Sariah startled when I appeared at her elbow, and she gasped when I closed my fingers around her throat. Her arm was already in motion, muscle memory stepping into the breach until her brain got on board with what was happening. She altered the trajectory of the blade, sweeping it away from her body, eager to sheathe it between my ribs, but lack of oxygen and my proximity restricted her movements, made her clumsy enough I had no trouble capturing her wrist and squeezing until her fingers flexed open, and the blade thudded onto the floor. I hooked my foot behind hers, shoving her down like my knuckles had magnets in them, and the hardwood was polarized.
“You can’t play for both teams.” My fingers dug into her pale skin. “You chose your side when you bided your time until my uncle was irretrievable, all so you didn’t have to get your hands dirty with Famine. You chose your side when you attacked Miller and rang Santiago’s bell.” Crimson welled under my nails. “I can’t wash the blood off my hands, and neither can you.”
“She won’t… kill you,” Sariah wheezed. “She… needs… you. She’ll kill every… single… person you love… to control you.”
“I see that now.” With the cold came clarity, always. “That’s why you’re going to help me send her a message written in a language she can understand.” Reaching across her, I palmed the dagger. “War must love you a great deal if she’s let you live this long.”
A pucker marred her brow. “She… hates… me.”
Only two beings had survived and thrived at War’s side. Her mate, Thanases, and their firstborn, Sariah. That spoke of loyalty, of affection, of an attachment rooted deeper than any of them might understand given their sociopathic tendencies. But I recognized love when I saw it, even if it was a paler shade than any I had ever known, and the Freon pumping through my heart had no trouble lifting that blade or bringing it down with all my strength.
Thud.
Crimson wept from the gash in her abdomen, mingling with the phantom stains under my skin, branding me as the villain I was born to be.
Gasping under my palm, Sariah flailed against me, but I kept my fist clenched on the dagger’s hilt. I couldn’t kill her, not as I was now, but I could do this much. I could hit War where it hurt. Show her how it felt to have your heart bleed.
That snap of emotion alerted me to the fact my rage was burning away the cold place, melting it in the wash of hot blood spilling through my fingers. As the fight drained out of Sariah slowly, her skin began bubbling up, boiling over, the flesh cooking off her bones.
“Get back,” Miller warned, yanking me off her with an arm hooked around my waist. “Move.”
Sariah’s inner monster exploded from her host, and once again I found myself entertaining a super gator in my living room. The beast’s stomach hung too low to the ground for me to tell if the dagger had been expelled, but the poison must have been working.
Lurching toward me, she snapped her jaws, but her attack might as well have been in slow motion. The three of us kept her on the defensive, wearing her down, but it was Miller who approached as she collapsed, and Miller who pried apart her massive jaws. The vicious crack as he broke the delicate bones acting as hinges was deafening, and that was before her agonized roar.
“I’m calling Kapoor.” I hated that I had favorited his number on my phone, but that was my life now. When he answered, I gave him a rundown of the situation. “You might save her if you make it in time.”
Thom shook his head in disagreement or perhaps in warning.
After the call ended, the three of us gravitated toward one another, drawn together because we were stronger that way, and we watched over Sariah as her body twitched.
“We should have questioned her first,” Thom said, a half-hearted afterthought.
“She didn’t break before,” Miller countered, “she wouldn’t have broken now.”
Thom canted his head. “What do you think she meant about what comes next?”
“We’ve searched for fifteen years and uncovered nothing but speculation and lore founded in this terrene’s major religions.” Miller rubbed his jaw. “Sariah is good, but we’re better. There’s no way she peeked beyond the veil on her own. Only Conquest can do that.”
Their conversational tones finished chipping at the ice encasing my heart until the cold place retreated fully and left me to deal with the aftermath. I braced for the surge of guilt over what I had done, the one that would send me stumbling into the bathroom to purge, but it never manifested. I had lost another piece of my soul, but it had been worth it to protect us. And, if I was being honest, the side order of revenge had tasted sweet too.
War had delivered Famine to me. And now I had her daughter. That gave me control over the most pieces on the board. At least until Death arrived. That would tip the balance of power back in War’s favor. Unless I got to our final sister first.
“How fast will she burn through the paralytic?” I squatted beside Sariah and checked her pulse. Slow but steady. “Famine claimed she was immune. Any chance that’s hereditary?”
Given the cadre’s fondness for poison, that’s one family trait I wouldn’t mind possessing.
“Sariah wouldn’t carry a weapon that could kill her. She’ll recover in a few hours at most is my guess.” He raked his gaze over her before coming back to me. “Otillian biology is too chameleonic for heredity to hold much sway. Sariah is the product of a Drosera mating, and you’re no more Drosera than I am. Whatever DNA you have in common with her is in the minority now that War has altered her biology to suit her mate. There’s no way to predict how you would react to the poison.”
Meaning my niece wasn’t fully my niece, a nice wedge of rationality to shove under the door of my mind when I reflected on my actions. Protecting one family, my human one, while cutting down on the other was giving me a complex. “Can you guys handle this while I pack?”
A lame excuse, yeah, but I needed a few moments alone to process the ramifications of moving forward with my little coup. Locking Sariah in a cell would piss off War. That gave me warm fuzzies right there. But if she wanted to play double agent… maybe we should let her.
After we microchipped her ten ways from Sunday, of course.
Bloodthirsty as she was, I got the feeling it would take more than light stabbing, a little poison, and a broken jaw to rain on her sadistic parade. Hell, Sariah might view waking in an NSB cell under guard as the opening volley in our negotiations. She had made the first strike, after all. She must have known I would retaliate.
“Sure.” Miller massaged his throat as though reminded of the pressure from the blade. “We can babysit.”
Thom, noticing the same rubbing gesture, cocked his head. “I should bite him, just in case.”
I exited on Miller’s sigh as he stuck out his hand. Up in my room, I pulled out my luggage and packed nothing but clothes and toiletries. There was no need for mementoes where I was going. The movers, when they came, could pack it all up as far as I was concerned. The one item I lingered over was the old rotary phone. Its hideousness was a comfort, but I had no intentions of relying on it, or the mystery man on the other side of it, for much longer. Come the big two-six, I planned to have run Ezra to ground.
Happy birthday to me.
“Do you need any help?”
The sound of Cole’s voice did what it always did, and made me tighten and loosen all over. “I’ll take what I can get.” And didn’t that convey a multitude of meanings? “Has Kapoor made his pickup yet?”
“You missed the stampeding wildebeests?” Cole slung a bag over his shoulder and tucked two more under one arm. “Your hearing must be worse than I thought.”
“Ha ha.” I punched him in the arm since his were too full to retaliate and almost cracked a knuckle. “What are you doing here?”
His expression shifted through the spectrum before settling on cautious. “Am I not welcome?”
“I think we both know you’re always welcome.” Traitorous thing, my heart. It stutter-stepped when he smiled at me like that. “What I meant was – you stayed up with me all night. I figured you’d go to the bunkhouse and crash. Santiago is with Portia, right?”
“He is.” Cole angled his head in my direction. “After last night, I thought you could use someone to lean on.”
Catching this surly dragon by his tail was irresistible. “I have Miller and Thom.”
His shrewd eyes narrowed on my face. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”