“I don’t know what I used. I saw him dying and I tried to help. You can’t accuse me of using magic I didn’t know I possessed. I saved him—that’s all I can tell you.”
“I don’t believe it was that innocent. If it was, you would have disclosed it.” He shook his head. “You can’t be trusted.”
“Ican’t be trusted!” I exploded. “You’re the one giving me magical objects under the guise of thoughtful gifts.” It hurt more than I thought it would. It was a working relationship, but I liked William and cared for him deeply, and I thought the affection was returned. Aware that protection of the house would always come before me, I still figured my safety would be given some consideration if he ever had to decide between me and the House of Knight. “They weren’t simple gifts. You were trying to discover something about me.”
“Because of your deception, I was forced to find ways to uncloak your magic. Everyone can feel your magic, but you walk around as if you don’t have any. When Raynard remembered what had happened with you, he came to me. I needed to know what you were and assess the type of danger your kind of magic posed to us. I didn’t realize you were a wolf pretending to be a sheep.”
Nothing about me gave sheep. At times, I was as amenable as a tiger.
“You could have asked.”
“And you could have told us.”
“How would that have changed things?” I asked. The tremor in my voice betrayed me as I watched my life unravel and my job disappear. There wasn’t a job waiting for me on the other side of this conversation, no safety net—just tension, apprehension, and possibly a new enemy.
“There would have been trust between us. Knowledge of your true abilities, which we could have worked through. Perhaps we could have agreed to an oath you’d be bound to that would prevent harm against the House of Knights.”
Looking out for the best interests of the house at every instance. Not vampires as a collective, but the House of Knight.
“I can’t be oath bound.” More shock coursed across his face. Each revelation was just making things worse. I corrected myself. “Most witches can’t bind me. I suspect kinborn witches can. And they seem to be fond of me, you know.”
William’s slow pace throughout the room was unnerving, like an agitated predator needing to be released. His molten brown eyes turned cold when they looked at me.
“My magic is locked,” I said. “I can’t use it. I’m not a risk to anyone.”
“For now. Your magic is lockednow, but it won’t stay that way, will it?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a path to unlock it.”
Rubbing his hand over his face, he gave me a long, assessing look. “I hope you find it,” he sighed before breezing past me and leaving. The hostility lingered.
A few hours after William’s departure, I got a notification of a deposit in my account from House of Knight as severance pay. The look of unmitigated disdain from the three members of the security team who came to retrieve my bracelet stayed with me. A loop of venomous looks was on replay in my head.
“If the House of Hollows continues with your services, I assume they’ll provide you with a status of employment,” one of the team members said. Her platinum hair was pulled intoa top bun, offering an unobstructed view of glacial denim-blue eyes, an aquiline nose, and a full mouth that spread more than necessary when she spoke. The two men had the same strident look and black attire of shirts that skimmed their bodies, displaying sleek, sinewy muscles and lethal, fluid movements. Their arrival in armored cars was over the top, a warning from the House of Knight rather than just a visit. They left with the bracelet in their pocket and instructions that it was my obligation to let others know I no longer worked for the House of Knight. I knew it was more than a notification; they were essentially revoking any cover my employment with them had offered. They vastly overestimated the level of safety it had offered. The clandestine enemies I acquired from my employment by them outweighed any safety it provided.
I’d been summoned by Corrine by way of Darby. It wasn’t a good sign that she, Corrine, had offloaded the meager task of sending me a text asking me to come to the House of Hollows. I took it as an even worse sign that the house was quiet—unusually quiet. Vampires were silent creatures who walked with the lithe grace of ballerinas and moved with the speed of flashing light, but their ominous aura made their presence known.
The house manager directed me to Corrine’s office. My heart was thrashing. I palmed the knife in my jacket and the stake of necri I’d slipped into a slit I’d made inside the jacket. It was my last resort if things devolved into a situation I couldn’t deescalate, and everything about this tableau had the making of possibly a bad ending for me.
I hated that my hand wouldn’t stop shaking as I knocked on the door. Corrine languished on her chair, relaxed back, usingher feet to swivel side to side. The silence stretched, her arctic glare locked on me. The space between us seemed to contract, the air pressing in until even breathing felt strained.
Her sleek ponytail highlighted the beauty of her features and showed how harsh and strident they became with the slightest frown. She was dressed in a maroon dress that clung to her upper body and spilled over the seat of the chair. Metallic gold and green glinted in the low light.
“Takara Raina Bennett.” It rolled from her tongue in an icy purr. I didn’t recall ever giving her my full name. It was troubling that she had it. Even when I forced a smile, her eyes still bored into me. She stopped the chair, tapping her dagger-sculpted nails on the table.
“Why did I receive a blip of a message from William wishing me luck in dealing with you?” she asked. There was no way she didn’t know the reason.
Carefully, I told her everything, filtering it through what I believed was Raynard’s perspective, trying not to divulge any more information than he’d given William.
“What are you?”
“An ashinwa. My magic has been locked, and it can’t be granted to me unless I go through Spellrend. I believe my parents were supposed to initiate it. I don’t know why they didn’t, but I don’t have real magic.”
“But you do, Kara. Uncontrolled and erratic.” Her eyes scoured me, sending a chill through me. “Quite dangerous to vampires.”
“It’s not.”
Her smirk revealed the edge of one of her fangs. “Let’s not be naïve, Kara. If you believed that, you wouldn’t have withheld that information.” The way she examined her nails made me take a few steps back and reposition my hands for easy access to the blade in my pocket.
