Authors: Nalini Singh
“Yes. You matter.”
Hugging Jason’s quiet words to her heart, her faith in his integrity an instinct she had no will to fight, Mahiya crossed the stone of the courtyard with measured steps. Open as it was, with only a few miniature trees in large planters on the edges, she could feel a hundred eyes on her—guards, courtiers, servants.
She acknowledged those who acknowledged her, but stopped for no one . . . until a tall, handsome angel with skin of darkest brown and eyes of smoky gray walked into her path, his wings a mottled brown two shades paler than his skin. And she understood why Neha had spoken of the man who had taught Mahiya her first and most lasting lesson about love.
17
“M
ahiya, my sweet.” Arav went as if to take her hand in preparation for lifting it to his mouth, but she halted that by the polite expedient of a small bow, hands clasped together in greeting in front of her.
“Sir,” she said, and in her mind, it was an insult. “I did not know you visited my lady.”
“Of course I visit Neha.” A charming smile he’d once convinced Mahiya was for her alone.
Now she trusted no man’s smile . . . and was starting to trust a man who smiled not at all. It was an impossible thing, but there it was. She had more trust in an enemy spymaster than she had in any other person in this fort—Jason’s truths might be dark and often brutal, but they were never lies wrapped in acidic sweetness that could corrode.
“She and I are friends of an age.” Arav’s gaze lifted to where Neha stood on the ramparts, her gaze cityward. “And of course, I have not seen you, my favorite lover, for many a year.”
“I am no longer your lover and have not been for centuries.” She felt defiled by the memory of how she’d allowed him to take her innocence with a satisfaction she’d then mistaken for care. “I wish you a good visit, but I must be on my way.”
Arav blocked her when she would’ve walked around him. To insist would be to cause a scene, and while Mahiya had no compunction against slapping Arav if need be, giving in to the urge while Neha stood so close could be dangerous. Because in one thing Arav did not lie—he and Neha did have a friendship.
To this day, she didn’t know if Arav had been acting under orders when he seduced then threw Mahiya away like trash, or if it had been simple chance, the male in front of her taking advantage of an untutored girl who did not enjoy her archangel’s favor and thus had no one from whom Arav might fear reprisal.
“I hear you share rooms with one who has sworn a blood vow.” Arav’s eyes glittered. “Raphael’s pet mute.”
Mute?
It was an insult so incomprehensible as to have no impact. Jason didn’t chatter, but he wasn’t a wholly silent creature—he simply chose not to speak until he had something to say. “Neha,” she said, with glacial politeness, “appears to hold him in high esteem.”
His lips twisted in a reflection of the putrid inner self she hadn’t seen until it was too late. “She is grieving.”
Ah.
“Is that why you’re here? To offer solace?”
“It is a friend’s prerogative.”
“A friend who wishes to take Eris’s place.”
“I am stronger than he ever was.” Arrogance backed by fact; Arav was one of Neha’s generals. “When I am consort,” he said, gripping her jaw between thumb and forefinger before she could flinch away, “I will ask Neha to give you to me as my special pet.”
Fool.
Mahiya twisted out of his grip, heedless of whether it might attract Neha’s attention. Because if there was one thing the archangel had never done, it was to overlook the mistreatment of women in her court. Any man found to have forced, beaten, or coerced a woman was summarily punished by having parts of his body amputated—the worse the assault, the more he lost, until some didn’t survive to regenerate.
It did not matter if the woman was in favor or not, rich or poor, peasant or courtier. The rule was absolute and part of what made Neha such a beloved queen. But that Neha, Mahiya thought suddenly, a prickling of cold along her spine, might not be the one who ruled now . . . at least not where Mahiya was concerned.
“Some would say I am being punished for what I did to you and your mother.”
Stifling the chilling realization, she favored Arav with a scalpel-sharp smile. “Neha values loyalty in a man above all else. If she ever thinks you have plans to touch another while bound to her, Eris’s torture and disemboweling will seem a gentle punishment in comparison.”
Paling until the loss of blood was obvious even under the darkness of his skin, Arav took two quick steps away from her. Mahiya was already gone, having used his momentary shock to skirt past and down the pathway toward the stables—petting the horses she so loved would go some way toward calming her. She felt Arav’s eyes boring between her shoulder blades until she disappeared around the corner, and knew that where he had previously seen her as a toy, he now saw her as something he wanted to break. She’d made an enemy this day.
* * *
T
hree hours after the discovery of Shabnam’s body, and having completed a number of other crucial inquiries, Jason had intended to interview the ladies-in-waiting, but found he had need to speak to Neha. “Venom asks permission to enter your territory.”
Neha’s lips kicked up a notch where she walked beside a large outdoor mural of a lissome maiden carrying a water pot on her head. “So, the prodigal returns,” she said, the grief and anger in her voice leavened by warmth. “Is he on his way to the Refuge?”
“He says he would not dare pass by without paying his respects.”
Neha’s laugh echoed off the marble around them. “Though he did dare run off to Raphael as soon as his Contract was complete.”
“I think you would’ve been disappointed had he not shown spine enough to forge his own path.” Though she would not be pleased to know exactly how powerful the vampire had become in the years since.
Smile deepening, Neha said, “I assent to his visit, so long as he accepts the vow that binds you also includes him while he is here. Let us hope he has brought a gift that will soften my anger at his defection.”
What Venom brought was nothing expected. No exotic snake or a necklet in the shape of a cobra, no jeweled comb or rare wine.
“Explain this,” Neha said in a cool tone when he unveiled the mechanical monkey that beat drums and crashed cymbals with manic glee as it walked in circles on the sapphire-hued silk carpet in front of Neha’s throne.
Venom turned off the toy. “It is a smile, my lady.” Glancing up from his crouching position, he allowed the sunlight pouring in through the windows to hit the shocking green of eyes that were not human in any sense, the slits contracting against the brightness. “I thought you needed one more than jewels. Especially on this day.”
Neha said nothing for a long minute before she sighed and gestured for him to rise. “Put that in my private chambers,” she said to the servant who stood discreetly to the side, and Jason knew the danger had passed, Venom’s gamble at referring to Eris’s funeral paying off.
“Tell me,” she said once the servant had departed, “of what you have been doing in Raphael’s Tower.”
It was a loaded question, one that asked Venom to divide his loyalties, but the vampire fielded it without lying—and without betraying any secrets. “Learning to be stronger, better. Now I go to work under Galen.”
“Yes, that one is a man who understands patience, as you have never done.”
“It’s in my nature.” Venom shrugged, and Jason knew he referred to the impulses that had been seeded in him by the Queen of Snakes, of Poisons.
A faint smile curved Neha’s lips, the calculated gleam of her earlier question replaced by amused affection. “When does that barbarian weapons master expect you?”
“I am early. If I may beg your indulgence, I would stay and talk with friends I have not seen for many a year.”
Neha’s eyes
shifted
in that quicksilver way, now brown, now a jagged, slitted green, the speed such that Jason could almost believe he’d imagined it. “So, Raphael thinks to plant a second spy in my court?”
“You insult Jason, my lady.” Disarming charm. “I would be a great thumping elephant to his sleek cobra.”
An exasperated shake of Neha’s head, the archangel appearing more indulgent than Jason had seen her with anyone but Eris and Anoushka. “Stay, play your games, but, Venom? Do not forget who I am.”
Venom bowed over her hand, pressing his lips to her knuckles. “My lady, never will I forget who you are—you did not Make a fool.”
* * *
L
ater, when Venom and Jason walked up onto the wall above one of the magnificent fort gates, Jason saw the vampire sigh as he looked out over the city below, the homes hugging the earth for the most part, but even the smallest with a door painted in a bright shade, or shutters of red, a roof of blue. “You miss this place.”
“At times,” Venom said, his hair lifting in the breeze that tugged at Jason’s queue. “This land is where I was born, this fort where I was Made. It’ll always have a claim on my heart, though it is Raphael who has a claim on my loyalty.”
Jason thought of the palm-edged sands of the Pacific, of the remote island that was his own, where he went when he wanted to disappear from the world. Though it wasn’t the place where he’d been born, it was close enough that it made his heart ache. “I understand.”
“Raphael thought you might appreciate a familiar face, someone you can trust to watch your back.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, thinking of a woman who lived in a fort surrounded by hundreds of others, but who was and had always been alone, without anyone of her own.
Even he had memories of love to keep him going. Mahiya had nothing. And still she had hope in her heart, the capacity for tenderness of the soul. Strong, she was so strong, stronger than him, for where he’d had to shut down to survive, she’d managed to do so intact.
“So,” Venom said, “tell me what has happened—I won’t betray your vow, and Raphael won’t expect it of me.”
Jason had never believed otherwise. “There is something wrong here.” He told Venom of the triple murders, of the details that didn’t quite fit. “You still know many people in this court intimately.” Friends the vampire had stayed in touch with, some out of true affection, others because they were useful—Venom could be coldly practical beneath his charm. “Find the connection if you can.”
The murders bore too familiar an emotional fingerprint to be the work of disparate entities, and yet Neha had no need or apparent motive to murder her lady-in-waiting in such a violent fashion. Regardless of all else, he simply could not see her breaking her vigil beside Eris’s body in order to commit the act, not when those were the final hours she’d ever spend with him.
Venom gave a thoughtful nod, sliding his mirrored shades back over his eyes. “I’ll do everything I can, but I’ll have to leave in three days at the most. Neha will not give me her indulgence beyond that.”
“You’re a better judge of her mood than I—go when you need to.” Getting Venom’s nod, he asked the vampire a question that had nothing to do with his task at the fort. “How is Sorrow?” The girl had survived an attack from a mad archangel, come out of it infected by a toxin that had changed her from mortal to something other, her abilities erratic.
Venom’s jaw went taut, tendons pushing against the skin of his neck. “Janvier has taken over her vampiric training for the time being,” he said, referring to the vampire who had worked directly under Dmitri on any number of operations and whose loyalty to the Tower was unquestioned—though until now, it had been more useful to have him out in the world as an apparent free agent.
“You know how good Janvier is,” Venom added, “but I’ll have to return periodically to do the speed dances with her.”
Venom could move with snake quickness, a skill Sorrow shared, though hers came from a different source. “Can she call it up on command?”
“No. And if she doesn’t learn to do that, she’ll die.” Unforgiving words. “But Honor’s right—she needs to get the basics down first before I start pushing her again, or she’ll make stupid mistakes speed alone can’t cure.”
“Who’s undertaking her physical training with Honor out of the city?”
“Ashwini.” Venom’s face thawed, his lips twitching a fraction. “You know what she did to Janvier the last time they met?”
“Honey was involved.” Jason had watched the hunter and the vampire spar since their first meeting, never quite understanding their relationship—they were adversaries one minute, determined to run each other to the ground, and allies the next. It was Janvier Ashwini had taken with her when she’d needed to work in Nazarach’s dangerous territory, and it was Janvier whose sapphire pendant the hunter wore around her neck. Yet, as far as he knew, they had never been bedmates.
“Why don’t they just sleep with one another?” he asked Venom, wondering if he’d missed a subtle nuance in their relationship.
Venom’s chuckle was quiet, his eyes eerie in the sunshine as he pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. “That is an enduring mystery.” He cocked his head. “Who is that very pretty woman coming this way?”
Jason didn’t need to follow Venom’s gaze—he could feel Mahiya’s presence as a gentle heat against his wings. “The Princess Mahiya, and she is mine.” He had no right to make such a claim, but Venom had a way of charming women when he was in the mood, and Jason discovered he did not wish Mahiya to be charmed.
“Ah.” The vampire turned and jumped off the gate with an insouciant carelessness that had Mahiya’s hand slapping over her heart.
But Venom came to a crouching landing on his toes, lithe as a cat. Landing beside him, Jason watched Mahiya rather than Venom as the vampire rose and bent over her hand. “Impossible as it seems, I do not believe we have ever met.”
Mahiya’s fascinated gaze lingered on Venom’s eyes as he lifted his head and released her hand. “No . . . but I have heard of the vampire with the viper’s eyes. You were based at the Delhi court in the main.”
“I was,” Venom agreed, “but I visited here more than once. You must’ve been studying at the Refuge.”
“Yes. I believe you had sworn allegiance to Raphael by the time I returned to the fort.”
Jason caught the fine tremor that rippled over Mahiya’s skin as she spoke of a homecoming that must have been a terrifying experience for a young girl, and spread his wing just enough that it brushed over her own. It was an intimacy, and one she had not offered, one he’d never have initiated had he stopped to think about it, yet instead of flinching, she relaxed.
“It’s good to finally make your acquaintance,” she said to Venom, genuine warmth in her tone. “Neha has always said you were one of her proudest Makings.”
Venom’s grin was sharp, his next words directed at Jason. “Shall we meet over dinner?”