Chapter 17
Onyx watched the girl wander through the woods, so innocent and curious. Kaitlyn bent down to pick up a bug, lifting it to the light that streamed down through the Australian pines. Its wings beat a staccato rhythm, and then Kaitlyn let it go.
Jealousy consumed her at the girl’s guileless smile. Onyx remembered when she was young and na?ve. Before she’d witnessed her first murder—her younger sister when Onyx was just ten.
Soon no one would ever hurt Onyx again. She would have immortality.
That was almost as important to her as saving a god.
Well, maybe more. The whole I’m-almost-a-god-because-I-consort-with-one thing was Ferro’s thing.
Not that he would say it outright, but she knew he relished having a relationship with his sire.
He didn’t seem bothered that Drakos never showed affection or any real kinship.
Ferro would be displeased that she’d disobeyed him by taking care of the girl now, but that was nothing new.
They were running out of time, and the Fringers weren’t erupting into a blood war as she had thought they would.
Killing this girl would do it. Onyx would gain no power, so she hadn’t Catalyzed.
No need; the kid wouldn’t fight. She would be surprised by the pleasant woman who’d gotten lost in the woods.
This girl didn’t grow up in the era of fear and blood.
She wouldn’t have reason to suspect a thing until Onyx drew the knife blade across her throat.
“Kaitlyn!”
Panicked voices called from the near distance, feet stomping across the dirt. Dragon feet. In broad daylight. Shrill and urgent whistles pierced the air.
The girl lifted her head and whistled in response. Onyx stepped way back into the shadows as five Dragons raced into view. Two women and three men Catalyzed back to human as they reached her.
“What’s wrong, Mama, Daddy?” she asked, as insipid and clueless as Snow White.
A woman pulled her into her arms, making Onyx ache at the sight. Her own mother, gone. Her daddy, dead.
“We didn’t know where you were,” the mother said, relief saturating her voice.
“But I always explore the woods, and you never got worried before.”
“Violet was pulling our leg,” one man said.
“Maybe she was trying to get us away from the house. Let’s go.”
Three of them Catalyzed and raced back. The other two walked with the girl, who wasn’t Awakened yet and so couldn’t become Dragon.
Violet had warned them. How the hell had she known? But wait. Violet was dead. Had she warned them before Ferro’s trusty Vega had offed her and her boyfriend? Onyx slipped through the forest to her car.
She drove toward the vacant land next to the Castanegas, intending to spy on Violet’s house. She didn’t have to go far. Violet pulled out of Ernie’s just ahead of her. Her two brothers followed in their truck.
Onyx fumbled for her phone and called Ferro. He answered on the third ring. “I can’t talk right now—”
“Violet’s alive. I’m driving right behind her.”
“You’re supposed to be home recuperating.”
She ignored his chastisement. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“I suspected as much. I’m in the middle of a situation. One of my officers came in and tried to kill me. I’ll have to call you back.”
That officer had to be Kade Kavanaugh. Ferro was with others and couldn’t talk candidly; she recognized that formal tone in his voice.
She focused on Violet again, could almost feel her blood oozing through her hands. Could taste it. Red Lust licked at her, breathing down her neck with its seductive heat.
Kill, her Dragon whispered. She put her hand to her stomach, where its energy resided. “Soon. Very soon.”
Both vehicles turned into the Castanega entrance.
Onyx continued on and made her way down the weed-overgrown driveway, past the abandoned buildings, and parked.
She walked to the border where she could watch for Violet to return home.
At some point she would be alone. But Violet never returned.
She settled in impatiently. The bitch would come home sometime.
* * *
Jessup parked his truck at the main house, and he and Ryan got into Violet’s car.
They drove into the congested city and followed the directions Mia had given to the marina.
Violet spotted her waiting at the end of Dock C, the breeze tossing her dark hair.
Worry darkened the mist in her eyes and curved her mouth into a frown.
She came forward when she saw Violet, though her expression grew wary at seeing her brothers following close behind.
Jessup and Ryan flanked Violet when she stopped in front of Mia, looking thorny as always in the presence of authority.
Mia shored her shoulders. “Who are you?”
Violet made quick introductions. “They’re coming in with me.”
Jessup said, “We don’t like your brother, but Violet’s got it in her head that she owes him.”
Ryan rolled his eyes at Jessup. “You think she’s doing this because she owes him? Dude, get a reality check. She’s in love with the guy.”
Violet gave them both a quelling look and turned back to Mia. “Let’s go where we can talk.”
Mia searched Violet’s face. “Are you? In love with Kade?”
Several answers crashed into Violet’s mind at once, but she didn’t allow herself time to sort through them. “I don’t know what I feel for him. He was sent to kill me, after all. But he didn’t. I do know I’m scared for him. And I’m scared not to see him again.”
Mia nodded, then gestured for them to follow her down the dock. She’d said “Kade’s boat.” Violet didn’t even know he had a boat, but then again, she knew so little about him.
The boat Mia led them to was vintage, about thirty-six feet long, and in beautiful condition. Mia stepped onto the flat railing agilely, though Ryan put his hand out to steady her. She ignored it, jumping down and lifting her hand to Violet.
There were two retro-looking chairs beneath a blue tarp, along with a small table. She could clearly imagine Kade sitting there, a beer in hand, talking about the designer who’d come up with the chair. The image tweaked her heart.
Her brothers showed off, launching themselves over the railing and landing with a thump on the deck.
Mia beckoned them down into the cabin. The place was neat, with cups and plates stored in tilt-proof bins above the counter in a miniature kitchen.
This was where Kade was more himself. She could see that, with curtains so tropically garish they had to be a joke.
One shelf held empty beer bottles from different places. On the sofa sat a banged-up guitar.
Mia followed Violet’s gaze to it, hers heavy and sad. “Kade told me he was jamming to Wild Thing on his guitar. Naked. Someone called the cops on him, and he went up on deck with nothing but that guitar. They threatened to haul him in for indecent exposure. I can’t even imagine him doing that.”
“That was the part he gave up for the Guard.”
And the part that called to Violet, that pulled and twisted.
They crammed in at the table, and Violet opened her folder. “I’m going to give you a quick rundown of what Kade and I have been investigating, so you’ll understand why he did what he did.”
“He said he was thinking. Trusting his gut.” Mia put her hand on her stomach.
“And that I should do the same. When you told me what he’d told you…
it hurt. Hurt that he told you things he never told me.
But once I got past that, and what he was doing, I realized my gut is saying my brother’s not crazy. Or wrong.”
Kade had told Violet things, intimate things, about himself.
If he were putting on a show to gain her trust, he would have focused on seducing her.
But when they’d been kissing in her living room, it was Kade who had stopped.
At least he’d tried to. It was Violet who had seduced him, as it turned out.
I’m a bad, bad man, Vee.
Now she knew why he’d said that. He had tried to keep them from getting too close. Because he was a good man.
Violet told Mia about the territory map she saw in Ferro’s office and what Kade had reported.
“Have you heard about the Dragon deaths lately? A lot of them. I looked up some of the names Kade gave me. The ones I could find—dead. I don’t know whether they were Breathed or not, but given what’s been happening here, I’d assume so. ”
Mia gave her an odd look. “You’re different than I thought you’d be.”
Jessup leaned closer to her, making Mia shift away. “Thought we were all idjits, din’t ya?”
Ryan smacked his arm. “Don’t mind him. He can be a butthead.”
“Boys.” Violet admonished.
Mia gave Ryan a softer look before laying out two pieces of paper she’d taped together.
On it was a rough outline of a building.
“Here are the exits, and over here is where the prisoners are kept. Over here is the psych ward, where…well, that’s where Kade will probably be.
I had prison duty a few years back so I know how it works.
” Her mouth tightened when she met Violet’s eyes. “And I’m going with you.”
“Are you sure? You can stay out of this, preserve your career.”
“My career with an agency that would kill innocent people? Who put my brother in prison for doing the right thing?”
“We don’t know if the Guard is wholly corrupt or if it’s just Ferro.”
“Either way, I’m out. And with you, I’m in.”
* * *
Drakos met with his two…well, he wouldn’t consider them friends by any means.
Cohorts, he supposed. Once the gods existed in a magnificent plane, privy to all of the humans’ doings, receptive to their adulation and prayers.
Then the humans turned their backs on them, more concerned with the physical world.