Chapter 7
rune
. . .
I was getting accustomed to the late-night mission calls over the past three months, but I still didn’t like them.
Stretching my arms overhead, my jaw let out a sharp crack as I yawned.
My muscles were tight from the lack of sleep lately.
Year four was a constant stream of missions since we had to go on every mission Jesper’s squad was called on.
When we shadowed our mentors, the academy cherry-picked missions.
Now, we were being exposed to all of them.
It made sense now why we were only scheduled for two House Cooperation mission simulations for the academy. There was barely time for academics.
The night air was icy enough to sting my lungs as I stepped out of the portal and onto the shore of Shadowmere Abyss in the Bizarre.
The lake was a sprawling expanse of dark, glass-like water.
Moonlight traced a pale path across the surface, turning thin wisps of fog into phantom-like fingers that curled over the water.
Pine trees enclosed the shore, their silhouettes sharp and jagged against the star-adorned sky.
The only sounds were the soft lapping of water against stone and the distant sounds of wildlife.
And, of course, the quiet shuffle of agents moving around the crime scene of a dead body.
Another one.
Today’s corpse lay stretched on a pale sheet near the waterline. She was a banshee in her late twenties. Her skin was waterlogged, pale blonde hair plastered to her face, with her lips blue. The way her joints had locked made it clear she hadn’t died peacefully.
Drowning was a death some thought of as peaceful. It was anything but.
I gripped the handle of my sheathed dagger on my thigh and walked toward the cluster of agents.
Jesper already stood in the shallows, feet underwater but not really wet because the enchanted uniforms didn’t let the water in. He was talking low with a figure half-submerged a few yards out.
I knew immediately that he was the kelpie, Baron, whom the locals had been pointing fingers at.
Baron lounged in the dark waters lazily.
He was a lean, pale man, with ink-dark hair dripping down his shoulders and green eyes shimmering in the dark.
“I’m telling you, I’m not the killer,” he said, tossing wet hair back from his face.
“But someone clearly wants everyone to think I am, since this lake is my domain. Bodies keep surfacing in my home, and they are banshees or phantoms. All drowned. I don’t feel their presence in my lake until they float up and the killer is gone. ”
He glared at the corpse on the sheet.
“Only banshees and phantoms,” Jesper repeated calmly.
My dragon mate was so hot when he went into agent-mode. He stood with his hands on his hips, shoulder-length white hair tied back, and deep brown eyes steady on Baron’s face. Moonlight caught the planes of his cheekbones and the hard line of his jaw.
Fates, I loved him.
He shifted on the rocky shore as if he felt my admiration through the bond.
I couldn’t hide the way the corners of my lips quirked up.
“Yes,” Baron said. “Only banshees and phantoms. You think I don’t notice a supernatural drowning in my territory normally? I’m not even getting my reserves filled from their deaths.”
Jesper nodded. “I’m not accusing you of killing them. If you were feeding off their deaths, I doubt you’d be standing here complaining to the council’s agents.”
Baron snorted. “Exactly.”
“But,” Jesper added, “someone is using your lake. They’re dumping their kills here and framing you by proximity.”
Baron’s mouth tightened. “Yep.”
His eyes flicked to the shore, where the members of our squad worked.
Lysa stood a foot away from the body, tablet in hand, with her hair pulled into a tight braid.
Kane used his magic while Sylver used magical instruments to look for any magical signatures of the real culprit.
“I can’t pinpoint any magical signature other than her own,” Kane muttered. “Rules out the kelpie, but…”
“Doesn’t get us any closer to finding out who did it…” Sylver paused, tilting her head. “I can’t get an exact reading of the signature, but there are traces of an ice-type of magical energy. It’s an ice fae, icedrake, or someone with a special power.”
Definitely not the kelpie, then.
“Sending you what the device caught,” Lysa told Corin and Slater through the comms.
They had set up a portable terminal further up the shore.
Corin’s gray hair fell over one eye as he hunched over the array, fingers ghosting over the interface. His phantom form flickered back and forth, making him look half-transparent in the moonlight.
Slater sat beside him, one knee up, red eyes glowing faintly as he watched the screen. His bond buzzed with focus.
“The ice residue in the magical energy is a closer match for fae than draconic,” Corin said after a beat. “But that’s an educated guess. Every time I try to isolate the pattern, it glitches.”
Slater frowned, tapping faster as his chaos magic sparked around him. Snakey formed around his neck, hissing.
Kane ran a hand through his dark purple hair. “I have a spell that can tell us for sure if it’s fae or not, but it’ll take a lot of magical energy.”
“I’ll join,” Lysa offered.
“I’ll help,” Sylver decided. “I can’t do as much as you and Lysa can since you are a warlock and a witch, but surely my intent of magical essence should help.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Kane told her as they formed a small triangle around the body before magic began to roll off them in subtle waves.
Kane muttered a spell, and they joined in as magic swelled around them, surrounding the body.
I felt it prickle my skin even from this far away.
“Definitely fae,” Kane said after a long moment. “It’s hidden, but there. Has to be an ice fae.”
Sylver’s expression pinched. “And the grief…whoever killed this woman was grieving, wait, no. Maybe they were obsessed? It’s hard to tell. The emotional imprint is deteriorating.”
Kane’s brows rose. “You can tell that?”
She nodded.
“That’s incredible for a siren to be able to do,” Lysa told her.
She smiled. “My sisters and I participated in quite a few spells with our best friend in Cursinia.”
“Another witch?” Kane asked.
She shook her head. “A siren like us, actually.”
“So, we’re looking for an ice fae killing banshees and phantoms and using a kelpie’s lake as a dumping ground,” I muttered. “Fun.”
“I don’t know if ‘fun’ is the word I’d use.” Baron groaned.
Jesper rolled his eyes in amusement.
Morgan and Koa stayed close to the shore, making sure they were here in case anything went wrong.
Unfortunately, they were the ones who had to do the autopsy once the magical specialists and intelligence analysts had finished their investigations.
“Kyle, Tobias,” Jesper called, noticing my brother and the other enforcer inspecting a spot on the shore. “What did you find?”
Kyle ran a hand over his buzzed black hair and lifted his head. “Blood,” he stated.
Tibby huffed, crossing his arms. “The blood is fae.” He angled his head toward the treeline. “Trail starts there, and then it just stops.”
“I almost think the blood has been left on purpose,” Kyle added.
“Why do that?” Baron asked, frowning.
“To provoke us,” I muttered, finally joining Jesper at the water’s edge. “Especially since we can’t find a motive or lead.”
“Investigations rarely go anywhere fast,” he told me. “We gather and build evidence before we can act.”
I scowled. “I hate waiting.”
Amusement trickled down the bond. “I know.”
“There’s been other squads,” Baron muttered. “None found the killer.”
“We won’t stop until we do,” Jesper promised. “No matter how long it takes.”
Corin and Slater swore at the surrounding CCTV feed.
“It’s looped,” Slater announced finally, disgust clear in his voice. “Someone rewound the last hour before each death and pasted a previous day’s clean lake. Timestamps are doctored. Every time I try to patch through, I get fae interference, so even Snakey can’t pull it.”
“So whoever’s doing this is good at both magic and tech,” Corin said. “Great.”
The night dragged on.
We were tired, cold, and no closer to finding the killer when everything went to shit.
Voices carried on the night air from the trail that led down to the lake. Flashlights flared between the trees, bright beams showing us at least twenty beings.
Finally, the group poured out of the treeline and onto the shore. They were humans and carried guns, and they were decked out in tactical gear.
Jesper stepped forward, hands spread. “This is an active investigation. You need to leave the area. Now.”
“We’re not going anywhere!” a man near the front yelled. “Our friend died here, and the local water horse did it!”
Baron chuckled at that. “To be fair, I did kill a human yesterday. But that was unrelated to the supernatural murders.”
Jesper shot him a sharp look, and he sank lower into the lake.
“These people are not from the Human Resistance Network, are they?” Arban asked quietly from behind us. “No insignia or anything.”
Eleanor stood beside her, eyes scanning the crowd. “Perhaps not. We should be careful not to kill until we can verify.”
Jesper nodded once. “Non-lethal force. Subdue, don’t kill. We only get to break that rule for the confirmed Human Resistance Network humans.”
“Fine,” I hissed, my fangs itching.
The humans surged forward, and I moved without thinking, spy training taking over my muscle memory.
One came at me with an electric bat. I sidestepped, caught his wrist, and twisted it. His bones snapped, and he screamed and dropped to his knees. I tapped the back of his neck with my fingertips, and venom sizzled into his skin.
He went limp, temporarily paralyzed.
Another swung a pipe at my head, but I ducked and drove my elbow into his ribs. I brushed my fingertips over his exposed forearm, and he dropped similarly.
All along the shore, it was the same.
Jesse, Tobias, April, and Kyle used non-lethal holds and knocked the humans out. Zuko and Rhyse fought with the same efficiency. Morgan and Koa darted in and out, healing snapped wrists and preventing permanent damage, as well as keeping our side standing.
We should have had it controlled, but we missed the sniper from the treeline. A bullet zipped directly toward my mate.
“Koa!” I shouted, but I should’ve known he wouldn’t dodge it.
He half-turned toward me as the shot hit him square in the chest.
Koa’s eyes went wide as it pierced his heart, phoenix fire bursting around him in a sudden blast, turning his body into a column of blue-gold heat.
White-hot pain slammed through my chest from the matebond.
I staggered, breath ripped out of me.
As Koa reincarnated, I met the gaze of the human who’d shot him.
He grinned.
Anger raged through me, and I barely saw the baton coming from behind.
The electric shock slammed into the back of my skull like a hammer made of lightning. My vision went white, then black.
“Rune!” my mates screamed in the distance, but it stretched and warped like it was coming from underwater.
“Get her blood,” a voice said, right at the edge of my awareness. “That’s the basilisk! Get a sample before they pull back—”
“Human Resistance Network confirmed,” Jesper roared. “Kill them all!”
Black swallowed me, and then the nightmare began.
I knew it was a nightmare as soon as I recognized the room.
It was my room with white, icy decor I’d burned after breaking up with Darian. The strong scent of glacial amber invaded my senses as I lay on my back, wrists pinned above my head by bands of ice. My ankles were strapped down too, frost burning my skin where it touched.
I couldn’t move.
Just like before.
Darian hovered over me, greenish-blue eyes shining with a hunger that had nothing to do with affection, like I’d duped myself into believing.
“Relax,” he crooned. “You like it cold.”
“I don’t,” I protested, but my voice came out thin. It lacked the conviction it should’ve.
He smiled and pressed his hand to my chest, right between my breasts.
Ice slid into my lungs.
I barely made a gasp as shards of frozen air bloomed inside me, expanding and filling every space where my breath should’ve been. I couldn’t inhale or exhale. My lungs were turning into solid crystal within my ribs.
This had happened before, but…
I’d buried it.
This Fates-forsaken nightmare had yanked it back up and strengthened the damned memory until I could feel every needle of ice.
“You can scream if you want,” Darian said. “No one will hear you under all that ice. Isn’t it more fun that way, babe?”
This isn’t real.
I fought to breathe, yanking at the ice restraints as uselessly as I had before. Panic clawed at my throat as my vision blurred at the edges.
A shadow of a figure caught my eye in the corner of the room. They were tall with the wrong proportions, and I knew it had to be the drude.
They lingered just inside the edge of my perception, like a smudge on a mirror. I knew I’d be able to see them fully if my brain wasn’t lacking oxygen.
I shoved at the memory, breaking the restraints as my basilisk power surged into my limbs.
The ice splintered.
I swung at Darian, screaming, “No!”
The drude and Darian laughed softly as ice tightened in my lungs.
No, that wasn’t right.
When I’d broken the ice cuffs, his power dissipated.
But then, warmth tugged at my chest. A thread of heat wrapped around my consciousness, pulling me backward, away from the ice, the bed, Darian, and the damned drude.
“Venom baby, fucking wake up!” Slater’s voice cracked.
Another thread of magic flitted through my brain.
“Grab on,” Kane’s voice came through firmly. “We’ve got you.”
The drude growled as the surrounding scene shuddered, like a rock being thrown into a lake.
Darian’s face warped, features stretching, melting into something monstrous.
I tore my ankles free, surged up, and shoved Darian away hard.
He fell backward off the bed, surprise flickering across his changed face.
“I’m going to kill you!” I lunged for the corner, toward the drude.
My fingertips were coated with fatal venom, but before I could reach him, the nightmare shattered.