Blood Redemption (Blood Destiny #9) (27 page)

"This is Norian Keef, Director of the ASD," I hurried to make an introduction, before things got farther into the danger zone. "And I am Lissa, Queen of Le-Ath Veronis. We don't need your money. We came to find Norian's family. Therefore, if you'll shut up and listen, maybe we can all learn a few things." Reedy was still glaring at us suspiciously. Yeah, I might, too, if two people showed up without warning and claimed to be a monarch and the head of the Alliance Security Detail.

"My ID," Norian produced his badge from a pocket. Reedy frowned as he looked at it.

"Could be fake," he muttered.

"These aren't." I let my claws slide out, and I pointed one of them at Reedy. "I can smell your blood, Reedy, or whatever your name is. Now, I truly don't want to be responsible for killing Norian's brother, but it sounds like you have a little blood on your hands already. I suggest you get your parents in here. We need to have a pow-wow before the moon comes up and you all get scaly and hissy."

"How do you know anything about that?" Reedy still didn't sound convinced.

"Let's take a little trip," I suggested, and folded all of us to Le-Ath Veronis, where the full moon, thankfully, was six days away.

"Little girl, tell me where you have been." Cheedas had hands on hips as we showed up in his kitchen.

Reedy looked around him, shock showing in his face. "Where am I?" he whispered.

"You are in my kitchen, in the Queen's palace on Le-Ath Veronis," Cheedas snapped, lifting a ladle and waving it at Reedy. "And you should have more respect for my Raona, or you will not receive the best of food."

"He can make good on that threat," I said mildly, smiling at Cheedas. He smiled back at me.

"Are you staying for dinner, Raona?" Cheedas asked.

"No, honey, we have to get Norian's brother back home before they call out the dogs," I said. "He was just having a hard time believing we are who we say we are."

"Avilepha, you should come home soon," Kifirin appeared beside me, shocking Reedy further. Kifirin blew smoke as he looked around me at Reedy. "Lay a hand or a scale on my mate and I will kill you slowly," he said.

"You're threatening me?" Reedy huffed.

"I do not threaten. That is a promise." Kifirin's smoke grew heavier.

"You probably don't want to talk to Kifirin that way. You're one of the dark races, after all, and he won't waste a minute doing away with you," I informed Reedy. Truly, it was for his own good.

"Kifirin? I heard he was a myth." Reedy kept digging the hole deeper. If I didn't stop him, he'd bury himself in a self-made grave.

"Yeah? Well, lion snakes might be myths to some people, too, yet the reality is right here, is it not? Let's go find your parents, you stupid shit." I folded us away again.

* * *

"Mother, I couldn't stop them. This one claims to be Queen of Le-Ath Veronis, and this one says he's my brother." Reedy rushed to give out information when we landed in front of Norian's mother. The scent was all over her. She'd given Norian his eye color—I saw that right away. We stood on the edge of a large wheat field under a tent of some sort. A small table occupied part of the space, and it was covered with a water jug and cups. Machinery was working out in the field, harvesting the wheat crop and raising dust.

"Nori, I think you're going to have to change." I looked at Norian, who shrugged before his clothing puddled around him and he rose up, hissing, his hood spread out. It resembled the mane of a lion, which most likely gave them their name.

"See, not so far-fetched anymore, is it?" I had a claw at Reedy's throat again. He was staring at Norian, who snaked to my side and lifted himself to drape over my shoulders.

"Honey, now might not be a good time," I kissed his head and he dropped down again.

"Is that my son?" Norian's mother was looking at him closely, now. "The pattern belongs to the family, but that can't be my Lirokalif."

"Is that why you called him Keef?" I asked. "The name was too long for him to say it properly?" Norian was gathering his clothing, after he put the claw crown ring on first. He got points for that, in my book.

"And we called Yaredolak, Reedy, for the same reason," Norian's mother agreed. "Is this my son? Is it? Will someone explain where he's been all this time?" She was about to have a meltdown, too, and Reedy just looked bewildered, now.

* * *

"The Alliance boarded the ship—it was a freighter smuggling other things besides me," Norian sat at a table inside a large kitchen at the family manor. Norian's mother, father and his doubting brother sat with us while Norian told his story. "I couldn't tell them my real name, I could only say Keef, umma and pap," he went on. "They almost killed me when the full moon came along. Ildevar Wyyld showed up, made arrangements for me to be brought up and schooled and then convinced me to work for the ASD."

"And now you're the Director." Norian's father was still in shock.

"Yes. And only recently made Ildevar Wyyld's heir. After I married Lissa Beth." Norian put his hand over mine. The claw crown ring was prominent on his finger.

"But you've been gone so long, I'm not sure how to fit you into the family," his mother sighed.

"You don't have to fit me into the family. I just wanted to find you. Make sure I hadn't dreamed you, or something. With the way Reedy greeted me, it's probably just as well." Poor Norian. If he'd expected a tearful reunion, he wasn't getting it.

"It's the full moon, and we'll be going out in a while," Reedy was still acting grumpy.

"What is wrong with you?" I asked. "Norian isn't taking anything away from you. And now, your parents can rest easier, I hope, knowing that their child wasn't tortured, killed or held in somebody's zoo. Norian has a job to do, so he isn't going to be hanging around, depending on you to support him. And I'm still a little pissed over the fact that you tried to kill us without knowing whether we were good or bad. I get a slight itch, looking at you. Why is that, Reedy? I know you're fifteen years older than Norian. That would have made you nineteen or twenty, when Norian was abducted. Who did you make a deal with, Reedy?" I'd done a little
Looking
. Reedy had given away sensitive information.

Norian's father was now staring at his oldest son. "Nori, I think it's time we left," I said, rising. "You can turn here, or I can take you back to Wyyld or Le-Ath Veronis. Whatever you want, honey." I looked At Norian's mother. "I
am
Queen of Le-Ath Veronis," I said. "If you'd like to visit with your son again, get a message to me. My assistants will know to pass it along immediately." I folded Norian back to Wyyld.

* * *

"My own brother gave us away?" Norian couldn't believe it.

"Honey, you were taken on a full moon. Reedy told the kidnappers where the three smallest ones were going to be. Who knows what he gained from all that?"

"Maybe I'll have him investigated." Norian was angry, now.

"Up to you," I muttered. "Do you think Ildevar will mind if I dig through his kitchen for something to eat?" Norian's family hadn't offered us a thing.

Norian helped me look for food; we ended up with a rice dish with meat and vegetables. It was good. We ate at the island and Norian settled me on top of it before working his way between my legs. "Norian, we are not going to fool around in the kitchen," I grumbled.

"But I want to," he was kissing my neck and trying to unbutton my blouse. I fooled him—I folded us to my suite. He didn't seem to mind.

* * *

"Lissa, we have to go. Quickly." Those were Norian's words to me when I woke.

"Honey, that's the worst pickup line I ever heard." I cracked an eye open and stared at him. He was already dressed in his ASD uniform—black and gray and all business.

"Lissa, we'll have to work on separating business and pleasure later. Deonus Wyyld tells me we have to go to Tykl."

"The trash planet?" I was fully awake now. "Whatever for?"

"Somebody wanted to get to those bodies we dumped there before our agents could collect them all. We are attempting to find out why that is. Come, get dressed."

"Fine," I grumped and slid off the bed. Norian watched me the whole time I undressed to shower and then watched me dress again, before doing my hair. "I didn't get to watch you," I pointed out. He gave me half a grin and tried to hurry me along. I guess lion snakes have some kind of herding ability—he was doing a good job.

Lendill was waiting on us, and they wanted me to get them to an Alliance ship orbiting Tykl. The bodies they'd found were on board. I had to concentrate to hit a moving target, but we did it. The Captain of the ship hardly lifted an eyebrow when the three of us appeared out of nowhere inside his office.

"We destroyed the small ship sent to pick up the bodies, but we don't know why they wanted them. We can't find anything on the bodies, either—no chips or anything else that might be used as a homing beacon, and there's no other reason anyone might know they were here. That information has been kept tightly guarded." Captain Galeda informed us as we walked swiftly toward the ship's infirmary. The three bodies they had were in cold storage there—they'd already been examined.

These bodies were three of the attackers I'd decapitated during the shoot-out with Lendill. "None of these were ours," Lendill said as we examined them. The heads were set near the necks from which they'd been severed.

"Were the decapitations done with a laser sword?" Captain Galeda asked.

"No." Norian wanted to smile; I just knew it.

 "We've gone over prints, eye scans, body scans—the works. There's nothing, except these tattoos." He pulled down lower lips to show three identical sun wheel tattoos. "No chips or implants, though. No strange DNA patterns, even. We've had the complete workup as far as blood and tissue go," the Captain added. "They all suffered from the same, rare disease."

The bodies still held whatever it was that blocked their scents, so I
Looked
for information instead. Captain Galeda's words had raised my suspicions, and now I knew why the scents had been blocked—likely by a warlock. I had my arms crossed over my chest, trying not to hyperventilate afterward.
Black Mist has allied with Solar
Red
,
and they're both behind this
, I sent to Norian and Lendill. Solar Red had a habit of placing sun wheel tattoos somewhere on their priest's bodies. And these three, well, they'd been enhanced—with vampire blood. That spelled Black Mist to me. They didn't care that these priests would die eventually from the infusion of vampire blood—they wanted them strong to take Lendill down. It didn't matter what happened afterward. There was something else, too, that made my skin itch about these three.

Breah-mul are you sure?
Norian sent back. He was still getting used to mindspeech—he always hesitated a little before doing it.
And what does that have to do with these three and the fact that someone came to find them
?

Black Mist has either wizards or warlocks, I'm sure of it now,
I returned
. I think these bodies are sending out signals, only it isn't any kind of beacon you can use science to find. You'd need another warlock, I think
. I suspected that Black Mist wanted them so we wouldn't figure out they'd been enhanced with vampire blood. I didn't want to tell Norian that if I didn't have to, though. If word of that got out, we could have panic across the Alliance.

We don't have any wizards or warlocks in the ASD—not on the payroll, anyway
, Norian sounded grumpy, now.

Let me see if I can get Erland to come
, I replied, and then sent out mindspeech to my Karathian mate.

Erland was there faster than I thought possible. "My love, what do you need?" he asked breathlessly. I had no idea if I'd interrupted anything important. He was dressed as he usually was—neatly and in the latest fashion.

"Honey, I think we have something here that a wizard might have had a hand in." Briefly, I explained what was going on with help from Norian, Lendill and Captain Galeda.

"You'll have to stand back from the bodies, this can be a little bright," Erland warned. Honestly, I'd never really seen him work before. We got a good demonstration now. He held out his hands, whispered a few words that I didn't catch and the heads began to glow. Not the bodies, just the heads. Their eyes popped open and purple light shone from their lifeless depths.

"This is an extremely difficult and expensive spell," Erland dropped his hands after a while, allowing the light to disappear abruptly. "It is keyed to the warlock who created it. A finding spell. Unless I know which warlock created the spell, I can't determine the point of origin. Even Wylend can't do anything about this. We need the warlock's name."

"But this is how they found the others?" Norian stared at Erland.

"Yes, and they know exactly where these are, too. This ship is in danger—when I checked these three for the type of spell cast, it triggered another spell. The caster knows that a wizard or warlock has checked the bodies. They didn't want that to happen."

I barely had time to throw a shield around the ship before we were hit. The ship still got knocked around. I'm sure the object had been to throw the ship into Tykl's orbit, which would cause it to crash.