Chapter 24 The Blade Is Ready To Party
The Blade Is Ready To Party
TALIA
There were many moments in my career where I could have knocked Taurus bloody, but rarely did I feel the urge so keenly as when Mikhail called me today, howling and ranting about the latest round of their escapades.
Taurus’s messes usually arrived in my inbox in the form of incident reports—breached protocols, unapproved contact with assets, or an occasional drunken brawl in a neutral city.
But this was different, and I could sense it even over the encrypted line, the way Mikhail spat every syllable like it was designed to burn me.
My ears are still ringing from his ranting.
It was almost impressive, the volume and intensity he mustered through the dampening protocols of the Company’s lines.
My primary has never been one to respect rules, no matter whose they are.
I can’t decide if Mikhail genuinely wanted Taurus’s ass reamed, or if this was just another move in the endless game of dominance the two of them played.
The Company had always relied on that tension—it made them effective, as a team and as individuals—but lately, the stakes had changed.
I relayed the message as instructed… The Company was waiting for a slip-up.
They’d been sharpening the knives for months, maybe even years, ever since the new girlfriend entered the scene.
Mikhail’s own pet project, Taurus’s precious ‘kitty,’ had become the axis around which all their careers now revolved.
He’s gonna hate that shit when he figures it out.
When Taurus finally blustered his way into Mik’s office a month ago—boots still caked with mud from a mission, coat draped across his shoulders like a flag of insurrection—he demanded the one thing no other clone in the building would have even dared to suggest: a fast track for his new partner.
Not just a transfer or a team-up, but a seat at the table, maybe even a protected spot in the next round of gene-locked fieldwork.
He said it like a man who’d already decided it was inevitable, like the request was just a formality.
There are times when I wonder if Taurus doesn’t understand the rules, but I know in my heart that he simply refuses to let them apply.
Surprisingly, Mikhail and Oversight indulged the idea.
I wasn’t privy to the inner motivations of our bosses, but I can guess.
Taurus’s evaluation of recruits was almost never wrong, and he’d never thrown his own career weight behind anyone else before.
The kitty must be extraordinary in the field.
From the outside, it probably looked like favoritism, but the truth was less sentimental.
The Company trusted Taurus’s instincts more than their own screening tests.
His word was a currency, and in this case, it bought the new girl a probationary status before she’d even finished her baseline contract.
Word will spread fast; offices buzz with rumors.
No one will understand why the Company is interested in a tabby who’d barely cut her teeth on a handful of soft missions.
Mikhail didn’t tell anyone he’d boosted her clearance, especially not Taurus and definitely not me, but it’ll get around now.
I’ve known Taurus as long as anyone, and nothing surprises him, but even he seemed blindsided by the info that she was doing beta missions.
She’s now almost his equal in job status, not just at home.
I wonder if that would change things between them.
My assumption was that the Company would want to protect the miracle baby, and they’d keep her doing little things.
There’s a market for that sort of thing if they can figure out how it worked—the offspring of an engineered super-soldier and a supernatural being, I’m sure.
The Company doesn’t need to be imaginative to be dangerous; they just need to be persistent.
I know for a fact that Mikhail would love to get his hands on data to present, run things through every test until there isn’t a single secret left.
But neither Deli nor Taurus are stupid—shielding her from the white rooms and the bleeding-edge diagnostics is high on their list. Nobody wants their kid to grow up a pincushion, even if her dad was grown in a test tube and her mom is a high priestess with a kill count.
There’s a special kind of tension when the people you trust most are also the ones most likely to destroy you.
Taurus and I both know The Company’s motives are never pure.
Part of me suspects that granting the kitty her advancement was less about merit and more about leverage, a way to pressure Taurus into compliance.
They’d always kept him on a long leash, but now there’s something else to threaten.
He must have sensed that, because for the first time, his bravado seemed tinged with caution.
He’d never admit it, but he was scared—scared for her, for the kid, for what the Company might do if they ever fell out of line.
But then, we have no idea what our miracle kitty can or will do if someone threatens their child; I have the feeling it’s beyond what I could imagine.
The thing is, Taurus knows how to survive.
He kept his head down, played by the rules (or close enough), and made sure every mission was a success.
The prospect of fatherhood makes him even more dangerous because the stakes are real.
The kitty rises to every challenge, sometimes spectacularly, and sometimes with catastrophic results.
But she learned fast, faster than anyone I’d ever seen, and it wasn’t long before people started talking less about her as a curiosity and more as a real contender.
At first, I watched her assignments trickle in—low-level, low-risk, designed to test her resilience more than her skills.
The Company’s way of hazing, I suppose. But as the weeks went by, her missions became more complex, her responsibilities heavier.
She didn’t complain, not once. If anything, she seemed to relish it.
Maybe it was a relief to be judged on performance rather than pedigree or relationship.
Maybe she just wanted to prove herself. I can relate.
Still, the Company’s curiosity hadn’t abated.
Every success was scrutinized, every mistake logged and analyzed.
I’m sure Mikhail was writing entire volumes on her psychological profile.
But the more she accomplished, the less anyone could argue with the results.
Even the skeptics started to begrudgingly respect her place on the team.
She’d become indispensable, and that’s when I knew things were about to get interesting.
However, the events were perfect examples of what our badass kitty mate can do, and the boys at the Company were more than pleased.
They didn’t even pull Taurus off active duty, though I had to hear the long, colorful history of his stepping over the boundaries again.
If I were less even-tempered, I would have told him that what he’d found wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg on our furry fraulein, but I didn’t need to.
They seem to have the 411 on her and have adjusted her missions.
If there’s a rule to surviving the Company, it’s this: you keep your head down and your fangs sheathed, unless you want people to notice you.
Taurus, for all his feral bravado, had never cared much for blending in.
His reputation preceded him—every office, every watering hole, every after-action debrief.
He was the Company’s favorite cautionary tale, its unofficial mascot for ‘Things Not to Do,’ and he wore the notoriety like a tailored suit.
Maybe it was genetic. Or maybe, as Mikhail liked to claim, he was bred for chaos and had simply decided to make it his brand.
What I know for sure is that living with Taurus, even on the best days, is like living on the edge of your own teeth.
One misstep and someone’s losing an arm.
After Deli entered his life, I expected things to get worse.
Taurus and new attachments were a chemical reaction: add fuel, watch the inferno.
But instead, he settled. Not docility, not the quietude of a tamed dog, but the high-voltage, dangerous equilibrium of a predator who’s found his mate and is circumnavigating the world with her teeth in his collar.
I could see it in the way he moved—fewer sharp angles, more prowling grace, less volatility and more focus.
He’d still kill you for looking at him wrong, but he’d do it with a kind of practiced patience, as if he’d found a higher purpose for the violence.
It was unsettling, how much the change suited him.
We’d all noticed. The Company speculated, as the Company does, but none of them had the context, the inside view.
I did, and it made me uneasy in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
It wasn’t failure, or falling in line, or even the softening of a killer’s edge.
It was the way Taurus seemed to have found a reason not to die.
It’s not something you expect from people like us.
We’re supposed to burn out, not simmer.
But when I found him after the call today, my whole world narrowed to one axis.
Taurus was leaning against the bed like it owed him money, boots up on the bedside table casually.
He looked amazing in Dab’s new concoction, and all my anger began to fade as we stared at one another.
I stopped at the threshold, momentarily stunned.
He was in a state of dangerous repose, a weapon on display.
And he joked with me, sharing the information he knew and fobbing off his possible punishment so we could leave. I knew that meant he was more concerned about getting to Deli than his own skin—which is something I wouldn’t have expected until now.
So we apperated to the main room of the Maison, showing up exactly where I knew we’d find someone waiting… the bar.
Before I can say anything, Rafe snakes an arm around my waist, pulling me flush against him. The heat of his body was shocking, even through layers of clothing. His other hand tipped my chin up so I had no choice but to meet his gaze.
“Looking good, Blade. Bloody hell,” he gives me a fangy grin.
I grin saucily, enjoying the feel of his hands on my skin and the snakeskin, knowing he likes it just from being pressed so close.
Writhing closer, I look into his eyes, feeling our rings heat on our hands.
You gotta love that muse magick. “Hey, there, long hair. You’re looking rather killy yourself.
” I pull back hard, pretending to study the look in its entirety.
“Love the hair. Love the entire package.”
His chest rumbles up a purr, and he roams his hands over me, pretending to do the Braille thing that’s become our inside joke.
My nose wrinkles as I catch the scents of arousal: mine, his, theirs.
.. Oh, yeah. Theirs—I forgot about them.
I’m not sure that they care, but when I catch a glimpse, my snake eyes widen.
Jesus H. Christ.
The spiky peacock fan hair, intricate colorful makeup, and latex on her porcelain skin along with boots that make her legs look like they start at her neck—she and I will have to have a chat later.
She’s pushing the peacock backward towards something and until they take the edge off, the stoat and I might as well not exist.
I want him to myself for a while anyway, so that’s not a bad thing. Except I notice that she’s pushing the bird towards a door with a sign on it, and I thought she said they would mark all the magick rooms. “Hey, guys, that’s not normal—Taurus! Deli! That’s one of the...”
It’s not like they can hear anything right now.
They’re in the primal zone and words are useless.
Being the stoat he is, my mate doesn’t lift a finger to help; he watches it unfold.
He pulls me closer as we watch them stumble into Satan knows what.
Turning, I look over my shoulder at him. “I guess we won’t warn them then?”
He looks down, clinging to me. His lips curve up in a devilish grin. “You’re bloody right. They can handle themselves in the...” He squints at the door and then bursts out laughing. “... room they’ve stumbled into. You’re not going anywhere out of the range of your duties to your husband.”
Laughing, I lift my arms and reach back, stretching and rubbing against him as my fingers link behind his neck. “Of course not, long hair. You asked for a bodyguard and you got one. Just think of me as a shield and weapon.”
I hear him rumble and it makes me smile. “As long as you do it long distance and no one lays a hand on you.”
Hissing a bit, I sigh. I’m as much a killer as my mate, though more cold-blooded than primal. The way to my heart is through bloody carcasses and he’s in my heart. “Right back at you, long hair.”
We’re a hell of a pair.