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“As soon as I gave you a deadline, I found myself unable to leave my realm. Unless I sent my heir in my stead, which is not without its own complications.” A knowing look glinted in her eyes as a smile played on her lips. “You could have been magnificent, you know. As my heir. Your mate would have made a fine consort. He would have paved your way with his people the same as he’s paving mine.”
Hmm.
Calixta had mellowed toward us since our last meeting, which caused the hairs to stand up on my nape. She was giving me too much credit for his ideas. Asa was the one who understood Hael, and its politics, well enough to manipulate them. Not me. I was just along for the ride.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence, in both of us.” I inclined my head. “But that’s not our path to walk.”
“You’ve decided it’s not for your cousin either.” She scoffed. “Is a throne so uncomfortable?”
For Asa? Yes. For me? Definitely yes. For Aedan? Absolutely yes.
“You sit the throne well.” Asa pressed a hand to his chest in a neat bow. “Better than my father did.”
That wasn’t saying much, in my opinion, but she savored the flattery, and so I kept my mouth shut.
Before Calixta switched gears, which was starting to sound like she knew what we had done and wanted compensation for it in some form, I shot the text to Fergal to present our trade then I turned to watch.
Behind us, high on the cliff, the vampire walked the director to the edge.
A quiver started in the director’s knees and rose into his shoulders as he beheld his fate, squirming like a worm on a hook. He didn’t attempt to make nice or spoutwhat might have beensat Calixta.
Luca had taken the long view. She had been willing to dedicate her life to destroying his. He must have read weakness in the way she circled him for so long, deciding on a course of action, debating what fate he deserved, getting as close as she dared to him.
Had I given him to her, she might have forgotten her reasons for hating him. Eventually. If he played the role of repentant lover well enough. She might have even forgiven him. In time. A mistake that would have cost Luca her life.
Maybe that was why, despite her exceptional planning and the chaos she achieved, she had been too tied up in her own revenge to make good use of her resources. She could have done so much more, so muchworse, but her tunnel vision had been her downfall.
Calixta, on the other hand, hadn’t been willing to give him that much power over her ever again. If I hadn’t dangled him in front of her, tempted her, she might not have gotten around to considering her revenge for decades. Not until after she hadbeen High Queen of Hael long enough to grow bored with her contentment and turn her head toward fresh entertainment.
But in gifting him to her, I had given her the best of both worlds. She could pursue her own agendas, and in her downtime, savor every second of his ruin in payment for the throne and life and son he had stolen from her.
“I have a knife handy if you need one.” I held up the athame Dad had offered me earlier, then reminded her, “The contract must be signed in blood for the binding to activate.”
Her tongue darted out to wipe her lips, and her teeth glinted as she smiled up at the director.
Revenge so close, she could taste it, made all the sweeter by his dawning horror.
She stuck out her hand, Rennet placed a blade carved from a spiral shell on her palm, and she sliced her fingertip. She signed a sloppy X, big and bold, ignoring the sharks frothing the surf to taste each crimson drip spilled until the cut sealed itself. She tossed the curling paper to Rennet, who swam it over to us.
The icy chill of his skin brushed me as I accepted and cut my own finger with the athame. I used a sigil to represent myself, one that also powered the magic licking across the paper, turning the ink golden.
“The bargain has been sealed,” I announced, the weight of the last few days lifting. “We are in accord.” I gestured to Fergal. “Bring the prisoner.”
I watched as the director entered the lift, as the platform lowered him down the cliffside, as he took his first step onto sand toward his new reality. He speared me with a look that bordered on pleading, but he stiffened his trembling jaw when he read the remote disinterest on my face. “Any last words?”
“I still control the golem.” He straightened his shoulders. “He will never be free of me.”
You will never be free of mewas what he meant, and somehow I managed to hate him a little bit more. I would never give up on Clay. He knew that. Knew I loved Clay too much to cast him aside. Even after this latest fiasco, it didn’t change how I felt about him. None of it was his fault, so how could I blame him?
The director wanted his memory hanging over our heads, clouding our future, obscuring our plans.
But I was tired of that, tired of him, tired of cleaning up after his messes and paying for his crimes.
“Funny thing I learned about golems during all the years I spent attempting to free Clay from your influence. If their master has no power—specifically, no magic—they have no way to control them. It’s required to maintain the bond between master and servant.” I noted the slip of his certainty. “I didn’t think much about it. It was good to know but ultimately worthless information. As long as you lived in the compound, surrounded by agents, you were safe. I couldn’t touch you.”
A crinkle of worry pleated his brow as he began to tally up the sum of what I was telling him.
“I’m wearing anti-magic cuffs,” he said slowly, trying to convince himself. “Your father put them on me.”
