Swimmingly.
He needed time to think. Time to rest, recover, andthink.
Nadi’s situation was a new complication.
“We are going to see Grandmother Ebiti. She gathers what little is left of the other elders.” Kalo cracked his neck from side to side. He didn’t sound perfectly thrilled about the idea.
“Is she the one who sent you after us?” Nadi asked.
A beat of silence as Kalo watched Nadi carefully. Whatever history passed between them…Raziel was left on the outside, only looking in. “Word travels fast in the Wild. You have been gone a long time, little fish.”
Raziel tightened his hands into fists.Little fish.
He hated it.
He wanted to rip out the tongue that had uttered the words.
Because with those two, insignificant words, he saw Nadi flinch in pain like daggers that had been shoved into her stomach. Each one a fresh blow. Each one a fresh memory of the past. Of the life and the people she’d left behind.
Would her loyalty change?
Would he have to ensure that it didn’t?
“How long is the travel?”
“A few days.” Kalo sniffed dismissively. “He will be confined to the wagon. For his…safety. You understand. You are free to wander the camp when we make camp, but you stay inside of itwhen we are moving. I remember your gifts. I do not need you causing chaos or making a run for it.”
“What’s to stop me from picking the lock on his chains, killing a few of your guards, and us escaping the first chance we get, Kalo? Half your people are too high to stop me.” Nadi tilted her head to the side slightly. “You’re right. I have been gone a very long time. And you don’t know me anymore.”
That’s my little murderer.Raziel smiled at Kalo, just a little proudly.
Kalo smiled back. Just a little too proudly in return. “Our issues with the drugs wouldn’t be a problem without the influence ofhiskind, remember that. But that’s not why we’re talking. We’re talking because I can hazard a guess as to why you two are here. You could have taken to the plains and started a new life, little fish. But you didn’t. You’re headed to the same place we are. And I think for the same reason.”
“And why is that?” Raziel interjected.
“You want to murder thosefucksyou call siblings, don’t you?” Kalo grinned wide, flashing those teeth of his once more. “You want to burn it all down and take it for yourself…and that’s fine by me,vuampi.But you cannot do it alone. You need help. You need bodies. Bodies with guns.” He held his hand out wide to the gathered caravan of wagons around him. “Bodies with guns willing to die if it means they can take out a few of your stinking kind with them.”
Raziel arched an eyebrow. “And why would you help me?”
The snort of laughter from Kalo made Raziel want to break the fae’s sharp-featured face in. He somehow still managed to make it soundprettyand Razielhatedhim for it. “I don’t want to help you, you constipated turd. My happiest ending is you all kill each other. But Nadi is fae. She is my people. And we do not turn our backs on our blood.” Those silver eyes went from himto her. “Even if they turn their backs on us. And if she needs our help, we answer.”
Nadi jerked again as if he had stabbed her, that time taking a step back.
“Besides.” Kalo pushed up from the stairs with a grunt. “Revenge is lovely. I hate them all.”
“You were selling our people to them, Kalo. Don’t pretend you are somehow cleanin all this,” Nadi snapped. “I saw them. I saw what Braen was doing to them?—”
“You saw what they willingly signed up for, little fish.” Kalo chuckled, as if she were a little girl who was just learning how the world worked. “Do you think you are the only fae who learned to kill? Who learned to use their flesh to lure in their prey? I know what our blood does to them. I was teaching our kind to kill thesevuampiwhen they are at their most vulnerable. The agents I sent to the surface killeddozensof his kind until you both ruined our operation!”
Raziel furrowed his brow, and then started to laugh. “Oh, you must be kidding. You were behind all those disappearances?” Vampires had been known to die of mysterious causes for years. But no one had ever been able to connect what had happened to them all. Everyone had just written it off to bad luck with dangerous lovers.
How right they had been.
“Not me. I just put them into the right hands.” Kalo shook his head. For the first time, his sneer faded and Raziel glimpsed the gaping chasm of the void that was left behind by that much death and pain. “They knew they likely wouldn’t survive. Very few returned.” And it was gone a second later. “So I was getting my own revenge, Nadi. Just not with my own two hands. Though it seems yours got complicated.”
“It did.” Nadi’s jaw ticked again.
“Go back to your wagon. Dinner will be brought to you. As for him?” Kalo glared at Raziel. “You can feed him. Or he can starve. I care not.”
