Instead, the hunting urges that had been building for months finally quieted and her mind cleared with a cool, blissful calm.
The last thing she saw was Bells rushing towards her as she slumped over the Ban-Sìth’s blood-slick body, and the world inked with black.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kyan
SITTING AT A SLEEK BANK OF COMPUTERSINSIDE ONE OFthe Wake’s monitoring rooms, Kyan stared at the circular logo on the screen.
Often, he’d sit with an extra-strong coffee and read up on his prey before embarking on a new mission. Taking notes, strategising, even though his Empyrean urges would do the real work. But a successful hunt hinged on more than just the kill: not being seen; disposing of the body; making sure there were limited to zero casualties.
This time he didn’t need a drink; the adrenaline pounding through his body was more than enough.
Kyan quelled the immediate urge to speak with Callum. That would have to wait. First, he laid down his mission notebook and searched for someone he hadn’t been able to before in case he alerted the Wake.
Nicole’s mother.
He wasn’t supposed to know her name until they’d mentioned it. He wasn’t supposed to know what she was, that she even existed. So it was the codename they’d given him that he typed in:préachán.
The Irish word for crow.
The bird of the Goddesses of Death.
Crows were said to be one of the Morrígan’s messengers or spies. Other times, it was a form she, or indeed any of the three Morrígan sisters, could take. It was a fitting word for Freya. But the fact it was Irish stalled him the most. Why, out of all languages, had they usedthat one? Kyan was Irish, but he had not thought Freya was, and had not thought the Wake were. The majority of their rise to power had happened in ancient Rome. So why not a Latin word?
His fingers moved cautiously across the keys, his mind whirring over how to tell Nicole every speck of information he found, even just to give her another thread of connection to her mother. If he managed to find her in a way that didn’t damn them both.
The page loaded.
There was only one image. A blurry street shot from behind that showed the curve of Freya’s cheek and her dark hair as she turned her head, as if to look over her shoulder.
But even that was enough to jar him.
She really did look like Nicole.
In an older way, a harder way. Danger breathed off her, even in this image. But the page had a glaring title written across it.
MISSION COMPLETED: TARGET EXTERMINATED.
NO BODY RETRIEVED – TOO DECIMATED BY FIRE.
Kyan forced himself to swallow, fighting the part of him that felt like he was looking at a file on Nicole and not her mother. That it wasNicolethey had killed.
He shut his eyes for a moment, banishing the thought.
Never.
He’d never let that happen, not if it was the last goddamn thing he ever did.
Nicole had believed her mother to be dead, but Callum …
‘No body, no proof,’ he’d said to the Palmers back in Estwood. Would he believe this?
Kyan read the rest. It didn’t say which Empyreal had taken the mission. That was highly classified information, which was unusual. The rest was present though: the cottage location of her murder and the burned room where she was killed. Her last known sightings before that. Even information dating back through centuries.
Otherwise, Freya’s skills were laid out:
DECEPTION
