Page 101 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

The crowbar still in hand, I crouched beside Nix, resting the bar behind my shoulders. O’Haire writhed and whimpered, the sound grating against the steady drip-drip-drip of blood hitting the tarp-lined floor.

I shifted the candy again, cracking its center. Too-sweet syrup spread across my tongue as the man’s agony painted the air.

Somewhere along the way, the whispers started.

That the heathens in The Rougarou could find people.

Could help, if you were desperate enough to track them down.

That the tattooed blond in the corner booth—the one in the black jacket—could bring them home. One way or another.

That’s how, on a stormy October evening, a girl so slight a stiff breeze could carry her off slid into the booth beside Carr and me. Early twenties, maybe. If she’d had more weight on her, she’d probably look younger.

She was shaking. Pale. Scared. But she still handed me a photo—two beautiful blonde girls, their faces trembling in her grip.

Blue eyes. Tan skin. Dimples. The older one was maybe sixteen, if the precision of her hair and makeup was any indication.

Sisters.

Her sisters. Snatched from the front yard of their foster home.

Which meant no one was fighting for them.

She showed me the doorbell footage before I could say no.

Broad daylight.

Motherfucking.

Daylight.

Police had no leads. Not since the lead detective turned up skinned and frozen in a warehouse meat locker.

I told her I couldn’t help.

Sent Wings to get her home safe.

Kept the photo though.

Now, with what was left of the candy tucked between my cheek and molars, I let the crowbar drop from my hands. O’Haire flinched, dead eyes watering, blood still pooling beneath him. Slowly, I reached into my coat and pulled out the photo, holding it up between two gloved fingers.

“Tell me again that you don’t know Sadie and Ashley,” I said, voice low, lethal. “I fucking dare you.”

The shadows dropped us on the front lawn of Luminark Manor the next morning, just after it was all over. The collective flap of wings and deep croaks signaled a dozen ravens returning to their trees as our familiars let down their guards. Poe trotted along beside my boots, giving a throaty tok that I took as approval. My theory was confirmed when I raised my arm and he landed, glassy eyes twitching as he studied my face.

“All good, buddy,” I murmured, stroking his sleek coat. That was all he needed—he launched into the air to rejoin the others at their perches along the perimeter.

We crossed the ward line without a word, and once inside, Nix was the first to speak. “So, what now?”

“Now, I owe Calypso and Lonan turns with a ghost.”

“You’re still on that?” he scoffed, already stripping off his cloak and the blood-streaked shirt beneath it as we filed into the prepped locker room. A pile of evidence dumped in the center tarp was growing by the second.

“You got a better explanation for Uptown, shithead?”

“Look, princeling, I know you like your fairy tales, but we’ve got actual fish to fry.”

I deadpanned at his use of Lonan’s less than flattering moniker and yanked my own clothes up and over my head, tossing them in the pile as somebody behind us started the showers. Growing up, Charles and I begged our mother to tell us the old stories. Back then, I’d thought it was about our obsession with lineage—our ancestral claim to the Stuart crest, the noble bloodline we were meant to defend. But really, I think it was just one of the rare ways the Queen acknowledged we existed.