Chapter 24 #2
Cirrian’s rigid expression grew even harder. After several contemplative minutes, he snatched his magical hold from William, who looked from Cirrian to me, his mouth opening to speak but snapping shut.
“Will you leave us?” I asked Cirrian softly.
“No.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled several calming breaths, trying to shrug off the hostile air filling the room.
“No.”
Inching closer to Cirrian, I whispered, “It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a request.”
He immediately looked at William. He leaned in to me, his warm breath breezing against my lips. “Must I remind you that we are as one? Your life is not your own.”
Positive that William overheard him despite his pretense that he wasn’t listening, I said, “I’ll be fine. William won’t hurt me.” With a confidence level of under forty percent, I was surprised how confident I sounded.
After several more minutes of hesitation, Cirrian snatched up the grimoire and disappeared.
“So he never left,” William surmised, seemingly adding that to the list of lies of omission, secrets, and questionable aspects about my life.
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
“I don’t,” I countered.
“What are you?”
“I just discovered I’m an ashinwa,” I revealed.
His eyes widened, and any clemency he’d considered extending was gone.
William knew more about the purveyors of magic than any other vampire.
I wondered if it was the result of his relationship with the kinborn witches.
I had to quell the urge to ask him what he knew of them, because everything I knew about them had come from Cirrian.
From the set of William’s jaw and the ire in his eyes, we’d spiraled far from a civil exchange of information.
“And you didn’t think to tell me that!”
“I didn’t know. My magic is locked, and what happened with Raynard was an accident. I was just trying to save him.”
“And you used your ashinwa magic to do so.”
“I don’t know what I used. I saw him dying and I tried to help. You can’t accuse me of using magic I didn’t know I possessed. I saved him—that’s all I can tell you.”
“I don’t believe it was that innocent. If it was, you would have disclosed it.” He shook his head. “You can’t be trusted.”
“I can’t be trusted!” I exploded. “You’re the one giving me magical objects under the guise of thoughtful gifts.
” It hurt more than I thought it would. It was a working relationship, but I liked William and cared for him deeply, and I thought the affection was returned.
Aware that protection of the house would always come before me, I still figured my safety would be given some consideration if he ever had to decide between me and the House of Knight.
“They weren’t simple gifts. You were trying to discover something about me. ”
“Because of your deception, I was forced to find ways to uncloak your magic. Everyone can feel your magic, but you walk around as if you don’t have any.
When Raynard remembered what had happened with you, he came to me.
I needed to know what you were and assess the type of danger your kind of magic posed to us.
I didn’t realize you were a wolf pretending to be a sheep. ”
Nothing about me gave sheep. At times, I was as amenable as a tiger.
“You could have asked.”
“And you could have told us.”
“How would that have changed things?” I asked. The tremor in my voice betrayed me as I watched my life unravel and my job disappear. There wasn’t a job waiting for me on the other side of this conversation, no safety net—just tension, apprehension, and possibly a new enemy.
“There would have been trust between us. Knowledge of your true abilities, which we could have worked through. Perhaps we could have agreed to an oath you’d be bound to that would prevent harm against the House of Knights.”
Looking out for the best interests of the house at every instance. Not vampires as a collective, but the House of Knight.
“I can’t be oath bound.” More shock coursed across his face. Each revelation was just making things worse. I corrected myself. “Most witches can’t bind me. I suspect kinborn witches can. And they seem to be fond of me, you know.”
William’s slow pace throughout the room was unnerving, like an agitated predator needing to be released. His molten brown eyes turned cold when they looked at me.
“My magic is locked,” I said. “I can’t use it. I’m not a risk to anyone.”
“For now. Your magic is locked now, but it won’t stay that way, will it?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a path to unlock it.”
Rubbing his hand over his face, he gave me a long, assessing look. “I hope you find it,” he sighed before breezing past me and leaving. The hostility lingered.
A few hours after William’s departure, I got a notification of a deposit in my account from House of Knight as severance pay.
The look of unmitigated disdain from the three members of the security team who came to retrieve my bracelet stayed with me.
A loop of venomous looks was on replay in my head.
“If the House of Hollows continues with your services, I assume they’ll provide you with a status of employment,” one of the team members said.
Her platinum hair was pulled into a top bun, offering an unobstructed view of glacial denim-blue eyes, an aquiline nose, and a full mouth that spread more than necessary when she spoke.
The two men had the same strident look and black attire of shirts that skimmed their bodies, displaying sleek, sinewy muscles and lethal, fluid movements.
Their arrival in armored cars was over the top, a warning from the House of Knight rather than just a visit.
They left with the bracelet in their pocket and instructions that it was my obligation to let others know I no longer worked for the House of Knight.
I knew it was more than a notification; they were essentially revoking any cover my employment with them had offered.
They vastly overestimated the level of safety it had offered.
The clandestine enemies I acquired from my employment by them outweighed any safety it provided.
I’d been summoned by Corrine by way of Darby.
It wasn’t a good sign that she, Corrine, had offloaded the meager task of sending me a text asking me to come to the House of Hollows.
I took it as an even worse sign that the house was quiet—unusually quiet.
Vampires were silent creatures who walked with the lithe grace of ballerinas and moved with the speed of flashing light, but their ominous aura made their presence known.
The house manager directed me to Corrine’s office.
My heart was thrashing. I palmed the knife in my jacket and the stake of necri I’d slipped into a slit I’d made inside the jacket.
It was my last resort if things devolved into a situation I couldn’t deescalate, and everything about this tableau had the making of possibly a bad ending for me.