Chapter 39
YIRI
It only took one word from Nerus to know something was wrong. Bad wrong. Somebody was going to die wrong.
“Boss.”
I didn’t stop to excuse myself from the discussion I’d been having with Eissoi’s Premier. Leaving the male droning on mid-sentence about the state of tourism this year, I followed Nerus through the crowd, heading toward the veranda.
“Zoddi’s down,” he said quietly. “Found him out here behind a potted plant.”
My veins filled with ice. “Where’s Cora?”
“Don’t know,” Nerus said.
“Where the fuck is Xokat?” I demanded as we reached Zoddi’s crumpled form. I stooped to check his pulse. Finding it strong, I put the male out of my mind. He’d be fine, but until he came around, he’d be no use to me.
“Unaccounted for,” Nerus said grimly. “Already got someone checking security recs for what happened.”
“I saw her come out here,” I said. “They were both right behind her.”
Nerus nodded. “Other than Zoddi, there’s no sign of a struggle. I’ve got soldiers already searching the grounds.”
“I need her found now.”
“I know,” he said, grimly, his frame out, our soldiers already reporting in from all corners of Zacal’s estate.
“Bruukto?”
“We have eyes on him,” Nerus answered.
“He doesn’t leave,” I said. “I want him confined.”
“Zacal won’t like it.”
“Fuck Zacal. Confine him too if he interferes.”
“Boss.”
I rounded on my second, my closest friend. “Who do you work for?” I demanded. “Decide now. My Ibar chosen mate is missing. Anyone standing between me and her will die. If you have a problem with that, get the fuck out of my way, because you are not the exception.”
Nerus nodded. “Understood.”
Twenty minutes later, I still didn’t have my mate back.
All I had were deleted recs on all the outside cameras for the past hour, a fuming uncle, an army of nervous, harried soldiers in constant motion, and one smug rival boss watching us all swarm the compound.
Bruukto said he had nothing to do with Cora’s disappearance, but my trust in him was only marginally stronger than my trust in his treacherous, murdering daughter.
“Incoming,” Nerus muttered, bringing my pacing to an abrupt halt.
Speaking of the hateful ga’ad.
D'vinda sailed past my guards at the door, violence laced in every step. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded as if she were the boss of Cendaqua, and not her father.
“Good, you’re here,” I said, giving the order for my soldiers to seize her with a jerk of my chin. “We can do this quick, or we can do it dirty. Your choice. You tell me where the fuck she is, and maybe I’ll let you die before I let my cekets tear you apart.”
D'vinda snorted derisively. “Try it,” she dared me. “See if you survive the night.”
I lunged, stopping a breath from her face, my teeth bared. “WHERE IS SHE?!”
Her usually unflappable demeanor showed just a crack, a small intake of breath. “Who?”
“My. Fucking. WIFE.”
Her shoulders bounced with one ugly little laugh. “You lost her already? Shit. That’s too bad.”
“D'vinda,” her father warned. “Now is not the time for jokes.”
“Who’s joking?” She gestured around my makeshift war room, a mix of formal evening wear and street clothes, as my soldiers scoured security recs and called every contact we had, chasing down any possible lead.
The smell of anxiety, fear, and anger was thick in the air.
“He has the best security in the star system, and he can’t keep track of one little female far from home?
Are you sure she wants to be found, Ahlon? ”
“Start with her fingers,” I said to Nerus. “No need to make Evik’s mating any harder to stomach by damaging her face yet.”
Bruukto and his meager crew of guards all stepped forward, trying to put themselves between me and D'vinda. They should have acted as soon as she came in. By now? It was far too late. Before anyone could even shout out a protest, one of Zacal’s guards pressed a phase blade under D'vinda’s chin.
Everyone stopped, silence pulsing through the room like a ghostly heartbeat.
“The sooner you tell me where she is, the better off you’ll be,” I said. “I have every reason to hate you. You killed my brother, and I let you live. But this is my Aneah.”
“I don’t have her,” D'vinda said, teeth clenched. “Contrary to what you might think, I have no reason to hate you or your mate.”
“You have every reason!” I thundered. Nerus closed in on her, unsheathing his phase blade and reaching for her hand.
“I don’t have her!” D'vinda shrieked, as her father thundered, “Don’t you touch her!”
“Go ahead and take two fingers,” I said. “I hate liars.”
“Wait!” D'vinda cried. “Wait. Let’s talk. Get him out of here,” she nodded to Bruukto, “and I’ll talk.”
My eyes narrowed as I thought it through. Why would she want him gone? “I think it’s best if he sees what we do next,” I said. “If you don’t talk, maybe he will to save his precious daughter.”
“When you have a child of your own,” Bruukto gritted out, “I swear you’ll have no peace, Yiri Ahlon! Don’t you touch a hair on her head!”
“No one will have peace until my wife, my Aneah, is by my side again!”
“Get him out of here, and I’ll talk,” D'vinda repeated. “Do you want her back or not?”
FUCK!
All it took was a jerk of my head for the soldiers guarding Bruukto to start prodding him toward the door.
“Everyone else, too,” D'vinda insisted, her eyes darting around the room. I snarled viciously, but she squared her shoulders and faced me head-on. “I’ll only talk to you.”
“No.” I hooked a thumb over my shoulder to where Bruukto was fighting his expulsion from the room and losing the battle. “I did what you asked.”
“Now do this, too,” she said, lifting her chin. “More lives than mine depend on it. You can cut all my fingers and toes off, but I won’t talk unless you clear the room.”
She was evil enough that I believed her. Cursing, I turned to Zacal. He opened his mouth to protest, but stopped when I said, “My Aneah.” With a nod, he went, and the room slowly emptied behind him until it was only me, Nerus, and D'vinda.
“You, too,” she sniped at him, but he shook his head.
“He stays, I stay.”
D'vinda turned her eyes to me in silent appeal, but I gave her a hard look. “You’re about to be down a few digits.”
With a frustrated sigh and a look of disgust, she crossed her arms over her chest and stared up at me.
“Fine,” she said. “But if what I tell you leaves this room, I’ll kill you both myself.”
“Like you killed my brother?” I asked. “With an assassin?”
“Yeah,” she snapped back. “Just. Like. That.”
“Where is my wife?”
D'vinda took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “I don’t know.” A second later, she held up her hands, hurrying to stop me as I unsheathed my phase blade. “But I know people who could help find her!”
“YOU TOOK HER FROM ME!”
D'vinda shook her head, stepping back, finally showing the appropriate fear for her situation.
“I admit, I am in the habit of stealing wives,” she said quickly. “Just not happy ones.”
“What?” Nerus asked, his head cocked.
“Wives,” she said. “I smuggle them out of Ibaruta. I’m connected with a network of people who… have resources. I can help you find her if she’s been taken against her will.”
“She was,” I growled.
D'vinda lifted a sardonic brow. “Because who wouldn’t want to be mated to you, right? Look, I’ve been keeping eyes on her, and she seems…” She made an incredulous sound. “Taken with you? Ibar knows why.”
“Because Ibar chose me for her.”
“Sure, we’ll go with that,” she shrugged. “And if she wants to come back, I can help make that happen. If she doesn’t, you’ll never see her again.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Nerus intervened, his hand against my chest before I could lunge for the bitch again. “You’re saying you’re, what? Some kind of Ibarutan bride liberator?”
D'vinda’s spine was rigid as stone as she stared us down.
“You?” I scoffed. “I’m supposed to believe you found all this concern for the forced mates of Ibaruta somewhere in your lying, murdering, stone-cold heart?”
“All these years you’ve blamed me for Rava’s death,” she sneered, “but you’re still too much of a coward to ask yourself why I did it?”
“Power,” I said. “Influence. Does it matter? He’s dead. I’ll never see my brother again because of you.”
Something moved beneath her features, but she beat it back through sheer force of will. “I loved him,” she said, snarling when I rolled my eyes at the lie. “I did. I thought he was my second… my mate.”
“The man you paid someone to gut in an alley?”
“Yes!” She marched forward, jabbing a sharp nail into my chest. “Your brother, my beloved, was shipping hundreds of viable females onto that fucking shit-stain of a moon! Dozens every week. It didn’t matter if they were already mated, or mothers, or sisters as long as they had healthy wombs and could pass for the legal marriage age on Ibarauta. ”
No. Rava would never do that. It was a lie. Another lie from a female who wore them like the latest fashion. So why did I have a new ache in the pit of my stomach? Why was Nerus stone still beside me?
“Prove it.”
D'vinda huffed out a breath. “I will. I have plenty of evidence saved up for this very conversation. Maybe you’d like me to reach out to my contacts about your wife first, though?”
I nodded to Nerus, who passed her a small frame.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
D'vinda chuckled. “Believe it or not, Qhev’in Kon.”