Chapter 8 #2
I stepped out of the shower, steam curling and playing around my body.
I slipped the robe off the back of the door and stepped in front of the mirror.
My hand swiped across the cool glass, the haze melting beneath my touch.
The reflection that stared back was me, but not quite me.
My skin glowed, my eyes were brighter, and my features sharper and more enticing.
An alluring, captivating creature stared back at me, a perk of being what I was always meant to be.
A predator. A monster.
I spun away, heading back into the main room.
Camilla’s astral self remained. She bit at her nail, watching whatever played on the screen.
I walked around the room, moving past the plush couches and chairs, looking for the briefcase I had spotted last night.
A small smile curved my lips when I spotted the case tucked into the corner.
I grabbed it and dumped the files and two guns onto the table.
Camilla’s form appeared next to the table. “Is that what I think it is?”
I nodded and scanned a couple of pages. “Come on, Webster. Where is the shipment?” I’d tasted it last night, a flash of memory when I had fed.
I’d seen some underground places, a few ships near a dock, and a meeting room of some sort.
The vision had been fuzzy, which was new for me, but I remembered him sitting around a table.
Maybe Kaden suspected some of his men might be on my hit list, and he had found a way to block even my blooddreams. I wouldn’t be surprised.
A word stuck out to me on the receipts. “Iron?”
Camilla leaned closer. “Why iron?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out,” I said, lowering the pages to the table. My fingers slid over the numbers and the names beside them. I paused on Donvirr Edge. I knew that place. It was an old docking site in the Banisle Sea.
“You think he is shipping stuff to Novas?”
I shook my head. “No, the island is practically gone.” I leaned forward, thinking. If he were using the docks, he was shipping something, but to where? Novas was nothing but rubble and ash after I had finished with it, so not there.
“I’ll go to the meeting Malone was supposed to attend tonight and—”
“You keep killing with no leads, Dianna,” Camilla said.
“Fine, I’ll torture them until they talk, then kill them.” I pushed away from the table and reached for the clothes Camilla had created for me.
“We are well aware of the growing threat, but I promise it is not what it seems.”
I stopped mid-motion, my chest clenching at that voice. My hands curled into the fabric of the robe as I clutched at my chest, the steady beat of my heart stuttering as if trying to find a new rhythm.
Samkiel.
My head whipped toward the screen, Samkiel’s face taking up the screen.
Camilla folded her arms, and I knew she had been waiting for this before unmuting the television.
“They made him look so… normal with those suits and ties they tossed on him, or tried to, at least. He’s too handsome for that.
He still looks too godly to me.” She paused.
“I wonder how often they make him do these interviews to make everyone feel safe.”
I said nothing.
“I know it’s been quiet for about a month with the new rules and regulations, but how can you confidently say that after everything that’s happened?
We all saw the threat, and now, with you being back here, I think we are all a little nervous.
” A feminine laugh filled the air after she spoke, and the camera panned out.
I watched as he leaned forward in his overly-priced suit and folded his hands.
Camilla was right. He was far too godsdamn handsome.
My heart fluttered at the sight of him. He smiled, making that stupid, perfect jawline stand out. The anchorwoman ate it up like cake.
“Well, with the new curfew and more celestials per city, I think—”
My head went silent as his voice flooded the hotel room.
The screen showed every fucking perfect line of his features, but it wasn’t his beauty that made my heart ache so badly it felt like it would explode.
Ice pricked my skin, a wave of cold threatening to consume me as my mind served up the memory of another room and another screen glaring me in the face.
My chest heaved, my breathing becoming erratic.
The hotel melted away, static invading my ears.
The only thing I could hear were those damned words.
What were your intentions with this failed relationship?
You are nothing to him, and you never will be.
Do you really think he will choose you after all of this is over?
Be realistic.
Even if I don’t win, you will still lose.
Remember that I love you…
My hand whipped out. A tunnel of flames ripped forward, burning through Camilla’s shadowy form, creating a hole through Samkiel’s damned face and that screen.
Camilla disappeared, the room going up in a blistering inferno.
Sparks sizzled, and flames climbed the wall, smoke filling the room.
Alarms pierced the air, accompanied by screams and running feet out in the halls.
I walked out, leaving the room burning.
* * *
“You’re late, Malone,” a brutish man said, spitting a stream of tobacco juice to the side.
His bald head shone in the moonlight, tattoos decorating the side of his neck.
Mortal, he smelled mortal, and I could hear eighty-four others nearby.
That included those within the small dive bar.
As long as Tobias didn’t show up, I would be fine.
These were low-level criminals of the mortal variety.
“The message I got said ten tonight,” I argued as he kicked the side door. A small metal window slid back, and someone peered out before closing it tight.
“Boss moved it up. He is getting nervous. Look, dude, I don’t make the rules. Just get your ass inside.”
Donte was his name, hired muscle and one of Webster’s bodyguards. His size would intimidate most, but he stood no chance unless he was secretly Otherworld.
The door swung open, and music blared, the sound coming from beyond the adjacent wall. Donte and I strode past the scrawny door guy. I heard the voices of two men grow louder as we moved down the red-tinted hall.
“Fucking cheater.”
“I don’t have extra cards, you dipshit. You’re just a sore loser.”
Donte pushed the door open, revealing a small storage-type room. Someone slammed a fist against the table, and chips rained to the floor. I counted only five men here. Well, six if you included me. Their heartbeats told me they weren’t Otherworldly, and my stomach growled.
“Hungry, boss?” Donte asked. That got the room’s attention. Several heads swiveled toward us as the door closed.
“About fucking time you showed up, Malone,” a man said around the cigar hanging from his mouth.
I recognized him from Malone’s memories.
His hairline had receded until it curved around the sides of his head, the gray hair revealing his age.
His voice crackled, and his lungs rattled with every breath, indicating years and years of smoking.
Edgar. Yes, that was his name.
The other men listened, one shuffling and dealing out a new hand.
“Care for a game while we wait?” Edgar asked, taking the cigar from his lips and knocking the ashes off to the side.
My fists clenched at my sides, my gaze narrowing.
The scent wafted through the air, arousing painful memories of friends I thought were true but had betrayed me in the worst way.
Traitors. They were all traitors. You would think I would have learned by now.
No one truly cared about me or had my back.
No one but her, and now she was gone because of them.
I hated cigars.
“You think we have time for fucking games?” My voice, deep and masculine, echoed through the room. They all stopped and looked at me. The two men on either side of Edgar gawked at me, a shade of pink darkening their fair skin. My comment only got a grunt from the tanned man studying his cards.
Edgar shifted in his seat. “In a hurry, Malone?” he asked, giving me a hard stare over the top of his cards. “You know damn well we don’t move until he calls.”
I nodded slowly. They were all just fucking pawns.
“Fine.”
Donte stayed by the door, watching quietly. I grabbed an empty chair, its legs scraping against the floor. I adjusted the jacket I wore and sat down gingerly. Webster wasn’t the smallest guy, that was for sure.
The man reshuffled and dealt the cards. I leaned back, blowing out a breath as I glanced at the hand I had been dealt—two kings, an ace, a three, and a five.
My memory was shit when it came to this game.
I’d only played a few times, and even then, it was out of boredom more than anything.
It was something Alistair made Tobias and me do when we were waiting for Kaden.
It seemed I was always waiting for Kaden.
“You suck at this.” Alistair laughed, taking my cards back from me while we sat at the table in Novas.
“I’m sorry. It is not my strong suit. It makes no sense to me.”
Tobias grumbled under his breath, earning himself a glance from Alistair. I shook my head as Alistair grabbed the cards and shifted closer to show me.
“Look at this.” Alistair flipped the cards over, placing them in front of me. “Which one do you think is the strongest?”
I rolled my eyes and pointed. “Obviously, the king and queen.”
Tobias made a strangled noise that sounded like a laugh as Alistair rubbed his chin. “In chess, yes, but in this game, no. The ace is the deciding card on who wins the main battle, so to say.”
“The ace?”
“It is the one that looks completely unassuming next to these pricks.” He pointed to the king and queen. “But when you have it in your hand, you could rule the world. Well, I guess the table, so to speak.”
“Can we play now?” Tobias snapped, holding his cards under his chin.