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Tarcus’s ears went red at the insult. It took everything in Kerrigan not to show any emotion at the conversation. She hated Iris with a passion. Whatever she’d done to Fordham was unacceptable, but she was humiliating Tarcus with a few cutting words. That was something she could appreciate.
“My family is doing fine,” he growled.
“Because of or despite you?” she asked with a laugh. She clapped him on the back twice at the aghast look in his eyes. “Oh, don’t be daft, Valerii. I’m just having a bit of fun. Weren’t you saying only days earlier how this one was going to be your crown jewel?”
“I decided she wasn’t that special.”
Iris laughed, and this time, it was definitely at him. “Then, you were wrong on all fronts, weren’t you?” Iris reached out and caressed Kerrigan’s cheek. “She’s not a Doma, but she’s damn special. She’d be wasted in your bed. The only place she should be is in my training facility. What do you think, pet? Just say the word, and you’ll be transferred from that barbarian’s facility to somewhere you’ll be appreciated. I’ve seen how you look at my Fae. I could arrange something between you two.”
Iris’s eyes were a deep violet around the edges of the pupils. The violet almost swirled around, drawing Kerrigan in and making her want nothing more than to agree with the woman. She was mesmerizing. Except … Kerrigan hated her with all of her being for enslaving Fordham.
She blinked twice to clear the look from her eyes. Magic. It had the feel of magic. “No, thank you.”
Iris gave her an appraising look. “You are special, aren’t you?”
“Don’t cheat,” Tarcus snapped.
“Oh, it was just a little fun, Valerii,” Iris said with a laugh. Though she was still looking at Kerrigan with far too much interest. “You were going around, telling everyone she was already yours so you wouldn’t be outbid. No need to be so touchy.”
Iris threaded her arm through Tarcus’s and pulled him away. Kerrigan was seemingly forgotten. In fact, almost all the other senators had left. Tarcus and Iris were the last in attendance. Tarcus shot her one look over his shoulder before departing.
She breathed out a sigh of relief. As much as she wanted food next, Fordham was her priority. She headed out of the room and straight toward the massive gardens that took up the center of the property. They were empty when she strolled into them. The gentle splash of the fountains and distant sound of musicians playing for the nobility were the sole sources of noise on the muggy evening. A breeze fluttered through the large courtyard, giving her a momentary reprieve from the heat.
With Fordham not yet in sight, she strolled through the grounds. She’d had a home like this back in Alandria with immeasurable wealth. Unlike so many others, she had chosen to open her home to refugees from the House of Shadows. The half-Fae and humans who’d had nowhere to go and nothing to their name once they were taken from the northern mountains. It was hard not to feel depressed that those efforts were probably wasted at this point. The Red Masks would have stopped that for certain in her absence.
Thinking of home made her melancholy. Her father had sent her here to get help, but all she’d found was more trouble. Was he even still alive?
“There you are.”
Kerrigan whipped around, expecting Fordham to have found her, but instead, Tarcus stood before her. She held her ground while adrenaline rocked through her. If this were a fair fight, she would have already ended it before it could have started, but this was nothing of the sort.
Tarcus’s face was pure pleasure. The pomp senator who had grown up with nothing but wealth and privilege. He’d gotten everything he wanted. And Iris’s teasing had only egged him on to take the one thing that had slipped out of his grasp.
He had magic.
And she did not.
She might have been training with her Andine trainers to get herself out of these situations, but that had been for the tournament. Not to go up against a senator. Not someone with that level of magic and nothing to lose.
“Here I am,” she finally said as he stepped toward her.
“I thought that I’d have to do more to get you alone.”
“Who said that I’m alone?”
“I ditched that hag almost as soon as we left your sight. There is no one else out here. Just me and you.”
“And soon, it will be just you,” she said, hoping for diplomacy.
Tarcus grasped her wrist. “Not so fast.”
She breathed out through her nose. “You don’t want to do this.”
A cruel smile twisted his lips. “Oh, but I do.”
He yanked her forward. She dropped her other hand at the same time, breaking his hold and shattering something in his wrist. He yelled in pain, cradling the broken bone. But she was already running. Maybe she could have taken him on, even with his magic, but she had no interest in finding out. She was nearly to an open doorway when something shifted in the air. Kerrigan coughed, gasped, and then crumpled to her knees on the pathway.
