Born of Ice

Nero rubbed his thumb along his jaw. “So what are we plotting?”


“Suicide.” Devyn leaned back in his chair. “Glad you could join us for it.”

Nero rolled his eyes before he looked over at Omari. “How are your studies coming, sport?”

“I’m not dead yet. It’s all good.”

“Good. That whole spontaneous combustion thing can be a real buzzkill. Ruins your clothes, too. Take it from someone who knows.” Nero turned his attention back to Devyn. “So are we killing Merjack?”

Alix was puzzled by the man’s ADD and the speed with which he’d gone from one topic to the next.

But Devyn wasn’t quite as bloodthirsty as Nero. Or maybe the correct term would be stupid. “Unless we can come up with a reason we can sell it to The League and get a warrant for assassination, we can’t.”

Nero curled his lip. “Gah, you are your mother’s son.” He spat the words out as if they were nauseating to him. “Trust me, Dev. I know over two hundred ways to kill someone and all but two of them will look like accidents.”

Alix shook her head as she met Devyn’s bemused frown. “You run with the most bloodthirsty people.”

Nero blinked at her as if she were dull-witted. “It’s what happens when assassins spawn. They tend to bequeath their warring ways straight to their children.” He turned back to Devyn. “I’m telling you right now I could make him pop an aneurysm and no one would know.”

Alix grimaced at him. “Doesn’t that kind of murder bother you at all?”

His gaze turned brittle. “Given everything people have done to me in my life, little girl, especially in my childhood when I was helpless against them, humanity is lucky I’m not on a perpetual killing spree. As for the Merjacks . . . I owe them a debt that no amount of violence on my part will settle. So, no. Nothing about killing him would bother me.”

“But this isn’t your fight,” Devyn said, drawing Nero’s icy stare away from her. “It’s mine. It’s my family he’s after and I will be the one who settles this.”

Nero scoffed at his bravado. “Don’t be stupid, Devyn.”

“I’m not. This is a blood feud. The man doesn’t want me, he wants to hurt my parents. I will end this.”

Nero shook his head. “Aneurysm’s quicker. I’m just saying.”

Devyn was unamused by his persistence. “Merjack needs to suffer for what he’s done to Alix’s family. If he dies, they’re still slaves. Legally owned. And they will be sold to the highest bidder . . . after they’ve been raped. We have to get them emancipated and then deal with him.”

Nero let out a sound of supreme disgust. “I still don’t understand why I can’t kill them and you buy her and her people. Not like you don’t have the money, Dev. The handful of people who could outbid you are your own family and they wouldn’t dare. Even if they did, they would never hurt her or her family.”

Devyn wanted to choke him for the obstinacy. “Scalera, it’s not that simple. A, the government doesn’t have to sell them. They can choose to keep them as slaves and there’s nothing I can do about that. B, because they’re government-owned slaves, the Rits could just kill them for no reason. Disposal of property . . . which is vintage for those bastards.”

“That’s a good point.”

Alix looked at Nero. “Can’t you teleport them to safety? Like you just did with the part?”

“No. The part wasn’t organic or all that heavy. It doesn’t move and drain my powers or fight against me. I can do quick pops in and out with people, but to pull two women out of there for the distance I’d have to travel . . . it’d burn my brain cells out and leave me a vegetable.”

Sway laughed. “That would be different from your normal state, how?”

Omari ignored his barb as he sat forward. “Maybe we could find something Merjack wants and exchange it for them?”

“That would be your father, pup,” Nero said as he rolled his water bottle back and forth in front of him. “You want to make that transaction?”

“Uh . . . not today. He hasn’t pissed me off.”

Devyn stroked his chin as he considered their options. “There has to be dirt on him. His family was too corrupt for him to be the only innocent one.”

“Dirt is always good,” Nero agreed. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure. Let me get my father on this and see what he can find out about Merjack’s past. There has to be something he’s hiding. Something we can use.”

Alix wished she could believe in that. “And what if we’re wrong? What if there is no dirt on Merjack?”

“Oh, I can answer this one.” Omari raised his hand like he was in a classroom, then dropped it to his side. “We all die.”

Nero snorted. “I just love teenage angst. By the way, chip, there are worse things in life than dying.”

“Like what?”

Alix answered before Nero could. “Living as a slave.”