Page 29 of The Satyr's Guilt
“I can’t work with you. You take unnecessaryrisks. You don’t follow orders. I won’t have a mission compromised.Plus, it was my job to keep you safe. You compromised that, too.”She paused, touching her wrist to initiate a call.
“Yeah? Did you think I might not want youkeeping me safe? Maybe I think it’s my job to keep you safe.” Hewas shouting now.
She sputtered. Nobody shouted at her. Of allthe arrogance. “Your job to what?” Her attention strayed from thehuman.Send at least four backups. We have to clear an ArisenDawn compound.
Nico ran fingers through his hair. “I wantoff this goddamn merry-go-round. I’m heading Earthside.”
She grabbed his arm. His attempt to shakeloose was useless. She was stronger. “You can’t.”
“Sweetness, I want another handler. One notquite so committed to the job of keeping me safe. I won’t have awoman throwing herself in front of me.”
A woman? Did he really just play the gendercard?
He didn’t respect her as a warrior.Okay. That hurt. When an unbearable pain shot through herheart, she hauled back an arm and slapped Nico. “Of all themisogynistic assholes, you win the prize. I can take care of yourrequest.”
He wiggled his jaw. “Good.”
“Great.”
“We agree.”
“Finally.” If Sabine wanted free of thebastard, why did she feel so sad?
****
Director Alarik of theMinistry of Well Being pushed back his chair, unfolded from hisseat, and cleared his throat as he gripped the lapels of his blacksuit jacket. He glanced around the table at the best Aeternals hecould gather for this task.
His half-sister Indigo was beside him wherehe could keep an eye on her. His Firebrand son Rein sat on theother side of her with Braelyn next to him. His ministry’sdepartment heads filled the other chairs.
“Thank you for coming. First, a reminder.Keep using the cover story designed for our investigations. We arewriting a new history. Ostensibly, it is a genealogy of two speciesand our connections. Humans and Aeternals. Such will be ournarrative as we search for descendants of the Blood Coven.”
Indigo popped her gum as she raised herhand. “I need a potty break. May I be excused?”
Alarik was the offspring of the rapist andex-Firebrand Voxel, an incubus. His older half-sister Indigo was afull-blooded witch, the product of the legitimate mating betweentheir mother Adriana and the warlock Tor. Despite his less thanhonorable birth, she’d raised him, Tor and Adriana dead. She fedhim, clothed him, and trained him as a warlock. She was his mother.She was quirky, sometimes wild, but her heart was kind and her lovefor him fierce.
“Yes. Leave now, dear.”
“Start without me, brother. I’ll use a spellto listen in. Of course, I’ll probably miss out when I flush thetoilet.”
“This room is warded, Indigo. You won’t beable to hear us.”
“Oh. Pish-posh. That’s so easy to getaround.”
Alarik bent forward, picked up a pen, andjotted a note to call his warding experts to see if Indigo wasright. If she was, they would need to create a more securespell.
He glanced at Rein, who tilted his head tothe side. “Auntie may be … flighty … but she is rarely wrong.”
Alarik nodded and continued speaking to theassembled group. “My son represents the Scion Firebrands.”
The realm’s warriors were an essentialcomponent in the drive to find descendants of Blood Coven magesbefore Cerberus did. They were also necessary to clean up theprevious mess left after the megalomaniac kidnapped and broughthuman candidates to Scath.
His son Rein, a powerfulvampire-warlock-incubus mix, skated the edge of the bludfrenzybefore the Phoenix called him to the Firebrands and before he foundhis mate. He still radiated danger, enough to make the participantssit up and take notice when he spoke. “As you remember, Cerberus’sflunkies, Silas and Aisen, kidnapped certain humans, bringing themto Scath. We shut down their operation, but they’d already sold offthe Earthers who didn’t prove to be Blood Coven descendants.Jarek’s command is searching for these slaves. Though his warriorshave already rescued quite a few, more are out there. Cleatra’sbeen working with his Southern Stronghold on the search.”
The tawny-skinned witch with mysticallavender-gray eyes gestured in the air as if she were waving away acloud of vapor. “I’ll keep scrying.”
Rein scooted back in his chair, cocking anankle over a knee. “I’m based at Kole’s Eastern Stronghold inCovenkirk. Our assignment is different. My father’s healers findEarthers with witch or warlock DNA markers. Hopefully, beforeCerberus does. If they do, we accompany the healers to obtain ablood sample from the humans so it can be tested. If the testproves they are from one of the Blood Coven lines, our job is tobring them to safety. At this time, we have secured four. One weknow of is out in the cold.”
“Four safe and one in the wind?” Echo,Alarik’s chief historian, posed the question. “I thought we foundonly two.”
