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A MONTH HAD PASSED since Eden had been killed. Winter was mostly over, but snow still fell every now and then. Sorcha missed her best friend and a dull ache remained inside her. No amount of assassinations were enough to distract her from her grief. Malachi was grieving even more than she was. She rarely saw him, but when she did, he was quiet and withdrawn.
The need for vengeance was growing inside the sorceress. She was certain she would be able to complete the mission the succubus had been given. Her goal was to make the target pay for what Eden’s killer had done. First, she needed to find out who he was. In order to learn his identity, she was going to have to speak to her masters.
Sorcha grimaced at the thought of having to see the Immortal Triumvirate in person again. She hadn’t spoken directly to them in almost a decade. Eden was the only one they’d had regular contact with, until they’d grown tired of bedding her a few years ago. She had to quell her rage whenever she thought of the suffering her best friend had gone through. Getting angry wasn’t going to help her. She had to remain calm to get what she wanted.
It was easy to decide which of the trio she would approach. From what she’d heard, Lord Dallinar had become a drunkard. He would be the safest of her rulers to question about what had happened to Eden. The fairy wasn’t the same man he used to be, or so she’d heard. He was barely even able to function now.
A letter with yet another assassination order squirmed its way beneath her door and fluttered over to her. She opened it and saw she had to kill someone in the Fae District. “Perfect,” she murmured and a chilly smile turned her lips upwards for a moment. The assassin crushed the letter with her hand, then let it drop to the floor. She didn’t see the tiny icicles that covered it. The letter and envelope disappeared even before she headed to her bedroom to change.
Since she intended to visit Lord Dallinar, Sorcha dressed carefully. She ignored her usual cream, white and gold clothes and chose to wear black. The color didn’t suit her, but she didn’t want to make herself look attractive. With the goal of making herself as ordinary as possible in mind, she put her hair up in a messy ponytail. She then pulled on a bulky black coat that hid her shapely body.
She left the mansion and walked a few blocks before teleporting to the Fae District. She appeared in one of the poorer suburbs where the witches and wizards lived. Sorcha found her mark standing in a huddle on the sidewalk with some of her neighbors. The witch was speaking urgently to her friends, jabbing her finger towards the city center to enunciate her point. “They’ve got to be stopped!” she was saying in a shrill voice. “The Immortal Triumvirate will be the ruin of us all, mark my words! We’ll all be dead within a decade and they won’t do anything to help us!”
Sorcha camouflaged herself against an overgrown shrub across the street as nods of agreement and angry mutters came from the crowd. A crack of thunder split the air, making everyone jump. A couple of humans screamed in fright as rain began to hammer them.
They split up to head inside to escape from the deluge. The sorceress spied a large icicle dangling from the gutter of the witch’s house. She pointed at the icicle and severed it with a thin blade made of air. It fell and she sped its descent with wind. The witch stopped dead when the icicle hit her in the head, then dropped to the ground. Her housemates crowded around her helplessly. They weren’t able to heal her grievous wound with their paltry magic.
The insistent pounding in Sorcha’s head went away, which meant her target had expired. She teleported away and appeared a couple of blocks from Lord Dallinar’s expansive mansion. An invisible umbrella of air shielded her from the rain as she hurried to his house.
A stone path took her around to the back yard and she dropped her illusion to reveal her true face. Two Night Cursed guards were standing vigil in front of the door that led to his private tower. They ignored the rain as if they didn’t even feel it. Even in the growing storm, they still wore their sunglasses. They wore nearly identical black suits and white shirts.
“I’d like to speak to Lord Dallinar,” she said when she stepped forward.
“What’s your name, ma’am?” the FBI agent asked. The CIA agent had his hand on the butt of his gun that was hidden beneath his jacket. Neither of them recognized her, of course. She hadn’t been here in a dozen years. Besides, their memories of her would have been wiped clean back when she’d been twelve.
“Sorcha,” she said.
The FBI agent put his finger to his ear and murmured a few words, then listened to the reply. “You may enter,” he said and the agents stepped aside.
The last time she’d been here, the warding on the door had been impenetrable. This time, it was so flimsy a five-year-old fairy could have dispelled it. When it seemed Lord Dallinar wasn’t going to get rid of his ward, Sorcha dispelled it with a flick of her hand, then entered the tower. Nothing had changed as far as she could tell. The circular office was still masculine looking. The fairy’s ancestors glared at her from their portraits. Most of the males had light purple hair and emerald green eyes.
She climbed the stairs to the top of the tower and found the door wasn’t warded this time. A strong smell of whiskey wafted to her when she pushed the door open. Lord Dallinar was dressed in scarlet and gold pajama bottoms, with a matching robe tied carelessly at his waist to reveal his chest. He was still beautiful to look at, even though his eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed. He was standing next to the fireplace, staring at the dancing flames. “My lord?” Sorcha said, remaining in the doorway.
Lord Dallinar’s head turned and he looked her up and down with a sneer. “Ah, my pretty little assassin,” he said in a mean, petty tone. “What brings you here?”
“I’d like to know what happened to Eden, my lord.”
“She died,” he said with a careless shrug and had to grip the mantlepiece to stop himself from losing his balance. He was even more inebriated than she’d expected.
“How did she die?” Sorcha asked, striving to keep her tone deferential. She wouldn’t get anywhere by showing this proud creature any disrespect.
“I don’t know,” he replied airily. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”
Sorcha counted to ten in her head as he drained his whiskey and lurched over to the bottle to pour himself another one. “Is the person who killed her still alive?” she asked.
“Probably,” he said with another shrug. “I haven’t heard that he’s dead. I’m pretty sure Lord Kreaton would do cartwheels around the City Square if his old rival was murdered.” He giggled shrilly and Sorcha was tempted to stride over to him and shake some sobriety into him.
“Who is Lord Kreaton’s rival?” Sorcha asked. “I’d be happy to assassinate him for you.”
The fae lord snickered, spilling whiskey all over the armoire in the process. “You’re no match for a master vampire like him, my dear,” he said condescendingly. “If Eden couldn’t eliminate Sebastian, you certainly wouldn’t be able to.”
Her hands clenched into fists at his insulting tone. At least she now knew exactly who had killed her best friend. The fairy was so inebriated that he didn’t realize he’d just told her everything she needed to know. “I’m sure you’re right, my lord,” she said and turned to leave.
“Wait!” he said and her entire body tensed as she turned to face him. “You’re a sorceress,” he said as if she wasn’t aware of that fact herself. “Perhaps you can help me. I have a medical condition,” he said delicately. “Can you craft a potion that can enhance male performance in bed?”
Sorcha clamped her teeth together so she didn’t burst into hysterical laughter. She kept her expression blank through sheer force of will. “If I had access to my full power, I could probably make a potion that would help you, my lord. As I only have half of my strength, I doubt I could craft one that would fix your problem.”
He looked like he was tempted to restore her magic to her, but shook his head. “Even if I could reverse the spell I placed on you when you were an infant, I wouldn’t. I can’t allow any of my assassins to have too much power, can I?” He winked at her and grinned, clearly expecting her to share his amusement. She forced herself to smile. “You really are quite beautiful,” he said as he carefully crossed to her, only spilling a small amount of his precious alcohol in the process. She was a few inches taller than him and he had to reach up to touch her face.
Sorcha’s innate protection went into action and a spark of electricity made him yelp. He dropped his tumbler and it shattered when it hit the floor. He yanked his hand away even though his shield blocked it from reaching his skin. “Sorry, my lord,” the sorceress said without a hint of actual remorse. “That still tends to happen whenever men try to touch me.”
“You’ll spend your entire life as an untouched virgin,” he said in petty spite. “You’ll grow old and die without ever knowing the pleasures of the flesh.”
“That’s a burden I’m willing to bear, Lord Dallinar,” she told him icily, then turned and walked out before he could utter another word.
