Shadow's End (Elder Races #9)

“What are you doing here?” Ferion asked Graydon. His voice sounded flat and expressionless, almost as if he were an automaton.

“I’m saying hello to Bel,” Graydon replied. Like Bel, he spoke quietly, without undue aggression, although standing so close to him, she could feel his Power bristle with unseen spikes. She knew he was on a hair trigger, holding his own instincts barely in check. “Do you always bring loaded weapons into your mother’s bedroom?”

Ferion bared his teeth in a smile. “I do when there is an intruder. You’re trespassing on Elven territory, Wyr.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bel said. Her fingers tightened on Graydon’s. “There’s no intruder here. Graydon was passing by, and I invited him to stop for a few minutes.”

“You didn’t inform any of the guards this was going to happen.” Ferion gestured, and the guard holstered his gun. He lowered his own Glock but continued to hold it. She might not be able to read him any longer, but his body language was tense.

“It was an impulse decision,” she said gently. “Graydon had only just landed. You showed up more quickly than I could think to call down. I had no idea I was being watched with such care. Thank you for looking out for me.”

Now both guards turned to watch Ferion, while Linwe regarded her with a troubled, baffled expression. Bel could tell that the younger Elf sensed that something was seriously wrong.

Linwe said brightly, “Graydon, it’s great to see you! You should have said you were stopping by.”

Bel bit back a smile as Linwe rushed over to throw her arms around Graydon. Smiling, he hugged her back. “Like Bel said, it was an impulse visit.”

“Step out of the room,” Ferion said to the guards. As Linwe gave him an uncertain look, he added, “You too.”

Linwe looked to Bel for confirmation. In that moment, any hint of doubt Bel might have had about the younger woman vanished. Linwe was clearly on her side.

Bel told her, “Go on, do as you’re told. Have a good night.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The three Elves left the room, although Linwe trailed behind the two guards and looked distinctly unhappy about it.

As soon as they had left, Ferion turned to confront Bel and Graydon.

He demanded, “What the hell are you two doing?”





THIRTEEN


She couldn’t hold back asking any longer. “Who is asking, you or Malphas?”

When at first he didn’t answer, her widened gaze flew to Graydon’s in alarm.

Even as Graydon started to speak, Ferion said, “Your question is not quite accurate. Malphas can’t possess me like some bodiless demon.”

Graydon’s eyes narrowed. “But he can give you orders and compel you to obey. Is he compelling you right now?”

“He’s always had that ability.” The blood had left Ferion’s face, and his lips were white.

“That isn’t an answer.” Bel stepped toward him, her fists clenched.

Ferion didn’t respond. Instead, he looked at her steadily.

All of a sudden, she saw her son again in his gaze, her good, loving, flawed son. Her eyes filled with moisture, and she strode over to throw her arms around him. He held her tightly.

Graydon asked, “Has Malphas compelled you to do things in the past?”

The muscles in Ferion’s arms grew rigid. He put his face in her hair and didn’t answer.

After suspecting for so long, both relief and fury swept through her. She said over her shoulder to Graydon, “Silence is its own answer.”

“Yes, it is,” Graydon growled. “So he has already broken the bargain, and it’s up to us to prove it and hold him accountable.”

Her breathing had turned ragged with her emotions. This was the kind of risk one suffered when one bargained with a pariah. For law-abiding Djinn, if a bargain was not upheld, one could present a case to the Demonkind council. If the case was proven, the Djinn would need to make reparation.

No such strictures bound a pariah. They had already been judged by the Djinn and found wanting, and had been barred from society. The only way to stir others to action was by proving that the pariah was doing too much damage to tolerate—because going against a Djinn came at such a high cost.

Everything was stacked in Malphas’s favor. He could cheat while knowing the cost to hold him accountable was too expensive, whereas if she and Graydon broke their side of the bargain, he would . . .

What would he do? Tell the world that they had slept together two hundred years ago? Other than a mild titillation and perhaps a tabloid headline, the world would yawn in his face.

Would he kill the High Lord of the Elven demesne? If he did, he would be signing his own death warrant, because nobody—nobody in all the Elder Races—would allow him to commit such a crime and get away with it.

But if he was pushed into a corner, he could torture Ferion with more extreme acts of control—and that was the one possibility that was so unendurable. She simply couldn’t bear to watch it happen.

Hold steady, she thought. Stay the course. Play the long game.