Page 32 of The Succubus's Song

They followed him without another word, Finley keeping his hands on Mara to help hold her up. She was cold underneath his palms, and he felt her trembling. There was something about the scene that spooked her beyond the obvious cruelty of it.

When Emmett’s office door finally shut behind them, Finley sat down in one of the office chairs and pulled Mara into his lap. He froze for a brief second.

Please don’t fight me on this, he pleaded internally, but to his surprise, Mara willingly curled towards him.

She burrowed her head into Finley’s neck and started to cry. It filled Finley with a sense of fear more potent than anything else he’d experienced that evening.

Emmett—wisely—kept his mouth shut. He said nothing, going to one of the cabinets and turning on a kettle. They sat in silence until the tea was ready and Mara took a long sip before finally raising her head.

“I know that man,” her voice was morose. Finley fought to keep the surprise off his face. “I scared him out of a club a week ago.”

Mara paused, and Finley could feel her hesitation.

“This means…my family has been watching me for longer than we thought.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Mara’s world kept getting smaller. It was enough to deal with the fact that Alice had already landed in Edinburgh. Now, there was evidence Mara’s family had been watching her before they even made contact. Mara was nauseous at the very thought and mortified she hadn’t realized it before.

Did you really think you could hide? Mara heard her sister’s voice in her head. You’re such a disgrace. Some kind of predator you are, hmm? You didn’t even know you were being watched.

Mara was torn between two worlds—the one she tried to forget and the life she wanted to embrace. In Faerie, she had been a monster. In Edinburgh… Well, most people still considered her a monster, but she briefly held the reins to a ‘normal’ life.

Now, both of her worlds were crashing down around her. Mara didn’t know who’d be left standing with her in the rubble.

“A penny for your thoughts?” Finley’s warm voice cut through Mara’s internal tirade.

“Sorry?” Mara lifted her head. Both Emmett and Finley were staring at her with the same look in their eyes. The one thing Mara despised almost more than her own nature—pity.

“I know what I want to do,” Emmett grunted, looking directly at Mara, “but I’m open to letting you take the lead here because this is your family.”

“You want to call Calum, don’t you?” Mara asked. Emmett looked torn for a few seconds before he slowly nodded. In that moment, Mara realized just how tired Emmett seemed, and it broke her heart a little.

“I think we should,” Emmett agreed with a small shrug. “This is an obvious escalation in violence, and your family brought it to our door. This needs to involve him now.”

“That’s what they want,” Mara disagreed. “If we bring him in now, they’ll only escalate their attacks until Calum is forced to call for a ceasefire.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They want me to organize a treaty on their behalf with Calum, allowing them to hunt in Edinburgh. If they think a treaty is off the table, they’ll bleed the country dry until we must come to a compromise. This was a threat to me for now, nothing more,” Mara begged. The last thing she wanted was to get Calum involved.

“What’s your plan?” Emmett crossed his arms over his chest. Mara’s spirits lifted a little when she saw Emmett slipping back into his old form.

He could never resist a good plan of attack.

“You said before that if we had enough evidence, we could go to Calum and he’d be able to pull your family in line,” Finley interjected, chewing on his lip. “Does this not count as having enough evidence? Am I the only person who saw the naked dead guy in the library?”

“No,” Mara grunted. “My family could still claim Alice was acting on her own. We need to prove they’re all in on this while making them believe that I’m open to negotiating a treaty for them.”

“If they thought you were talking to Calum, that would keep your family from invading Scotland and causing bloodshed to force a treaty.” Emmett let out a low whistle. “It’s going to be difficult, Mara. You’re talking about potentially condemning your entire family.”

“Every last one.” Mara’s voice was hard and cold when she spoke, leaving no room for doubt that there was no love lost between her and her kin.

“That’s a thin line to walk,” Finley muttered. “They could decide at any moment to invade anyway.”

“They could,” Mara agreed, “but I don’t think they will. They’re prideful, and they know they’d lose people, too, if that’s what they did.”

Mara looked at Emmett and waited for his response. He ran his hand through his beard before incessantly tying and re-tying his hair several times. Mara counted as Emmett went through each of his nervous ticks.

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