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NAKED AND SPRAWLED on his back on his bed, Lord Dallinar watched the magical apparatus pump the air while it vibrated. He hadn’t dared attempt to use it on a woman yet. He was still getting used to the changes that had been wrought and the fact that it had become a permanent part of him. At first, he’d been tempted to order Xiara Evora to tell him the name of the person who had altered the mechanism without his approval. He’d decided not to out of sheer mortification. After a few nights of trying it out, it was beginning to become pleasurable.
Tingling at the base of his spine heralded an approaching orgasm and the fairy lay there and let it happen. It was going to take a while for the apparatus to reach the point of ecstasy, but he was in no rush. His meetings were over and he had a few hours to kill.
Moaning and thrashing his head from side to side, Lord Dallinar thrust his hips upwards, urging the magical contraption to end his torment. The approaching bliss was shattered when he felt the link between himself and Sorcha break. Sitting up with a gasp of shock, he clasped his head in dismay. “How could this have happened?” he asked. The sorceress had been their most accomplished assassin, but her life had just been snuffed out. “Groove time is over,” he snapped and the device instantly became dormant.
He got dressed and paused to gulp down some whiskey, then used his wand to teleport to his private chamber in their headquarters. Lord Kreaton and Lord Graham arrived a few minutes later. They’d both used their enhanced speed and power to get there.
“First Eden, then Malachi and now we’ve lost Sorcha!” Lord Graham barked after slamming the door open and changing back to his human form. Completely naked, he crossed to the armoire and shouldered the fairy aside to pour himself a glass of whiskey. His ginger hair and beard were in disarray from his wild dash through the rain.
“We need to determine if someone deliberately targeted our assassins,” Lord Kreaton said as he sank down onto a chair. Despite the building being cleansed of rodents again last night, he could smell a rat somewhere in the room. The vermin were everywhere. It was a never-ending battle to exterminate them. He tossed his cloak to the werewolf, who pulled it around his waist to cover his genitals.
“I sent Sorcha on a mission to kill a shifter an hour and a half ago,” Lord Graham said as he took a seat.
“I sent her an order to eradicate a fairy an hour ago,” Lord Dallinar added.
The master vampire frowned before speaking. “I also gave her a task about an hour ago,” he said.
“Uh oh,” the lilac-haired fairy said as sudden realization hit him.
“What?” Lord Graham demanded.
“We might have inadvertently killed Sorcha,” Lord Dallinar said.
“How?” Lord Kreaton asked in confusion.
“It seems we all sent her an order at almost the same time,” the fairy explained. “The spells are designed to prompt the assassins to accomplish their task as quickly as possible. It’s a possibility that receiving three missions at once could have destroyed Sorcha’s mind and killed her in the process.”
“Why didn’t you warn us this could happen?” the alpha werewolf asked with a scowl.
“It didn’t occur to me!” Lord Dallinar snapped.
“If you spent less time drinking and more time thinking, we could have avoided this catastrophe,” Lord Graham ground out.
“I didn’t realize you were a poet,” the fae lord said sullenly. “Do you plan to hold festivals and recite sonnets to the masses?”
“Enough!” Lord Kreaton said and slammed his fist into the coffee table. It snapped in half and his allies looked at him in astonishment. The vampire rarely let his emotions get the better of him. “We can’t allow ourselves to become divided when our enemies are gaining in strength!” he snarled.
“Have you heard something we need to know about?” Lord Dallinar asked, glad he wasn’t as drunk as usual.
“My spy, Hovnar, has heard rumors that Sebastian has been meeting with the other masters,” Lord Kreaton said. “Now that all three of our assassins are dead, we don’t have anyone left to eliminate him.”
“We have Xiara Evora,” Lord Graham pointed out. “If we send the Guardian of Nox after him, he won’t have a hope of surviving.”
“She won’t kill him unless we have proof that he’s broken the law,” the vampire reminded him.
“Ms. Evora has killed many of our enemies with little proof of their wrongdoing,” Lord Dallinar said. “Then again, almost everyone in Nox is guilty of committing crimes. They’d probably done something that was worthy of her executing them even without our orders.”
They fell into a glum silence, unsure about what the future held for them. The instructions on how to use the artifact that could apparently harm Lord Kreaton had been destroyed, but they still felt danger approaching. Lord Dallinar felt it the most acutely. A shiver wracked him and he almost dropped his glass. “There is a sickness in this city,” he said in a low voice.
“What are you talking about?” the alpha werewolf asked, trying to pretend he didn’t feel a chill running up and down his spine.
“The animals are mutating and I don’t know what’s causing it,” the fae lord replied. “I can feel darkness growing and spreading with each night that passes.”
“I’ve seen the green-eyed rats and crows,” Lord Kreaton said when the werewolf opened his mouth to argue. “I’m sure you’ve seen them, too,” he added.
“I’ve seen a few here and there,” Lord Graham admitted. “But I don’t feel this sickness our ally speaks of.”
“You obviously destroyed more than just your sense of smell when you murdered your entire pack with poison,” Lord Dallinar said facetiously.
The shifter snarled, but Lord Kreaton glared at them both. “Arguing among ourselves will solve nothing!” he said in annoyance. “Where could this sickness have come from? What could have caused it?”
He directed the question at the fairy, but Lord Graham answered him. “Does it have something to do with us using Crowmon’s olde-worlde magic to power Nox this year?”
Lord Dallinar thought about it, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. His magic was converted so it could be used in each District. Whatever is causing the mutations and sickness is coming from another source.”
“Is there anything we can do to stop it?” the master vampire asked, hating how uneasy he sounded.
“How can we stop it when we don’t even know what it is?” the fairy replied morosely.
They fell into a heavy silence that was broken only by the noise of the rain hitting the window and the stealthy sounds of a rat scurrying around inside the walls.
