Page 51 of Claiming Starlight
“Are you making excuses, Cyril? Are you playing games? That’s not my gig. I’m not gonna play your fucking mind games, and they don’t work on Sophie anymore. Let’s finish this. What else did you want to tell me? We’ve come in person so I could give my word, and I have yours, that the border will be the same. Ranalf is gone, and the Reaper took care of the Morghanna.”
“That monster took care of more than the goddess. Can we agree, darlings, that we do not want that creature to come through here again? He attacked the Sorcery Guild. Important men are now gone, and I cannot tell you how many imps died because of him. Nothing they did stopped him. Nothing.”
Another casual flick of his finger and the figure on the rack responded, a relentless tension taking over her body. She couldn’t move, but her muscles jumped and bones vibrated like tuning forks beneath her thin white skin. Cyril said, “It was ill-advised indeed to force unwilling sacrifices. Yes, it was. And you are here so that I can apologize for the oversight and assure you that the person responsible is being punished. Petty jealousies and greedy insurrections will not be tolerated.” His finger flicked at the first knuckle and the sorcerers took hold of the scaffolding, turning it toward the visiting group.
Senseless to everything but her pain, Katya hung there, tied so tightly she couldn’t even move her head. Cut open, she was a living vivisection. They had sliced her open from her chin to her belly button and pulled back the skin.
Vampir were various shades of white, gray, and blue. Proud of her smooth milky skin, the archon, knowing this, chose a garish color for her torment. Writhing through her organs were tiny ribbons of bright, neon-orange worms.
Every time the archon commanded, the sorcerers used their magic to agitate and activate the worms. They sparked with spelled electricity. Sophie blinked at the horrific nightmare. Conditioned by a life lived with the vampir, she did not outwardly respond.
The first torture rack she ever saw was when she was ten. They had Alexi in it, not cut open, but naked, pain magic crawling all over his exposed, vulnerable body. Katya stood over her and told her to sign the professional virgin contract, agree to willingly give pieces of herself, or Alexi would stay on the rack until she did.
Micah turned her head into his chest. “Thank you, Cyril. The bitch deserves nothing less. Any debt you think you owe Sophie or me is paid. And yeah, I don’t want the Reaper here. Most of my people are fine. But some witches had their magic drained so low that their gifts were not likely to return, and he upset the balance of the barrens when he walked through it. That area is walking chaos now, and then that storm. I don’t want a god-eater anywhere in my lands or around my people.”
“On that we can agree. The new boundaries are set, and I see you have aroused the potential of my dear, dear lil’ Sophie before I could find the key. Katya will not be forgiven for this. She will meet true-death.”
“Why? Why did she do it?” Sophie blurted out, “Why?”
“She was young, but I thought to favor her with the important task of caring for you, dear lil’ Sophie. But she was jealous and petty, small-minded. Shamed by your brother’s acting out, after all we had done to teach him his place, she wanted to be rid of him—and then conceived the plan to rid herself of you, thus freeing her for a different assignment. She wanted to be an enforcer.”
“Yes, and not a babysitter. But that can’t be it, can’t be the only reason,” Sophie said.
Alexi died for that stupid reason? Because Katya was mad at him and bored with her job?
“I am afraid it is, my dear. Believe me. Katya has answered many questions. She’s not a strong thinker, I’m afraid. My failure was choosing her instead of someone older and wiser. But I thought she was enough, because as a child, you were only sweet, innocent potential, easy to care for, willing to obey every order to protect your brother. You carried the smallest flame of gift from your delicious mother. Who could know what you could become? Not I. One learns, yes? One learns.”
“Yes. One learns,” Micah said above Sophie’s head. She could feel him move, his muscles tensing again, as if taking in the hall and all the surrounding people.
But Sophie knew without looking up what he would see. Cyril’s lack of movement belied his ability to strike viper-quick with thegetzer-sumarmung.
Faster than any of his people, Micah could shift to fur, with all its physicality, but it did not compare. Cyril would drain five shifters before Micah completely transformed. And the room was full of vampir and their own people. Even if Micah survived a challenge battle with Cyril, the vampir would not let any shifters leave alive. They did not follow challenge rules. The idea of shifting may have crossed Micah’s mind, but he would not execute it here.
“Next time, you come to my house,” Micah told the archon. Deliberately, they turned their backs on the throne, Katya’s clicking, and the hard, calculating gaze of the creatures in the room.
*
“We gonna get your shit and you’ll never come back here,” Micah said, not waiting for an argument. Sophie knew he wanted all ties with the vampir and their people cut off. By day’s end, she would have no reason to return to this side of the eyeninety.
Sophie didn’t know what to say. This world was all she’d known.
His lips compressed and his face hard, she wished he would talk about their encounter with the vampir instead of just looking displeased. The man could help her make sense of it.Both hands on the wheel of the car, he looked straight ahead. Feral energy spilled out of him in a way she couldn’t interpret. Was he mad at her? Had she done something wrong?
The vampir court left a frosty slime of unease on her exposed skin, numbing her as a matter of habit, making it impossible to connect with anything Cyril had said. The conversation was as disjointed and incomprehensible as the vampir.Sophie wanted to climb into Micah’s hot shower and never leave it. Cyril’s court gave her a dirty feeling that she didn’t know how to sort through. The deeply, alien wrong of the vampir had never stood out more.
Katya had sold Alexi.
Knowing Sophie would follow him, the vampir guard sold Sophie to Ranalf too, expecting that both humans would be fodder for the desires of a dangerous goddess.
And she did it in a moment of impulsive opportunity, acting on a vicious long-term resentment.
It was a simple explanation of vampir behavior; all of them were narcissists to the core. Micah was the only grounding thing to hold on to, a bright flame of life, something she connected with. She wanted to crawl into his lap and put her nose against his neck. The powerful wild smell of him reminded her of his beast, made her want that part of him again—because in that moment under the stars, she had been more alive than ever before. Protected. Wanted.
The memory scared her. How she acted. How she had loved it and wanted it to happen again. The feelings opposite to the creeping dread the vampir inspired.
“You will take everything that is yours. Get your stuffed wolf and anything else you want. Clothes, whatever,” Micah said as he pulled up in front of her house. Surrounded by his team of shifters, his car blocked part of the road, but like everywhere else in Old City, other vehicles were rare. If anyone came along, it would be another vampir, and they would wait.
She’d lived in the gray stone house since Cyril took her and her brother from the vampir slave stables and marked them as his own. The sorcerer with him warned that they were too valuable to brand.
