CHAPTER 21:
I wondered if he ever regretted hurting me. If any of them ever do. What Reina and Robert followed was protocols and standards of old, reckless times that had changed. The way they allowed the dangerous notions of fear and despair to manifest themselves in between the very connection Nicolai thought we had was a figment of an imagination that knew no bounds and yet had its limits.
Athena located the room I was in, clearly she'd rifled through the feeble minds of the front desk clerks, "What intel did you gather?" I question, studying every labelled member on the grid I created of the hotel next door.
She purses her lips, staring out through the blinds, "Not enough. The spellbinder with...my source—he isn't willing to cloud auras. However, I see you've been able to do so." She noted, moving to sit in front of me at the wooden table with indented patterns at each corner. I traipse one.
"I returned to London quickly. I didn't realise what the object was until I made the connection—I'd had one of the ornaments a spellbinder may use in these sorts of situations. Only one though, so unless you can find a way to hide your appearance, then you may just walk in as his sister." I tell her, tilting my head in thought, only to make certain I don't think of other things.
She blinks, "I can get us into the event they have on tomorrow, but we need to discuss plans. We can't go in there, guns blazing—so to speak. We need an extraction after capture and a way to sedate him somehow. Are we taking him discreetly or making it public. To enforce change publicly or remove him and return back to the elemental realm." She demonstrates, straightening in her form.
I study her, "You don't want me to kill him." And didn't we sort the rest of it out with the rules and regulations her screwed up, cold-blooded vampire set in place.
"He's done horrible things—terrible things. He is my blood, however." She whispers under her breath. Her words should've displayed more meaning. Blood meant nothing if it was as vile as it is.
I argue such a fact, "He's killing on instinct, reacting fiercely to the supposed loss of a mate. If anything, I see it as an act, something that shouldn't just be reprimanded as consequence." I mutter, shaking my head and massaging my temples.
"Why would he leave the Darkling throne?" She retorts, studying me, "If not for being as upset as he was. I'm not defending him, but if we're going to lure my brother, we should use tactics to understand his reason for killing." She proposes in addition.
I blink. Exactly what has Rowan poisoned her with? Some crazy bloodlust aftermath? Thirst quenched over time for a better taking? Somehow I didn't want to know, but before him, she was set on helping me. Leaving Nicolai, attending a school that could help me control my abilities and stopping anything dangerous from escalating between Alastair, Elias and myself. Given the lies that have already been shed, I needed more information and I doubt I'd get any here.
"How do we know he wasn't completely kicked out? I never asked you before—but in those first two weeks before I was enrolled into Nocturne, you were there. You stood by that throne. You're telling me he walked after the death of someone he fabricated to be his mate and that it wasn't the council?" I wonder, looking at her, tilting my head, I scrutinise her.
She looks back at me, silver eyes penetrate mine, "He walked out those gates...I read him for everything he felt in those moments, he was devastated. Those nanobots we'd inserted in him from that time have far dissolved since. If you plan to use those again, we'll have to get close to him." She suggests.
She also thought of the time I handed Genevieve that earpiece, when her skill transformed the second the serum kicked in and the ability to make it look like a video game was a simulation I could not repeat here. Especially if I wanted the element of surprise.
I shake my head, "He's stronger now with his lycanthrope heightened. We need something more lethal, less eye-catching. I'm going for subtlety, not ignorant stupidity." I utter under my breath. It was worse now, at least that's what I believed.
Is it stupid for her to go in as his sister?
That thought suddenly swiped through my mind, gears moving and ticking like the hands on an old Roman-numerals clock. Every tick raising my suspicions.
I study her, "You could easily be applicable, even accessible to him if he sees you, his family." I murmur.
She snaps her eyes to me, "Or he would be suspicious of something." She trails to that conclusion, something I already thought of.
"Your abilities have some stance in redirecting feelings, do they not? Am I wrong in assuming you can capably read him like an exposed microphone shouting out every detailed secret? If you were close enough, you could understand a routine or the unpredictable nature he's succumbed to—that way, we can get closer without him suspecting foul play. Unless you'd prefer he keep up with his current routine of kill or surrender or both?" I ask her multiple questions to get her away from my mind and more on mastering a plan I still don't have all the angles on. This ridiculous mission was slowing down a mission that made me stand on the edge of a blade.
She folds her arms, I close my laptop and move to one of the bedrooms, "Do let me know by tomorrow morning—I don't want to be here any longer than completely necessary." I mold into place.
"I do care about you, you know? And I am sorry for leading you on when the Rune Pool is much harder to find than you think, Celestine. It doesn't point you to more than a 'Yes' or 'No' answer. Is Nicolai your mate, yes or no. Is Elias your mate, yes or no? Is it definitive—No." She emphasises, flailing her hands. I don't even blink at her, roaming the supplies we had at hand.
"I don't care for your words on that now. You betrayed me for the likes of an executioner who wants to shove me in a series of trials much like your brother did. I won't have it. I won't walk into that foolishly again. So, whether you help me here or not, this mission goes and it doesn't lag on to wait for a perfect move. We scour the area, find familiarity in our bearings for the first set of events." I instruct, opening a compartment in my bag when I pull out a specialised gun with silencer attributes.
She stares at it, "I can smell the silver in that." She murmurs. Did it matter?
I glance at her, "I may need stronger doses for a lycanthrope. All unless I give Robert and Reina a run for their money. The two of them certainly deserve a little pain." More than a little.
"Why do I sense a barrier in your mind of some kind?" She suddenly asks.
I narrow my eyes, it's the only indication before she furrows her eyebrows, "And how did you really get that ring? Did you forget I could walk into your mind?" She throws the questions at me like one agent would in an interrogation room.
I close up the equipment, "I don't care what you find. You want me to trust you? Stop giving me reasons to trust as blindly as I keep bloody well doing. I relied on you to get away from Nicolai. Being back here makes me sick, so don't make me sicker by throwing suspicious assumptions and wary accusations at me when let's hope for your sake that we're on the same side here. How well can your mind run when it's boiling from the inside out?" I question her, walking to the bathroom with a robe and night clothes.
She straightens, "You are still young and learning, Celestine. I know why you plan on staying angry. I won't ask anything else, but keep in mind that we are stuck together on this mission and I will help you in any way I can. I am all you have to trust here, Celestine." She details in a manner where she's trying to ensure that I had no other shoulder to lean on, or eye to trust to have my back.
Being young was always considered an obstacle. Age matters and it sticks out like a red pin drop on a map. Here was my pin drop, I wasn't going in blinded, not again. I knew Nicolai, I knew him enough to know that he relied on Robert and Reina more than he cared to admit. That the supernaturals he befriended and kept close we're his council, his allies. Not the clans he shared commonalities with.
He agreed to the aggressive tendencies men showed to women among ranks. The lines women should not cross—or so he believes. It's a dark mist of shadows and propriety, where the world still runs backwards and history is naturally doomed to be repeated.
That line is a blur. It has always been one, massive blur.
And it's fading fast.
*******
The date was recorded, the time, the very courtroom assembling every detail conjured by global government officials who could somehow be so easily paid off with Nicolai's antics. I thought up fantasies of how I could make him suffer. That I should leave it up to Creed to fight my battles if he was doing such a good job with Elias.
"The citizens merely speculate the motives behind the King's actions, Master Lincoln. Surely there are respective questions on it—" They called him a 'King' even though he'd walked away from the Darkling throne. He stepped in with a clad business suit. The company behind him mastered power and deception colder than an icicle sticking out of the lycanthrope's chest.
Athena smiles at him sadly and greets him with a soft embrace, he stares at the throne seatings in the room beyond her before pulling back and nodding down to her. Robert and Reina move elegantly past him before his Gamma and Delta follow. Nicolai ties his hands behind his back, walking with Athena before I raise an eyebrow where I sit in the brunette's skin and taut blue eyes because Reid moves past the two of them without looking back.
I reach for my glass of sparkling rose and raise it to my lips. I glance over at the feeling of curious eyes running over me, I trail my eyes over and find Lia's. She furrows her eyebrows, looking at me in confusion. She blinks when I wink at her and is caught by the attention of her mother—Reina makes her straighten in her seat, telling her to be all ladylike and giving her the instruction she didn't need.
I traipse my eyes to masculine silver ones that made me loathe ever knowing them and their owner—the very walking soon-to-be corpse deserved nothing but a permanent dark abyss six feet under. I remember moments, clips—glimpses of things he used to say to me.
"All magic has loopholes, if you harm me, you will feel it more intensely than I do. But that was not to harm you. Until you fully accept the bond, this will always be how it is. One-sided."
All magic has loopholes, why he said it at the time must of been through the tattooed and highly forced connection he'd strapped onto me like a shackle that I couldn't remove until I ventured off into another realm, while he thought I took my own life just to get away from him.
It made me eye the floor, waiting for Creed to rise like a Titan from the sea and cut this idiotic, cruel mission short while I still had the motive to be here. To sense destruction in its path. Athena eyed the room, Nicolai merely walked beside her—pale faced and tall. His silver eyes straight and dulled. I narrow my eyes and move them to...Alpha Serena. She was speaking quietly with her Beta while the crowded room became more organised and less condensed of breaths—as I felt I could only describe it as.
"Excuse me, I don't believe we've met." I overhear behind me and still.
Just what the fuck?
Athena steps away from us, not realising it's me, I didn't exactly show her what I looked like. Glimpsing from my glass, Martin—Nicolai, stands above me. How the bastard managed to pinpoint me was another bloody story, but I stand and curtsey and smile at the man I wished were dead, "Your majesty, it's an honour. I'm Anita Credence from Credence's times, I wanted to write a piece on your side of the story regarding the latest killings placed on the news. Publicly, sire, and on record if you had the time." I ask in an American tongue, the voice was different—thankfully.
He shakes the hand of two men stepping past us before turning back to me, "I'm afraid I don't have the time, do excuse me." He mutters, frowning and stepping away.
I take a long swig of my drink and take a low, deep breath. The taut and tense reminder of blood drawn in his presence was a conundrum of emotions based on memory. Based on what was before and what was happening now in this moment.
I felt the fire brimming beneath my skin, making my blood rush and flare at the unveiled anger bristling with fumes and smoke that could smell like burning wood at a bonfire touched base—sensational rivers touch the nape of my neck. I freeze before smelling the spice and burning wood as Creed calms the growing fire in me with a touch on my neck.
His ember eyes move and slip into caress, an approachable, intoxicating warmth. He lowers his head down and brushes his lips over mine. I hint at a smile on his full lips when I leaned in. He grasps my hand and twirls me gently toward the dance floor. Somehow Athena wasn't seeing him, but I was.
He had a run on, one twinning mine.
I mirthfully glaze my fingers along the side of his neck and dance with him. He had a hand to the small of my back, the other intertwining my fingers with his, "He picked up on something." He murmurs down to me.
I frown, looking around thinking someone could hear, his hips press against mine, "Shields." He whispers.
I raise an eyebrow, "For someone who doesn't know his way around the realm, you seem to adapt quick. I remembered something when he used some sort of binding technique—one-sided magic that could indicate a conductive circuit that makes me feel pain more intensely if inflicted upon him. But the ink was removed, obliterated when I moved into the elemental realm. The magic shouldn't have been able to snap into place." I mutter, slightly worried.
He shakes his head, "I would've felt it, the same way I'm attuned to your emotions. This will be quick, I promise." He vows, running his fingers along my back.
I heard the strumming of strings against a sharpened violin. Before feeling a shift in the air, goosebumps fluttered against my skin and Creed pulls me closer, "Hayden." He says slowly.
"You won't fucking believe this." Reid suddenly mutters on the shared comms that Creed clicked into place in my ear.
"Alastair." Hayden breathes out, "He's here. Amongst the crowd."
Creed tenses, "No, he's the one singing. Something else is going on here. Status reports, shift to new positions and track the faces in the crowd. Stay vigilant." He instructs, at the male voice singing on stage, I furrow my eyebrows to look at the blue-eyed singer and swallow when ice blue eyes penetrate the chandelier above us before gliding down.
"How do you know he's the singer?" I whisper, what if he just had blue eyes?
"It's not his eyes, it's his aura. Elementals can see it as clear as translucent water. He's masked some of it from the supernaturals who walked here, but us...we cannot be so easily fooled." Creed grits out. I stare up at him.
"This just got more difficult." I mutter.
"An obstacle. Kill two birds with one stone ties this up conveniently...for me." He adds that last part.
"For you, how?" I ask, confused and taut, trying to shake out the sudden brush of cold against the bare skin of my back. Creed moves his hand over it and warms the area—alerting the fire in me and directing it somehow. Like he's capable of caressing and calming and it's wicked cool.
Creed meets my eyes, "It's not everyday I can bring my competition to their knees in the same place." He tells me, the rush of desire and something more colourful and demanding makes my lashes flutter and lean closer, gripping his muscular bicep for dear life. He presses a kiss to my forehead before directing us off the dance floor where people are gently listening to the symphony of a voice to which can't of been Alastair's and yet somehow the Ice King made an appearance and it was clear he wasn't alone.
Creed departs from my side with reluctance in him, kissing the back of my hand, he bows to me and with that indecipherable look he gives, he pulls away and passes Reid with something of a nudge where the two exchanged something. It looked like some sort of black, almost obsidian rock.
I purse my lips and slowly look to the singer...
His eyes...
Were fully on me.
Well...shit.