Chapter Twenty-One #2
Ti, the fae elder, laughed softly. “You are right to be suspicious, dear. But we didn’t call you here to cause you harm or to release armies of brutes upon you to see how well you fare.
” Briefly, she glared at Ael, who lifted his chin and stared down his nose at me with the sort of arrogance only a wolf alpha could manage.
The demon blade continued to gently smoke, either in response to the danger or to the emotions coming from me. I relaxed a little. “You know about the siphoner.”
The vampire elder lifted his eyebrows, straightening some of the many folds and wrinkles on his ancient face. “Did you think we wouldn’t, Kait?”
“Not really, Elder.” I hesitated, reluctant to say the words. I did, though, after taking a deep breath and attempting a casualness I wasn’t feeling. “I have only my wolf and my blade left. I guess you know that, too.”
Ael thumped his staff on the floor hard enough to make my teeth ache. “If you let her take your magic, then you deserved to lose it.”
Rage exploded inside me. Much like with the magic I’d once held, I had trouble controlling my messy madness and anger when my inner psycho showed herself.
“I didn’t let her do anything,” I snarled.
“I didn’t even know what the fuck I was facing.
” I pointed my blade at the elder, gratified when a gleam of caution entered his eyes, as though he believed I might hurl my precious demon blade at his hateful face.
“You could have warned me. Maybe then I could have kept my magic from her.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You’re blaming the council for your weakness?”
“If you knew she was here and was coming after me, and you didn’t bother to have Saul give me a heads up, then yeah, Elder. I blame the fuck out of you.”
“And as I said, pup. If you let her take your magic, you deserved to lose it.”
God, the frustration.
“Ael, please,” Ti said. “You know perfectly well that once a siphoner takes hold of magic, there is absolutely nothing the victim can do to stop it. Kait could not have allowed or disallowed the theft. It is an impossibility, no matter how strong or weak a person is.”
But his criticism stayed with me. Probably because I felt what he said was true. I should have been stronger. I should not have let her take my power.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, not taking my stare from the big wolf. “Do you want her dead?”
“No, we do not,” the vampire elder said, his voice as thin and wispy as his body. But the power wafting from him was unmistakable.
I looked at him, surprised. “No?”
I felt Joe’s tension. Any other new vampire would likely have crumbled in the presence of a vampire elder.
“You shan’t kill her,” the old vampire said. “You shall convince her to let you neutralize her and we will retrieve her. We would like her cooperation, but even if she gives it, we would require protection for our magic.”
“What?” I mocked. “You don’t believe that if she takes your magic, you deserve to lose it?” I sneered at Ael as I spoke.
“And two,” the vampire elder continued, as though I hadn’t spoken, “you shall capture the hybrid and bring him to us. We’d like him alive, as well, though, so do not fatally injure him.”
I frowned. “The hybrid?”
“The wolf, Gavin Voss. He is of interest to us. Perhaps these tasks, if completed successfully, will release you from the seemingly impossible task of capturing the shapeshifter.”
They wanted the siphoner and Voss more than they wanted Sam. “If I bring her to you, will it be possible for you to retrieve my magic?”
“Kait,” Ti answered, but her voice was only in my head. “Your magic does not live inside the siphoner. Your magic no longer exists.”
Damn, that hurt.
Finally, I slid my blade away and crossed my arms. “I’m not giving up. I’m getting my magic back.”
“You are like an obstinate child,” Ael told me. “We are giving you a task. Give us the siphoner and the hybrid, if you can possibly manage such a feat.”
“How,” I asked, frowning, “without my magic? What do you expect me to do? I have a feeling asking nicely isn’t going to do the trick.” I gestured at him. “You’re the almighty wolf alpha elder. Why are you not policing this hybrid who’s breaking every pack rule that ever existed?”
“If convincing her fails,” Ael continued, ignoring my question, “then you will fight her. Restrain her. Despite her abilities and her blade, she can be injured. She is strong, like you. She possesses a special blade, like you. She’s fast, skilled, and deadly.
” Again, he leaned forward, and he seemed to fill up my vision.
“Like you. Your magic was not all of you, pup. We’re sending you out to neutralize and deliver to us a monster.
You will do this, because there is a chance that during our examinations of her, we will find a way to restore your magic. ”
Ti didn’t say another word, but when I glanced at her, she looked away.
Finally, I shrugged. “I’ll think about it.”
“Alive,” Ael said. “She is of no use to us if she’s dead.”
“What do I get out of the deal?” I asked. “Telling me that maybe you can return my magic is not enough.”
The old vampire smiled serenely and lifted a pale hand. “Come here to me, so I can show you what your payment will be for the successful completion of this task. Come, child.”
Joe stiffened. “Kait…”
“It’s okay,” I told him.
Still, I balked. I wanted to ask the elder why he wanted me to come to him, but I didn’t. I went. There were short, glossy steps leading to the raised area upon which they sat, and I climbed them, my fingers brushing the hilt of my blade.
“Kneel down, Kait Silver,” he said when I reached him.
And as he’d done in the fake church when I’d first met him, he placed his palm on my chest, directly over my pounding heart.
The floor was surprisingly spongy beneath my knees, and though I didn’t look away from the elder, I could see in my peripheral vision that the “throne” area was much larger than it looked from the floor below.