Jonas (Darkness #7)(17)

She pushed open the door to her room with her map in mind as she caught the familiar presence. Nathanial sat at her desk as he had the other night. One ankle was crossed over a knee and his fingers were intertwined. Shivers wracked her body. This was his “faux patience” stance. It meant she was in trouble and would be punished.

“Hi Nathanial.” She walked right up to him. She’d hoped to think about a plan, maybe wait that day after all. Not with that edge to his eye, though. She didn’t have a day.

She didn’t have an hour.

“Emmy. I am absolutely heartbroken. Darla tells me you interrupted her interrogation. Being the dear-heart she is, she tried not to fault you, but I couldn’t help but see the whip mark. You scored one of your betters while defying one of my direct orders. This grieves me.”

“She wasn’t interrogating him. She was trying to screw and bite him.” Emmy felt the magic run through her body.

“Now, now. You know I dislike when you are vulgar. Well. You will be glad to hear that your prickly charge is no longer needed. Darla has produced someone who used to work right beside Cato. He is quite well connected. Pity I didn’t hear of him before now. But you know how it is—so many want to join our cause, I don’t have time to speak to them all. Luckily, however, Darla had. She was quite the find.”

“Great.”

“You will not be pleased to hear, however, that you must be punished. And Darla is right—having a human pet for so long does look bad. We’d hate to have others think I favor your kind. So you will go into the higher level of humans distributed for good deeds. I will choose who gets you intimately, of course—while I applaud her foresight, I still do not like sharing. Your blood, however—that can be distributed more openly. Others will need the boost to their magic level. We will take the Council premises soon.”

“Why do you keep me, Nathanial? If you hate me so much, and hate my kind, why do I need to be under your thumb? No one else forces humans—or anyone else. Why me?”

His head tilted at her words. “You are a remarkably pretty girl. And there is a certain allure in lying with one such as yourself. I often wondered if you would get with child. Humans seem to find that easier. Three-fourths of my race means the offspring is likely to have my type of magic. This would ensure I could raise my child as my own. There was always the chance it would have human magic, and that I would have to abandon it, but it was worth the risk. Unfortunately, you are barren. And since you lack sexual finesse, I found that there was no use to you.”

“Then why keep me? Why not let me go?” she pleaded.

“Because what if I was the barren one? I couldn’t allow you to bear someone else’s spawn. Then I would be ridiculed. And yes, now we have that problem, which is why I will be sure to choose those who are infertile. If I choose wrongly, and you do get with child—well, there are ways to rectify that.”

White-hot rage burned through Emmy. Red hazed her vision. Anger clouded her judgment. Without a second thought, she reached forward and placed her hand on Nathanial’s neck. A perplexed expression crossed his face, but he did not flinch. That would be a sign of weakness for an advance from a human. She’d counted on that.

Before he could shock her with magic, she dumped her special spell into his skin. Fire and ice rolled, heating and then freezing his skin. His throat swelled. Red bled into his face. His eyes bulged as his hands flew up to his throat.

“Fuck you, Nathanial.” She dumped him out of the chair as he worked at the spell. She snatched his phone out of his pocket and ran. Sprinted through the halls. She’d hide with Jonas for as long as possible and hope someone showed up to storm the place. If not… well, Nathanial would find her eventually, and she’d deal with it then.

As she ran, she typed in the number Jonas made her remember.

* * *

“Cato, we’re en route. I can’t move any faster than I am.” I looked at Stefan with a suffering look as we sat in the backseat of Jameson’s car. I thought driving the extremely fast and gloriously scary Ferrari was the better way to travel, but not one person sided with me. I suspected Charles had mentioned that I’d gotten air when I took it out the other day to relieve some stress. He was such a scaredy-cat with speed.

“I know, Sasha. And I truly am sorry for calling every five minutes, but you know how it is when you are waiting—each minute stretches. I will say, however—do I have time for a quick chat?”

“Cato…” I ground my teeth. The man acted like a child sometimes. He was losing his marbles, that was clear. “Yes. You have time. We are still in the car headed to you.”

“Oh yes—how silly of me. I get thinking about the battle to come and forget the details. Where was I—oh yes, I am really pleased that your network of humans has proved so useful. I did know that Rudy disappeared into this area of the world, but I couldn’t pinpoint where. Then your spies and your witches—you have really come through.”

“But you said you can’t see the building.”

“Yes, that is true. But once you get here we will try some spells and see what lands. I have every reason to suspect the London faction sent Nathanial. He is an old… acquaintance of mine, and exemplary with magic. He can do things even I have not seen.”

“Not encouraging, Cato,” I said in dry tones. I rubbed my palm across my forehead to try and dislodge the worry. Cato had mentioned more than once that we were going up against an old, excellent, experienced army of fighters and magic-workers both. They were the best, and had been waging war with those close to them for hundreds of years. I’d been in my profession less than two years. So the experience levels were a bit skewed on my side of things.