Page 154 of Fallen Court

“You mean they blindly obey their sires,” Ciara corrected her.

“What’s the difference?” Baptiste pushed Ciara to the floor, sending her careening into a crate, and bell peppers tumbled around her. Ciara stared at me, panic in her eyes. Even if she thought she could outrace a speeding bullet, she would never leave me behind. It would be worth the risk to nip, but she couldn’t grab me and get away before Baptiste took a shot.

“Don’t you want to know why he did it?” Baptiste kept the gun trained on her, pointed as if she might prod Ciara into action with it—and by doing so, have an excuse to shoot her. “Come on. We have to wait for everyone to join us before we can wrap this tragedy up. Aren’t you dying to know?”

A chill descended over my skin as I stepped inside, the temperature cool enough that I wrapped my arms around my waist, trying to retain as much body heat as I could.

I shook my head in disgust. “I don’t really care. You let one of your own people die to save yourself.”

“Yes, and he didn’t even question my authority. It’s called being a leader.” She flashed a razor-sharp smile at me as she pushed me down next to Ciara.

“You aren’t a leader. You’re batshit,” Ciara hissed, snatching my hand as she snapped her fingers to nip.

Nothing happened.

Ciara shot me a panicked look as she tried again. The second time, her eyes darted to my ears. My heart skipped a beat, realizing she was checking my glamour. Baptiste already knew enough, but if she discovered I was fae… Ciara exhaled a reedy breath, nodding ever so slightly to tell me it was still intact. The effigy was working, concealing my true nature. So if Ciara couldn’t nip, that meant something was wrong with her magic.

“You never notice yarrow in a merlot, but it does such strange things to magic,” Baptiste said smugly. “Don’t worry about the tab, by the way. Your drinks are on the house.”

“How generous,” I said flatly.

“And it loosened up your tongue. Such an interesting conversation.” Baptiste swiveled the gun to point in my direction, ignoring her. “I should have known that you were his mate. It’s the only thing that explains what he’s doing with a human.”

Whatever she’d tainted the wine with hadn’t affected the spell on the effigy, and Baptiste hadn’t heard our entire conversation, which meant that she had no idea what I really was. Ciara’s eyes met mine, and she shook her head so weakly that it might have been a tremble.

But if Baptiste was going to remain chatty, I’d squeeze whatever information I could from her. “What do you want with a fae?”

“What I wanted with the other creatures.” She winked at Ciara, who whimpered. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. The others aren’t here yet, so that gives me time to grab the other thing I need.” Baptiste glanced at me. “I thought I’d have to send someone else to collect you, but Lach’s arrogance knows no bounds. He continues to let you walk around in this city like his family can’t be touched.”

“We can’t,” Ciara said, rising to her feet.

Baptiste aimed the gun at her and chambered a round. “You are making it very difficult to be patient. I can hardly wait to put a bullet between your eyes. My only regret is that you won’t be there when the ward falls.”

Ciara’s eyes widened. “That’s what this is about? The spell? But you helped us put it into place.”

“My gods, you’re even more dense than I thought.” Her smile widened, revealing a glimpse of fangs. “It helps to know how a spell is crafted. That way you know just how to undo it.”

“No,” Ciara breathed, her head moving slowly side to side.

“Sacrifices must be made, right? Isn’t that what you believed when you watched so many creatures spill their blood in the name of protecting your family, allowing the essence of their magic to be perverted for that spell?”

I found myself swallowing hard. “Blood?”

They had used blood to put the bona fides in place, which meant…

“Only a few drops,” Ciara said weakly.

“Tell her the rest. Explain that the spell demands more to end it.” Baptiste stopped pacing the tight space and fixed Ciara with a cold, even gaze. “Tell her it demands a complete sacrifice.”

“It was a fail-safe!” Ciara bleated, then trailed off. Her voice was hoarse when she continued. “Once the spell was in place, no creatures would willingly end it.”

“So you took what you needed by threat of force—a little blood from all of us. Enough that we wouldn’t dream of paying the second price,” Baptiste finished, her voice dripping bitter venom.

But not knowing that—keeping the fail-safe from Lach and me—had prevented us from knowing why the murders were happening. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“No one else knew. Only a few of the people behind the spell.” Her head fell like she was unable to meet my eyes. “I even managed to keep it from Roark.”

Because if Roark had known… If any of us had known, we might have put a stop to this after the first life was claimed.