Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

PIPER

As the door handle disappeared from under Piper’s hand, Ash grabbed her arm. He swung her behind him and backed up so swiftly that Piper had to grab his shirt for balance as she stumbled to keep pace.

A tall, muscular man in black leather stood in the open doorway, grinning—no, leering. Two even taller men flanked him.

All three were daemons.

Even though glamour made daemons nearly indistinguishable from humans, Piper had developed a gut instinct for when she was looking at a daemon. They had this feeling to them.

These three were big, mean, and radiated arrogant power. The taller pair had tightly curled black hair and thick beards, while the one in the middle had shoulder-length blond hair tucked behind his ears.

“Well, well, well,” the blond one drawled, as though that one word said everything. His attention was on Ash. “Are you here to finish off the consul? You should’ve killed him properly the first time.”

Panic bubbled under the surface of Piper’s skin, and she knew she should keep her mouth shut—but she couldn’t, not when her uncle might be in that room.

“What were you doing in there?” she demanded.

They ignored her.

“You really fucked things up good, didn’t you?” the blond daemon went on in his gravelly voice. “That’s fine with me. I’ve been waiting years for permission to rip you apart limb by limb.”

One of the taller daemons grinned eagerly. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Piper gritted her teeth. Had these daemons heard that Ash had stolen the Sahar? Or did they have some other beef with the draconian mercenary?

Ash gazed inscrutably at the trio of daemons, all of whom outweighed and outmuscled him. His eyes flicked to Piper—and his irises were pitch black.

Her stomach flipped. This was the third time she’d seen him fully shade, and once again, he seemed unnaturally calm instead of aggressive—but a frightened voice in the back of her head warned that he could switch from calm to vicious in the instant between heartbeats.

He looked from her to the doorway, his stare pointed and his message clear. Then he turned and walked away.

“Where are you going?” the blond daemon snapped. “Ash!”

The draconian kept walking. Snarling, the blond daemon strode after Ash, his buddies right on his heels and all of them completely ignoring Piper as though she didn’t exist.

She stared after them. Wasn’t it customary to taunt your enemies to make them follow you?

Remembering what she was supposed to be doing, she rushed through the open door and snapped it shut behind her. Ash could deal with those daemons on his own.

The room held a single bed, and the man lying across it was wrapped in so many bandages he was scarcely recognizable. Beeping equipment, old and patched together, surrounded him, and the overhead lights were dimmed, leaving everything in shadows.

Piper crept to the side of the bed, her heart squeezing. White gauze was wrapped around her uncle’s head and over his left eye.

In typical Calder fashion, he seemed to sense her presence. His right eye cracked open. The green orb, exactly like hers, gazed at the ceiling before drifting over to her. It widened in shocked recognition.

“Uncle Calder,” she gasped, and to her horror, she burst into tears.

With shaking fingers, she found his hand under the blankets and clutched it. It took her several deep breaths to get herself under control. Sniffling, she tried to smile.

“Sorry.” She swallowed repeatedly against the lump in her throat. “I was so afraid you’d died.”

Calder managed a bit of a smile, impressive with tape all over his face and a tube in his nose.

With a final sniff, she focused on what she needed. “Can you talk?”

He twisted his lips in a grimace.

“Okay,” she muttered, thinking fast. “Okay, just listen, then.” As succinctly as she could, she outlined everything that had happened since the explosion at the Consulate. “So I have the Sahar, but Ash and Lyre don’t know that. They want to clear their names, so I think they’ll help me find whoever attacked you and Father.”

Calder’s mouth hung open, whether with shock or horror she couldn’t tell. Was he as befuddled as she was over why Quinn had given her the Sahar Stone before the meeting?

Piper hesitated. “Do you know what happened to Father? Is he alive?”

Smoothing his expression, Calder gave a small, firm nod.

Her shoulders sagged in relief. “He was captured, wasn’t he? It’s the only thing that makes sense. They took Father to force the Sahar’s location out of him.”

Calder nodded again, confirming her theory. Her gut twisted nauseatingly at the thought of her father helpless in the hands of whoever had captured him.

“Do you know who attacked you?” She gripped his hand under the blanket. “Did you recognize them?”

Calder didn’t respond, gazing at her with a strange look on his bandaged face—almost like he was afraid to answer. After a moment, he gave the tiniest nod.

She leaned forward, her heart pounding. “Who was it?”

His lips formed silent words, but she’d always sucked at lip-reading. Swearing under her breath, she thought fast.

“I’ll recite the alphabet,” she told Calder. “Close your eye, and when I hit the first letter, open it. We’ll spell out a name.”

He nodded his agreement. She began, making it all the way to S before his eye opened. The next letter was A. Then F. The letter E followed, but Calder wouldn’t close his eye after that.

“Safe?” She scrunched her face. “‘Safe’ isn’t a name. Are you telling me to be safe?”

He shook his head slightly.

“Safe,” she muttered again, trying to connect that word with something, anything, that would give her answers. “Oh! The safe in Father’s office!”

Calder smiled faintly.

“I don’t know the combination.”

He closed his eye, and they started the spelling game again, this time with numbers. Fourteen, twenty-five, nine.

“Thank you, Uncle Calder,” she whispered, leaning down to give him a gentle hug. “I’ll find out who these people are, and I’ll get Father back. I promise.”

He slowly mouthed two words, and this time she could read them. “Be careful.”

Tightness banded across her chest. She wanted to crawl onto the bed beside him and curl up like a child, safe beside an adult who would protect her. She didn’t want to go back out into the dark city streets with two daemons she couldn’t trust and danger around every corner.

But she’d grown up in a house of daemons and danger. She wouldn’t cower.

Forcing a smile, she pushed to her feet. “I’ll be careful. You focus on getting better.”

Calder’s face crinkled with worry. He looked at her chest, then back to her face. His mouth moved again, forming a single word—“Stone.” He was asking about the Sahar.

She patted her chest. “It’s right here.”

His mouth opened again—and an explosion rocked the hospital.

Piper grabbed the bed frame as the floor quaked. Equipment rocked dangerously, and Calder’s IV pole almost toppled. A wave of hot, low-level electricity pulsed through the air—magic.

It had to be Ash’s magic. Was he trying to level the whole building?

She launched to her feet and dashed to Calder’s side. Seeing he was okay, she briefly considered trying to get him out of here, but where would she take him? He needed medical care.

“I have to go.” She gave him a brief hug. “I love you.”

When she burst out of the room, nurses were running everywhere and patients had come out of their rooms, adding to the pandemonium. The prefect security detail would probably arrive at any moment. What the hell was Ash doing? If he caused the building to collapse with her uncle inside, she would kill him herself. Somehow.

A piercing scream cut through all the noise, and a woman came tearing down the hall at full pelt.

“Monsters!” she shrieked hysterically. “Monsters in the lounge!”

Another boom shook the building, causing half the people in the hall to duck and cover their heads with their arms. “Monsters” meant daemons without glamour. Had Ash dropped glamour?

That would be very, very bad.

Piper ran in the direction the screaming lady had come from, unsure if she could do anything to end whatever violent melee Ash was involved in but desperate to try before the building was destroyed.

At the end of the hall, a sliver of a waiting room with chairs was visible. As she rushed over the threshold, she craned her neck in search of Ash—but her view was blocked by something else. Something huge.

The seven-foot-tall creature turned toward her. Tightly curled black fur covered its body, and though it wore a leather loincloth, its hooved feet and horned, bull-like face screamed “beast.”

A minotaur.

Piper had read descriptions and even seen a diagram or two, but drawings completely failed to portray the way its massive muscles bulged beneath its fur or the thundering weight of its hooves hitting the floor with each step.

A gaping wound across its belly wept blood, wetting its fur and splattering over the floor. Rage and pain curled its muzzle, and its eyes rolled with bloodlust. Its irises were pitch black.

This was the kind of shading Piper had been taught to fear. Not Ash’s controlled calm, but mindless violence seeking a target.

And standing stupidly in its path, Piper had just become that target.