Page 37 of Demon Found

Avoiding touching Zephyr, I edge onto my bed and jerk my chin for Farrell to continue.

“I had a vision that Virrey Cuelebre didn’t like—” Zephyr interrupts, pursing his lips, giving his face a pinched look. “When Farrell’s father doesn’t like something, he fixes it.”

“What?”

Zephyr rubs his hands over his eyes. “In my vision, I met my mate. I saw us standing against Farrell, opposing him and his rule. It wasn’t crystal clear, but it was enough to set the Virrey off.”

“So, Daddy Cuelebre wants his son to be Virrey after him?”

The steady pacing of Farrell’s sharp brogues falters. Zephyr’s hands twist, strangling my pillow.

“Something like that,” Zephyr mutters.

“So, what did he do?”

Both Farrell and Zephyr look pained, clamping their lips shut.What, they’re just not going to tell me the rest?Turning to Naeve, I throw my arms up.

“The Virrey hated the vision,” she explains. “He wanted to prevent it. He . . . he bonded Zephyr to Farrell.”

My jaw drops.

Naeve swallows hard and rushes on. “A slave bond. Then he spelled them—they can’t talk about it. I know only because I was hiding. I saw it happen.”

My hand flies to my mouth, and I let out a gasp. Both guys are studiously staring into the middle distance.

“That’s illegal.”

Farrell’s expression darkens, and he passes a hand over his left thumb, removing an illusion. There, in blood red, on the tip of his thumb is the mark of a slave master. “We can’t shift the gagging spell. If you already know about the bond, I can show you the mark, otherwise—” He kicks my desk. “And I can’tbreakthe bond either.”

Zephyr pulls his silky blond hair up. At the nape of his neck the unmistakable interlooping circles of a slave bond is branded on his smooth skin. “I’ve had no serious visions of consequence since.”

“So, he either screwed Zephyr’s visions completely...” Farrell’s voice is cold, distant “... or, as Father thinks, he prevented that potential future from happening.”

Slave bonding has been forbidden for hundreds of years. Even in Venez. A wave of nausea rolls through me, and I’m left with an empty hollowness in my gut. What the hell is this doing to them? And they’ve managed to stay friends? I guess golden boy’s life isn’t so golden after all.

Fuck.

Chapter Nineteen: Lorelei

“So,ifFrankhadjust signed the paperwork you sent . . . I would have no obligation to the apprenticeship program? To Las Ratas?”

The academy clerk nods her gray bun and taps the desk impatiently with the end of her pen.

“But he didn’t. And he won’t. So now what?”

She sighs like I’m asking her to give up the secret to immortality. “Are you sure a simple phone call couldn’t sort this out, Miss Smith?”

“Sure. It’s his way of getting back at me. I came here, and now that he’s no longer my official guardian he doesn’t get paid.”

“The money the government pay your guardian isn’t for him to spend on himself . . .”

Has this woman never lived in the real world?“No shit. But that’s what happens.”

“Language,” she corrects, but a blush creeps up her cheeks and her eyes gentle somehow.

“The academy can claim temporary guardianship on your behalf. Then file the paperwork and send it to the apprenticeship program. It might take a couple of weeks.”

Not ideal. I don’t want anyone else having power over me . . . but rather an institution like Fates than Las Ratas. I nod slowly.

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