ends of Runne.” He gestured at the boat.
Ah. That explained the yacht. Though she was still suspicious.
“Now… can we please see the real you?” Mael smiled gently. “I find I’m deeply curious. And seeing this dead woman—the real Monica—I assume she’s dead?”
“Raziel killed her.” Nadi didn’t know why she was offering up the information.
Maybe part of her was reminding herself of the hard truth of the situation.
“I switched places with Monica when she first arrived at the metropolis. I paid her off. But when Raziel went to ‘sacrifice’ Monica, I learned… well, I hadn’t been fooling him as well as I’d thought. ”
“You had been playing him for that long?” Lana’s eyes went wide. “Oh, you are good. I thought the swap came later.”
“Not good enough,” Nadi sighed and shrugged. “Because here I am.”
“You got caught because there are how many of us, and how many of you?” Mael shook his head. “You also let yourself be compromised. If you had just taken out Raziel and vanished, then tried again for any one of us, and gone for us one at a time? You might have succeeded.”
The truth of his statement hit her harder than any kind of torture could have. She knew he was right. It was the same thing she’d been repeating to herself over and over again. But she kept arguing herself out of it—saying No, she had to stay, it was her only choice.
But it hadn’t been.
Shutting her eyes, she let her glamor fall. What was the point? She kept her legs, however. When she opened her eyes again, Mael and Lana were looking at her with shockingly similar expressions.
Both a mix of hunger, fascination, and… lust.
Even Zabriel was eyeing her like he was wondering how she might taste.
Vampires.
“I…” Mael’s golden eyes flicked between hers. “I can see why my brother has become so smitten with you. If anyone could crack the heart of that madman…”
“Of course, he loves her! She’s a broken thing because of him. An assassin of his making. So much blood on his hands, but all of it his fault?” Lana chuckled. “So wonderfully narcissistic, isn’t it?”
She’d never thought of it that way.