Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Nadi grunted as she impacted the floor. The Iltanis were a little too happy to throw her around. That was fine. She’d killed Luciento. She was a traitor to her own people. She deserved a few bruises. Raziel hit the floor beside her a moment later.
They were back at the warehouse in the docks. This time, they seemed to have a solution for keeping Raziel in place. It was called “put a silver stake through his leg.”
It wasn’t enough to kill him. But it was enough to keep him wounded and hurting.
Turning into bats to escape was not going to be an option.
Not with that and the bullet in his arm.
The room they were in was also under guard.
But they were out of earshot from any humans who would suddenly become very helpful to their cause if Raziel could get a word in edgewise.
Which would also be why they’d gagged him.
Smart.
She was handcuffed, and worse for wear. But more or less fine. They’d knocked her around a bit, but they hadn’t done any real permanent damage to her. Raziel was in far worse shape. Bloodied, a dark splotch was forming on his jaw where they had likely broken it. It was healing, but slowly.
The silver stake in his thigh was the worst of it.
She could see the blackened veins spreading from the wound, the way his skin had gone ashen and gray around the impalement.
His breathing was ragged, and every few moments, a tremor would run through him—involuntary spasms of pain that he couldn’t hide no matter how hard he tried.
She crawled toward him, her handcuffed wrists making the movement awkward and slow. The guards at the door watched but didn’t stop her. What was she going to do? Free him with the power of wishful thinking?
“Raziel.” She kept her voice low, barely above a whisper. “Can you hear me?”
Those crimson eyes opened—unfocused at first, swimming with pain. Then they sharpened on her face, and she saw recognition there. He couldn’t speak around the gag, but he gave a slight nod.
“Don’t try to move.” She positioned herself beside him, close enough that her shoulder pressed against his. It was a poor comfort. But it was all she had to offer. “The silver is spreading. If you struggle, you’ll only make it worse.”
His jaw tightened beneath the gag—whether in acknowledgment or frustration, she couldn’t tell. Probably both.
She looked at the wound in his leg, at the way the stake had been driven through muscle and probably bone. The Iltanis knew what they were doing. This wasn’t amateur work. They knew how to hurt vampires.
“I’m going to get us out of this.” The words felt hollow even as they left her lips. A lie she told herself as much as him. Because looking at Raziel now—looking at the state of him, at the guards at the door, at the silver stake that would make healing impossible—she couldn’t see a way out.
This wasn’t her fucking wheelhouse. She was an assassin. Her job was killing. Not saving.
They were going to die here.
Kalo would see to that. Ebiti would see to that.
This whole thing was a lie and a setup from the start.
This was just “Plan B.” If Lana, Nabrisi, and Asha didn’t kill them?
Well, let the Iltanis and the fae get the pleasure of seeing them hang.
She should have known. She should’ve taken Raziel from the casket and taken them somewhere they could’ve lived their lives and just been some kind of happy.
Fuck.
She leaned her head back against the cold concrete wall and shut her eyes.
Her people. Some part of her still couldn’t accept it.
Her own people had sold them out to their worst enemies.
But that was survival, wasn’t it? In the end, her life meant nothing.
Just like Luciento’s hadn’t meant a moons-damned thing to her.
Raziel made a sound against his gag—something that might have been her name, if he could have formed the word. She opened her eyes to find him watching her, those crimson irises burning with something fierce and desperate.
“I know.” She reached out with her bound hands and touched his arm—the uninjured one. His skin was cold. Too cold. The silver was leeching the life from him drop by drop. “I know, Raz. I’m not giving up. I’m just…” She let out a breath. “Being realistic.”
He shook his head, the movement sharp despite his condition. Even now, even gagged and staked and bleeding out on a warehouse floor, the Serpent refused to admit defeat.
Stubborn bastard.
She loved him for it.
Even if she wanted to kick him for it sometimes.
The door to their room swung open, and Kalo stepped through. He was alone, his silver eyes sweeping over them like he was assessing livestock at a market.
“Nadi.” He jerked his head toward the door. “You’re coming with me.”
She didn’t move. “Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of him.”
“No.” Kalo’s voice was flat. Final. “And you’re going to get up, or I’m going to have my men drag you. Your choice.”
Raziel growled behind his gag, his body tensing despite the agony it must have caused him. Nadi put her hands, shackled as they were, on his chest—a warning. A plea.
“Don’t,” she said softly. “I’ll be fine.”
Another lie. But she needed him to believe it. She needed him to stay still, to conserve what little strength he had left. If there was any chance of getting out of this alive, it wouldn’t come from Raziel ripping himself apart trying to fight.
She let Kalo pull her to her feet. His grip on her arm was firm but not cruel—not yet. He led her out of the room and down a narrow corridor, past guards who watched them with flat, disinterested eyes.
They stopped in a small office—probably some foreman’s workspace back when this warehouse still served legitimate purposes. Now it was just another piece of the Iltanis’ underground kingdom. Kalo shut the door behind them and leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest.
“You betrayed us,” Nadi said before he could speak. “You and Ebiti both. The whole ‘fae alliance for war’ was a sham.”
“The alliance was real.” Kalo’s expression didn’t change. “It just wasn’t ever going to involve you.”
The words hit her like a blow to the gut. Swallowing down the bile that rose up in response, she looked away. “Then what about the Rosovs?”
“The Rosovs.” He nodded. “It’s an open secret Ebiti has been dealing with them for decades, Nadi. Long before you came stumbling back into the Wild with your vampire lover in tow. They pay well. They protect our interests on the surface. And in return…”
“In return, you hand them anyone who threatens their power.” The bitterness in her voice could have curdled milk. “Like Raziel.”
“Like the Serpent,” Kalo agreed. “Do you have any idea what he’s worth to them?” He laughed—a harsh, humorless sound. “They wanted him alive, Nadi. They wanted to make an example of him. And they were willing to pay a fortune for the privilege.”
“And me?” She forced herself to meet his gaze. “What was I worth to them?”
Something flickered in Kalo’s silver eyes—something that might have been regret, if she squinted hard enough. “Less than him. But still valuable. A shapeshifter with your skills? The Rosovs had uses for someone like you. But that’s all gone now.”
She felt sick. “So that’s it, then. You really were going to sell us both like cattle.”
“I was going to do what was best for my people.” Kalo pushed off from the door and took a step toward her.
“That’s always been my job, Nadi. Even when we were children.
I was the one who had to think about the future.
About survival. You were always too busy dreaming about revenge.
I had to get my blood out of them in other ways. ”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracked. “Don’t you dare pretend this is about survival. This is about power. About money. About selling your own kind to the bloodsuckers who’ve been hunting us for centuries.”
“And what’s your alternative?” He spread his hands. “Your glorious war? A fiery uprising against the vampire clans? We’d be slaughtered, Nadi. Every last one of us. Is that what you want? To die fighting in some futile crusade?”
“I just want to live!” The words tore out of her, raw and desperate. “I want to live free, Kalo! Not crawling on my belly, begging for scraps from the table! Pretending to be human, or living in the shadows! Is that really so hard to understand?”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The silence stretched between them like a chasm—all the years, all the choices, all the paths not taken.
She only had one chance. One. And she knew it wouldn’t work.
But it was the only sad, pathetic option in front of her.
“Do you remember,” Nadi said quietly, “what hope felt like? When we were young? Before everything went wrong? You used to chase me through the tunnels. Used to pull my hair and call me names.”
Kalo’s jaw tightened. “That was a long time ago.”
“It was.” She took a step toward him, her bound hands trembling.
“But I remember teaching you to swim. I remember you teaching my siblings which mushrooms were safe to eat and which would make them sick. I remember when, despite being such a fucking bully, you’d get in between me and the older kids when they’d pick on me. ”
“Nadi—”
“I didn’t see it then, but I do now. You were my friend, Kalo.” Her voice broke on the word. “My family. Is there nothing left of that? Nothing at all?”
He looked away. For just a moment, she thought she saw something crack in that carefully constructed facade—some glimpse of the person he’d been before the world had hardened him. Before survival had become more important than anything else.
Then it was gone. His expression smoothed back into cold indifference.
“That boy died a long time ago.” He met her eyes. “Just like you did, Nadi. We’re both ghosts now. Just ghosts that have kept on walking.”