The Curse (Belador #3)(61)

Macha answered carefully. “Only for those who come forth and swear their loyalty to me. Make your point while we’re still in this millennium, Dakkar.”

“My point is simple. An eye for an eye.”

He wants Evalle? “I am not handing over my Alterant.”

Dakkar held his arms out, palms up in a gesture of we’re-at-an-impasse. “You refuse to compensate me. I’m penalized every time one of my people has to enter the southeastern region of North America. I am offered nothing in return. Not even a beast.”

She ignored the poke about Evalle being only a beast, something that could be handed off as easily as cattle. “If Evalle had committed this crime, she would be forfeited, but she did not.”

His body radiated confidence and passivity, but his fingertips straightened, then curved, flexing with contained anger. “Then I want an agreement based upon precedent.”

“Of what nature?” Varpulis asked, not even winded by his running.

“That if one of my bounty hunters accidentally kills an Alterant, any Alterant, there will be no retaliation and no recompense expected.”

The miserable cur wants blanket amnesty for all of the future, for one killing?

He had to be crazy to think she’d agree to that. “I will not tolerate anyone attacking or killing a being who has been accepted into my pantheon and is under my protection.”

Dakkar’s eyes thinned with impending battle. “I feel the same way about my bounty hunters. I think it only fair that you either finalize the charter and accept responsibility for all the Alterants or withdraw your charter until you are ready to make that commitment.”

“If I withdraw the charter, it will not be due to a bounty hunter’s losing one of his mutts.” Now she understood what this was all about. Dakkar was merely establishing his position in the eyes of the Tribunal, setting the stage for what he really wanted. An Alterant.

Offering him anything else at this point would be a wasted effort, but she would flush him out. “What will compensate you, Dakkar?”

“A decision on this before the next full moon.”

“Done.” Varpulis sped up until he turned into a blur.

Dakkar’s sly smile widened into a predator’s grin.

Macha understood why. He knew she’d have to go against a Tribunal to change that decision. With the Medb threat hanging over her warriors and Brina, this was not the time to start a war on all fronts.

He gambled that he would walk away with an Alterant. And damn his miserable hide, he just might.

Evalle had better come through on her promise to bring in Alterants. And on time.





TWENTY




How could someone so small be so scary? Evalle followed Kit, the diminutive package of energy who, it appeared, ran Nyght Industries as she’d claimed.

Isak’s mother.

Kit directed Evalle to follow as she headed for a group of men who’d been assembling weapons before the Rías attack. She made short work of dictating who would take what shift to guard the cell containing Jasper.

Evalle recognized some of these men. She’d seen them carrying special weapons on black-ops maneuvers with Isak Nyght when he hunted nonhumans.

Men born with sharp eyes who lived on a diet of adrenaline and grit.

Not a one of them said a word to Kit other than a respectful “Yes, ma’am.”

Oddly, Kit’s high-handedness didn’t put Evalle off the way other people’s had when they’d tried to force her to jump through hoops. Kit gave orders to keep chaos from turning into insanity, not as a power play. Evalle could respect that and go along to get along, for now.

Turning toward the area in the gargantuan warehouse that had been sectioned off into offices, Kit said over her shoulder, “How does my son know you, Evalle?”

“Uh …” What could she say to Isak’s mother without knowing what he’d told Kit? “He didn’t tell you?”

Kit didn’t answer her. She opened the door to the offices and passed through an interim sitting area furnished with blue leather chairs and a sofa. A hallway to more offices spilled off to the left.

Evalle kept step right behind Kit, who finally entered a windowless room painted in soft beige colors. The plain cherrywood desk suited Kit’s bullet-point style. Files and paper sat on one side, neatly organized. A picture of her and Isak was perched on an eye-level shelf of the matching credenza behind the desk. Kit’s all-in-one computer monitor had been mounted on an adjustable metal arm, ready to slide into any position for the woman who clearly demanded respect and compliance even from inanimate objects.

She dropped into a high-back leather office chair that consumed her body, then she pointed at the armchair facing her desk. Not a request. “Don’t answer my questions with a question. How do you know Isak?”

Had there been an or else at the end of that?

Evalle saw no way around giving this woman a version of the truth. “I met Isak by accident when we both found a demon at the same time.”

Leaned back with elbows propped on her chair arms, Kit folded her hands together in a thoughtful pose. “What happened?”

“Isak used his blaster and turned the demon into chips.”

“Were you trying to kill the demon, too?”

Tricky question. “I needed intel first. I was questioning the demon to find out who had sent him to Atlanta and how he was involved with a human that had been killed by another demon.”