Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
ERIS
My head throbbed and blood pulsed behind my eyelids.
I wanted to blame it on the bottle of who the fuck knows what we’d killed last night, or maybe on the fact that I had barely slept in three days, but truth be told, it was the anticipation.
The dread, the hope. Whatever it was, I was ready to get the hell out of this place.
We were late, of course. Always fucking late. We made our way down the Dominion admin wing’s spiral staircase in silence, boots echoing on ancient stone, and every step felt like lead weights were fastened to my ankles.
The conference room was at the end of the hall, the door already open and a lit fire spilled warm light out into the corridor. Percy was first through, his face unreadable. I followed, with Aiden behind me and Draco silent as a ghost at the rear.
Charles Callahan was already waiting, of course.
Spread out at the long oak table, his own shield team posted up behind him in perfect formation.
His axis wasn’t here, which was probably by design, but their absence was a message in itself.
Victor, the infamous empath, conveniently tied up elsewhere.
Maybe it was a good thing, because today, we were liars.
Aiden’s father sat at Charles’s right, looking vaguely bored and entirely dangerous and cunning. Two other men I recognized only by reputation sat on the left. There was Gray, who looked like he could snap my neck one-handed, and Hanz, the “good cop” who smiled with too many shiny white teeth.
Nobody moved for a long, awkward second.
Percy just pulled out a chair and dropped into it, his arms folded. He looked like he hadn’t slept. “Thanks for making the time.”
Charles smiled. He had that politician’s thing where you never knew if he wanted to shake your hand or strangle you with it. “For my son? Always.”
Aiden sat beside me, shoulders hunched and eyes already narrowed.
Draco took the far end, putting more table between himself and the rest of Charles’s shield, and lit a cigarette without asking permission.
I let out a breath and did the same, because fuck it, what were they going to do, write me up for it?
Charles steepled his hands. “So. You wanted to discuss the incident.”
Percy’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t glance at me or the others. “Yeah. We had two attacks in a single night. My suspicion is that it wasn’t random.”
Hanz leaned forward, hands folded on the polished wood. “You think the Assembly’s under threat?”
“No,” Draco said, voice flat. “We think it’s us.”
Draco looked awful. I counted the pulse ticking in his neck, the tremor in his fingers as he exhaled smoke. Still not fully healed, and yet he was the only one at this table with his dignity completely intact. If that Lucas fucker hadn’t been there, we might have lost him.
Charles fixed him with a look that could have frozen the blood in our veins. “Dramatic. But I suppose you always did have a flair for it.”
Aiden’s father watched all of us, silently calculating. The bastard didn’t even blink like a normal man. He looked so much like Aiden that it was like glimpsing my shield brother’s future. But there was cruelty in his eyes that Aiden didn’t have.
Percy leaned in. “Someone poisoned Draco and took a bat to the back of Eris’s skull. If Jupiter hadn’t intervened, we’d be down a shield brother or possibly two. It was a professional. Nobody gets into shield quarters unless they’re Assembly trained or have an exceptional ability.”
Charles’s lips curved in what might have been amusement. “And you want my help?”
A beat.
“We want answers, Charles.” His father ground his teeth at the insulting way he spoke to him, but chose not to comment. “I assume you have more resources than us, and it’s been days and Dominion has yet to come up with any answers despite their investigation.”
Gray let out a low whistle, shaking his head. “Not many would pick a fight with Nightfall. You’re the top combat team in the region, and your fathers are Assembly elders. What could possibly motivate an attack like this?”
I felt them all watching Percy, but his eyes were on Charles, searching for any flicker, any tell.
If you looked close, you could see it. It was the hope, the pain, the unfair need for his father’s approval that had been killing him for twenty-six years.
He hated his father more though. Hated him enough to make the lies easier to swallow.
I cleared my throat and stubbed out my cigarette. “Maybe it’s a message. Maybe it’s a power grab. Or maybe someone wanted to make damn sure the Ophis came running when her shield was wounded.”
Charles didn’t so much as blink. “She did open a portal across the ocean, didn’t she?”
I nodded curtly.
Gray caught my eye, grinning. “Hell of a woman. Must have been some bond you had.”
I didn’t rise to it. I just shrugged, ignoring the acid in my chest. “We still have the bond. You of all people should know exactly how powerful it is despite distance.”
Another long silence. The whole room was a chessboard. Every word meant something else.
Aiden’s father spoke. “If someone did leverage your suffering to bring Ophis back, it worked perfectly. She was here less than an hour after the attack.”
It was true. She’d been so fucking scared for us, she hadn’t even bothered with her own safety. She could have accidentally landed in the middle of the ocean, drained of her energy with no way to siphon any from anyone else.
The memory of seeing her standing there when I came to, made me ache, deep in my bones and deeper in places I didn’t want to admit. Even after everything, she’d risked herself to save us. Even after we shattered her trust in us, and ruined the best thing any of us ever had.
Percy didn’t let that thread drop. “Just seems odd, doesn’t it? The attacks happen at the most convenient time for someone wanting to disrupt her new life in London. Get her back here. Make her dependent on the bond all over again.”
Hanz smiled. “If you’re making an accusation, just say it.”
I put my boots up on the table-top as I leaned back unnecessarily far, earning a scowl from Charles. “We’re not accusing anyone. But if you have enemies in the Assembly, they’re probably watching closely to see how you handle it.”
Charles drummed his fingers on the table.
“True. But that goes both ways, Eris.” Charles turned to Percy.
“You should consider this. If someone did orchestrate this, it means they have access to restricted toxins from the home world, knowledge of your schedules, and information regarding your axis’s new…
friends at Imperium. That narrows the list substantially. ”
I could see the gears turning behind Charles’s eyes. Maybe he’d planned this, maybe not. But either way, he fucking loved being in control. He thrived on knowing everything first.
“Let me state for the record,” Charles said smoothly, “that my only interest is the stability of the academy. If someone is targeting my son’s shield, I want them found. Period.”
He looked at Percy, then down the table at Gray and Hanz. “Keep looking.”
Gray nodded. “We’ll dig. If this is internal, we’ll know.”
For a moment, nobody said anything.
There was a tug at the bond, like a fist in my chest. Jupiter.
She was awake, and I could feel her using her magic.
Probably training, as she usually did around this time over there.
Fuck, I missed her. I wanted to be the one training with her, helping her discover what she was capable of.
But those Stardust fuckers were stepping in and taking over what should have been our jobs.
Not that I entirely blamed them. Didn’t mean I had to enjoy feeling it every fucking day.
Charles’s eyes sharpened. “You’ll be transferring to Imperium next week, if I’m not mistaken.”
Percy didn’t blink. “Correct. We’ve all come to the agreement that if Jupiter chooses to train at Imperium, then it’s our job to follow her. We’re too vulnerable apart.”
Of course, he was leaving out the fact that being away from Jupiter felt like someone was physically feeding each of us into a wood chipper one at a time feet first.
“Anyway, it’s not up for debate. The transfer is already complete,” Aiden added curtly.
His father looked at him, and for a second there was something almost fatherly in his eyes. A second later, it was gone, replaced by the coldest golden light I’d ever seen from a Leo.
I watched Aiden, but he didn’t even flinch.
Poker face locked and loaded, jaw set, every inch the soldier he’d been bred to be.
The tension between them was so thick you could bottle it.
It made me want to get up and pace, but I didn’t.
I just turned my attention to Charles, who was lighting a cigar and smiling like a king.
“You know she’ll never trust you,” Aiden’s father said, almost conversational. “No matter how many times you move continents.”
A muscle ticked in Aiden’s cheek. “That’s not the point. The bond is unsustainable at this distance. You of all people should understand what that feels like.”
He held his father’s gaze, and it was full of violence and cold hate and a kind of fucked-up pride.
“You think she’ll take you back?” Hanz said, feigning curiosity.
Draco exhaled smoke in his direction. “If she does, it won’t be as mates.”
I could have sworn something deep in my chest began to crack. There was a good chance that Draco was right. Jupiter might never take us back fully. We might be staring down the barrel of a lifetime of torment, watching from a strictly professional distance while she moves on with better men.
There was nothing else to say. Charles gave us all a last, thin smile. “See that you don’t embarrass us. The Assembly will be watching.”
Percy crushed his cigarette into the ashtray. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We left without another word. The door clanged behind us and the corridor sucked all the heat right out of my bones. Outside, the sun was setting behind the towers.
“Drinks,” Aiden said. “Now.”