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My legs felt heavy as I marched up the smooth stone steps to the sovereign’s mansion. The guards at the gatehouse had cleared me easily, which wasn’t such a surprise, since I recognized the older woman in charge. But when I approached the armed guards at the front door and one of them just nodded at me and opened the door, I had to do a double-take. Sure, I’d been here a few times before, but usually it was a planned visit and they’d known to expect me. This time, they just recognized me as belonging here. Which was creepy shit.
I returned the human guard’s nod and walked into the place like I owned it. Then I froze. Angel was just stepping off the big, arching staircase that led to the upper floors. I knew Theo’s personal suite was up there somewhere, and my mind immediately wanted to wonder why the fuck Angel was up there. But I shoved the thoughts firmly aside, easily burying them under all the other anger and pain that was constantly threatening to swamp me these days.
Angel arched a brow at me and opened his mouth to speak but, thankfully, he was interrupted when Jules stepped into the hall from a nearby open door and headed my way. The siren was giving me an assessing look, but I ignored him, turning away to talk to the butler.
“Where’s your boss?” I demanded, cutting straight to the point.
Jules had his butler face on as he folded his hands in front of him and gave me a slight bow. “I’m sorry Vice—Sam, he is still indisposed.” He lifted a pale brow at me. “You may speak with him. However he may be too busy to give you a reply at the moment.”
I narrowed my eyes at his stupid obtuse wording. Did he mean Theo was still a fucking bird monster? Or was the guy in a meeting or something? Either way, I didn’t give a damn. I was going to talk to him, end of story.
“Lead on, Jeeves,” I said with a sarcastic sweep of my hand to encompass the empty hallway.
Jules just sighed and turned on a heel. “This way, please.”
Angel reached for my arm, but I brushed him off as I followed Jules toward the back of the mansion. A sort of anxious, irritated energy coiled inside me, the same as it had since yesterday, when I’d found out my friend and potential lover had been gunned down in the street. I needed to do something. I’d set out first thing this morning to prowl the streets and find out anything I could about what had happened, but there was only so much I could do. The police wouldn’t talk to me, and I didn’t even try. It was illegal for curs to join the police force for a reason—the humans wanted to keep their fragile control over the monster population. They sure as shit weren’t going to just welcome me with open arms and answer all my questions. For all I knew, I’d end up just as dead as Ahura.
The thought sent a shiver of pain and rage through me. Dead. She was dead. I told myself that about a dozen times in the last few hours, but it still hadn’t sunk in. It still caused an echo of rage that I couldn’t quite snuff out. The beast inside me felt like a prowling, snapping tiger, ready to pounce on the first person who pissed me off and rip them to shreds.
I felt powerless. And that wasn’t a feeling I was good at dealing with, no matter how much of my life I spent trying to escape it.
I wasn’t really surprised when Jules led me out the back exit and across the grounds to the warded garden. What did surprise me was the sight of the big, flaming phoenix fiend perched on a bench turning the pages of a book with its weird beak.
I stopped and stared. “That is the weirdest shit I’ve seen in a long time.”
The bird glanced up at me, an almost human intelligence in his flame-blue eyes. He ruffled his flaming feathers and cocked his head at me questioningly. Then he let out an inquisitive trilling sound.
I glanced at Jules and the butler shrugged. “I’ll let you speak alone. Please ring the buzzer in the sovereign’s study if you need me.” Then he turned and walked away.
I stared at the bird for a few seconds before walking over and sinking down to sit beside it on the stone bench. “He said you would slowly regain your consciousness. Can you understand me yet, dino-bird?”
He made a huffing noise from his pterodactyl beak and stepped down to the ground, moving so he stood directly in front of me, looking me in the eyes. Then he clacked his beak impatiently.
I sighed. “I’m here to accept the viceroy gig,” I said, watching those sharp eyes for signs of intelligence. I might just be talking to a bird at this point, but I got the feeling he could understand me. He seemed different than the last time I’d seen him—less distant. And the power rolling off him was weaker.
He tilted his head, considering, then nodded.
I squared my shoulders and finished my sentence. “But I have conditions.”
He raised the red crest on the crown of his weirdly shaped head. I took that as an invitation to continue.
“I want to know who killed Ahura—the unsanctioned chick that helped us on our run to get your cousin.” When he nodded again, I continued. “I want your promise that she’ll get some kind of justice. And not some half-hearted human excuses.”
He blinked his blue eyes at me, and I arched an eyebrow. “And I want to be the one to deliver that justice. I want to make them pay.”
He made a clucking sound deep in his throat, huffed again, but finally nodded.
I looked down at my hands, cracking my knuckles restlessly. “There’s one more thing,” I said, forcing myself to look up at the bird monster. “I want Josie removed from the shifter forest. I want her here. In your fortress of entitlement. I want her as safe as she can be when this whole fucking shitfest implodes on your stupid ass and the humans decide to execute every shifter within a hundred-mile radius.”
He ruffled his feathers and puffed up his chest and I could almost hear the arrogant asshole insisting that wasn’t going to happen. That he was sovereign now. That he was in control. That he’d make a difference, blah, blah, blah. I glowered at him, that burning blackness of pain and anger slithering through my guts again. “You’ll fail. We’ll all die. But I’ll do what I can to prevent it for as long as possible.” Because I had fuckers to take down with me when we all went up in flames. But I kept that part to myself.
He bent his head and bit me, pinching a big piece of my quad muscle between his short, serrated teeth. I growled at him. “Knock it off, asshole.” I shoved his big head, surprised that the soft, warm feathers didn’t burn my fingers. “I kill shit like you for a living, remember?”
He pulled back, then flicked a wing at me, slapping me in the face with his long, trailing red and orange feathers. I jerked my head back and stood. “I swear I’m going to kick your ass as soon as you get me the information on Ahura. Dickhead.”
He opened his mouth and breathed fire at my boots. I leapt away with a hiss. “I hate you so much.”
A soft chuckle broke through my urge to pull my knives and I turned to find Jules watching me with a slight smile on his lips. “Welcome to the family, Viceroy Forrest,” he said in a calm, patient tone. “I will get all the necessary items in place for you to take your position. The sovereign had already drawn up orientation materials and ordered your uniform and weapons. You will be given quarters here at the mansion for times when the job requires your extended presence. Although, you are of course welcome to live here permanently, should you wish it.” He shrugged. “I know how independent your people can be. We wouldn’t want to presume.”
I scoffed. “My people? You mean shifters? Cause those assholes couldn’t function independently if their lives depended on it.”
He gave me a wry smile. “No. I meant hunters.” His eyes flashed with humor. “It would be a mistake, I think, to regard you as anything but an apex predator, Viceroy.”
I snarled at him. He wasn’t wrong. But somehow, he made it feel like less of a compliment and more of a failing.
“Well,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I hate to disappoint you, stuffy-ass, but I’ll be using that suite more than you think. I’ve got shit to do, and I can do it more efficiently from right here.” I turned my glare on the firebird who was watching us. “And I need to keep an eye on this asshole to make sure he follows through on our agreement.”
That got me an eyeroll and a lazy stream of fire aimed in my direction. I ignored the heat and turned away. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”