Cold Burn of Magic(27)

A cold, thin smile curved Claudia’s lips. She had her hand wrapped around my throat, squeezing tight, and we both knew it. I might be the better fighter, but she was by far the better tactician. I didn’t know whether I admired or hated her for it. Still, I wasn’t giving in without putting up as much of a fight as I could.

“How long?” I asked. “How long would I have to be Devon’s guard?”

“Five years or until your twenty-first birthday, whichever comes first.”

Well, she was being exceptionally optimistic about my life expectancy. I’d be surprised if I made it through the end of the summer. Because the funny thing about assassination plots was that they never stopped until someone was dead.

“One month.”

She blinked, as if she hadn’t expected me to make a counter offer, but her eyes narrowed. “Five years.”

“One month.”

We went back and forth like that for a few minutes before we both started to give some ground.

“Four years.”

“Three months.”

“Three years.”

“Six months.”

“Two years.”

“Nine months.”

“One year,” Claudia said. “Final offer.”

“Done.”

“Done.”

I held out my hand and we shook on it. I started to pull back, but Claudia gripped my hand even tighter and stepped forward. Her fingers felt ice-cold against mine, almost as if she were using magic, and I remembered the rumors I’d heard about her Talent—the ability to freeze a person’s skin with just a touch of her hand.

“Make no mistake, Miss Merriweather,” she said in a voice so chilly I was surprised that icicles didn’t start forming on the walls. “I am not foolish enough to just trust you with my son. If you do not live up to your end of our bargain, if you decide not to fight for him, or harm him in any way, sell him out, or take my money and run, then I will use all of my considerable resources to find you, drag you back here, and execute you in front of your friend Mo—before I do the same to him. Do you understand me?”


I only knew Claudia Sinclair by reputation. The other Families had nicknamed her the Ice Queen, and with good reason. My soulsight let me see that she meant every harsh, brutal word. If it had been only me, I would have already been planning to take her money and skip town. But I would never abandon Mo, and she somehow knew that was her trump card, the thing that would get me to do her bidding above all else.

“I understand,” I said, having no choice but to give into her demands. “I will protect your son the best I can.”

No matter how much I hate you both, I snarled silently in my head.

Satisfied, Claudia dropped my hand.

“I’m glad we were able to come to an arrangement, Miss Merriweather. Reginald will show you to your room, and Grant, Felix, and Devon will explain your new duties to you in the morning. Until then.”

Claudia brushed past me and headed toward the doors. She threw them open, revealing Mo lurking outside in the hallway, along with Grant, Felix, Devon, and Reginald, all of them trying to act as though they hadn’t had their ears pressed to the doors the whole time. Eavesdroppers.

All I could do was stand there in the middle of the mats and wonder exactly how I’d wound up here. It didn’t take me long to realize what had happened.

The guards chasing me across the rooftops. The attack at the pawnshop. And now this.

Yeah, bad things really did come in threes.





CHAPTER NINE


Claudia and the others disappeared, probably so she could tell them all about the newest conscripted member of the Family, and only Reginald and Mo stepped back into the training room. Mo was grinning ear to ear, while Reginald looked far less excited. And he still hadn’t brought me a sandwich. My stomach grumbled in disappointment. Yeah, it was that kind of day.

“If you will follow me, miss,” Reginald said. “I will show you to your room.”

I laid the sword on a nearby bench, where I’d also put my backpack when we first entered. I shouldered my bag, then followed him and Mo out of the training room.

Reginald marched in front, his back stiff and straight, with me behind him and Mo bringing up the rear. Reginald led us through several hallways and up three flights of stairs before stopping in a long corridor with one door set into the wall.

“This will be your room.”

Reginald twisted the knob and stepped to one side. Mo gave me a not-so-small shove in the back that sent me stumbling into the room.

It was much larger than I expected, at least five times the size of my small corner of the library basement, and the furnishings were as opulent as those in the rest of the mansion. So opulent that I felt very shabby and out of place in my T-shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers. I put my backpack on the floor, not wanting it to dirty up any of the chairs, and walked from one side of the room to the other.

The front of the room was a sort of den, with a black leather couch and matching recliners arranged around a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. Behind that area, a four-poster bed covered with a black-and-white-striped comforter and mounds of matching pillows took up a good chunk of the back wall. A white vanity table sat next to the bed, and there was a walk-in closet in one corner.

But best of all, a door to the left opened onto a private bathroom—one with a sunken tub in the middle of the white marble floor. My own private bathtub with hot, running water. Heaven—absolute heaven.