Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

PIPER

“Get the hell out of here!” Piper yelled threateningly.

To no one’s surprise, the daemon didn’t listen. He wasn’t the blond daemon who’d injured Ash or one of the tall, dark-haired guys either. This man was medium height, lean, and dressed in green scrubs, with brown hair tied back in a low ponytail. He stepped inside and touched one hand to the doorframe. The air crackled with magic as he did something to it, probably casting a ward across the opening to seal them in.

“Take one more step,” Lyre said, “and you’ll be dead before you can take another.”

Piper shot him a disbelieving look—not only because he’d sounded tenfold more menacing than her, which she hadn’t realized was possible, but because she was also surprised by the threat. Incubi weren’t powerful daemons. He was only slightly more dangerous than her.

Well, maybe more than “slightly.” But not that much.

The daemon, still in his scrubs, held his place in front of the door. “The prefects are searching for you. So is the assassin. We shouldn’t waste time.”

Assassin? Did he mean that Cottus guy?

“Get lost.”

The ornery snap came from Ash. Piper glanced back to see his black eyes fixed on the daemon with obvious hatred.

“I can help you, Ash.”

“Fuck off.”

“Uh.” Lyre looked between Ash and the doctor daemon. “Do you know him?”

Ash’s upper lip curled in disgust. “He’s Vejovis.”

Piper whipped back to study the man. Few daemons were renowned or notorious enough for consuls to swap tall tales about, but she’d heard more than one story about the supposed “best healer in the realms.” Some of the stories originated from before the war, which didn’t seem plausible since that would make this guy at least a hundred years old.

He looked maybe forty. Then again, he was in glamour.

“You need proper healing for that wound,” Vejovis said. “Or you may suffer permanent damage.”

“I’ll risk it,” Ash growled. “Go away.”

Piper looked between them—and it clicked. This daemon’s dark ponytail and green scrubs matched the “daemon doctor” Ash had avoided on the medical center’s third floor. Was Vejovis masquerading as a human doctor?

With a questioning glance at Ash, Lyre stepped aside. Vejovis slowly approached, his attention flicking over Piper before returning to the wounded draconian.

Ash’s jaw clenched. His face was pale, his eyes black. He was squeezing his thigh with white-knuckled fingers to slow the bleeding.

“Ash,” she muttered, keeping her voice low even though there was no way Vejovis wouldn’t hear. “Wouldn’t it be better to take advantage of his offer? You need to be able to walk if we’re going to make it through this alive.”

Ash’s expression went even stonier. He said nothing.

Apparently taking his silence as permission, Vejovis walked to Ash’s side and knelt, his gaze already skimming over the wound. “Release your glamour so I can assess your condition.”

Despite the dire circumstances, Piper perked up with curiosity. The scales she’d glimpsed on Ash’s arm, his huge black wings—she wanted to see what he really looked like.

Lyre seized her elbow and dragged her away from Ash and Vejovis.

“Hey!” She twisted to free her arm, but he held on tightly, hauling her through a doorway and into a small, musty office that hadn’t seen human habitation in a long time. It was well populated with small, four-legged tenants, though. Mouse shit peppered the floor along the walls.

Lyre released her, then leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, ensuring she couldn’t peek out.

“Do you mind?” she complained angrily. “Why?—”

“You don’t want to see.” Lyre shrugged and smiled, but his expression held a subtle edge. “Trust me.”

She folded her arms. “Give me a little credit, Lyre. I’m an apprentice consul, not a random human. I know what to expect.”

He shrugged again but didn’t move away from the door. “How many daemons have you seen without glamour? Some of us have true forms that are alien or ugly or frightening. We don’t show you what we look like because after you see, you’ll never again believe we’re human.”

“You’re not human.”

“Your head knows that, but once you see us without this disguise”—he gestured to his body—“your gut will know it too. Some daemons you can’t help but fear.”

Piper set her jaw. “I’m not that easily frightened.”

“I’m not insulting your courage, Piper. I’m explaining the facts. You will fear Ash.” Lyre’s tone lightened with a hint of humor. “And he doesn’t need you screaming or fainting?—”

“I wouldn’t faint ?—”

“—or any other distracting reaction that will make it harder for him to sit still and let a daemon he doesn’t trust heal his wounds.”

Piper narrowed her eyes. The minotaur had frightened her, yes. And she was still trying to wrap her head around the fact that glamour could make a creature like that appear human. But she could handle Ash’s daemon form. She was hardly going to run screaming just because he had wings.

Speaking of which, how did his glamour hide his wings? She’d run into his back a couple of times now, and there definitely hadn’t been any wings hidden by illusion magic.

Lyre tilted his head, angling one ear toward the garage behind him. He was listening to Vejovis and Ash. It seemed the draconian wasn’t the only one who didn’t trust Vejovis.

“Does Ash hate Vejovis for a particular reason?” Piper asked. “Or is it just because Vejovis is from the Overworld?”

A corner of Lyre’s mouth quirked up. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those humans who think all Underworld daemons are bad and all Overworld daemons are little angels.”

She scoffed. “Don’t tell me you and Ash are the kind of Underworlders who hate Overworld daemons on principle.”

“I happen to be close friends with two Overworlders.”

“Close … friends ?”

“What are you suggesting?” He shook his head in mock affront. “I’ve only slept with one of them.”

“Did the second one turn you down?”

Lyre canted his head thoughtfully. “No, that’s not really how it went.”

She rolled her eyes. The soft tones of Vejovis’s voice drifted from the other room, but she couldn’t make out any words. Restless energy burned in her muscles, and she paced a circle around the empty office before turning back to Lyre.

“Why does everyone want the Stone so badly?” she asked. “What does it even do? All I know is that it’s supposed to be super powerful.”

Lyre folded his arms, his expression thoughtful. “It’s a lodestone.”

“A lodestone? As in a bit of rock or gemstone with magic reserves or a spell stored in it? That kind of lodestone?”

“Yep.” He arched his eyebrows. “Except the Sahar Stone is supposedly an unlimited lodestone. It contains a reserve of magic that never runs out.”

Piper frowned. “How is that possible? Don’t lodestones have to be charged?”

“Not the Sahar. Whoever possesses it has infinite power at their disposal.”

Little did Lyre realize that Piper possessed the Sahar at this very moment—but if it did bestow infinite power, it was of no use to her, the only haemon in the world with zero magical ability.

“At least that’s what the legend says,” Lyre added with a shrug. “The legend also says the Sahar was only ever used once, and no one has been able to wield its power since.”

“Wait.” Piper planted her hands on her hips. “Daemons have been fighting over the Stone for how many years—like, five hundred or something? And no one can even use it?”

“But the potential of having unlimited power—that’s power in itself.”

Piper paced another circle around the room, trying not to think too much about the magical equivalent of a nuclear reactor stuffed in her shirt.

“The Ra family claims the Stone belongs to them,” she muttered, mostly thinking out loud. She only knew bits and pieces of how the Sahar had ended up at the Consulate.

“The Ra family can claim anything they want,” Lyre pointed out. “Who’s going to disagree? They’re the most powerful ruling family in the Overworld.”

She nodded. “The Hades family says it’s theirs.”

“Which they can also do, being the most powerful ruling family in the Underworld,” he said dryly.

She nodded again. “But they actually had it.”

Lyre stilled, his attention sharpening. “What do you mean?”

“The Hades family had the Stone, but with all the pressure from Ra and other daemon warlords, Hades turned it over to the Consulates?—”

“Hades is more powerful than Ra,” Lyre interrupted flatly. “Ra can’t pressure them into anything. No one can.”

Piper raised her hands helplessly. “That’s just what I heard. Hades gave up the Stone so the Head Consul could arbitrate on who the proper owner is and what to do with the Stone.”

Lyre shook his head. He looked outright disturbed. “He gave it up? Why? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Do you mean the Hades warlord?”

Lyre didn’t answer, his brow furrowed and faint lines of tension around his mouth. Even brooding in silence, he was impossibly handsome.

Piper knew little about the Hades warlord, but what she had heard was enough to send a shiver down her spine. Most inhabitants of Earth didn’t realize it, but gods, deities, folklore, and fairy tales from all across human history were inspired by real daemon castes and bloodlines. It was no coincidence that the Greek god of the dead shared a name with the most feared bloodline in the Underworld.

Falling into her own brooding silence, Piper paced back and forth as the minutes dragged by. Lyre maintained his position at the door, his eyes distant. Every few minutes, he canted his head toward the faint voices coming from the garage.

After thirty minutes—minutes that had felt like hours—Lyre straightened and stepped away from the door.

Vejovis appeared in the threshold. “I’ve repaired the damage to Ash’s leg. It would be best to ensure he doesn’t strain the limb for the next forty-eight hours at least—if you can.”

He didn’t sound confident that Piper and Lyre could slow the draconian down.

“How do you know Ash?” Piper asked.

Vejovis made a delicate, thoughtful sound. “We do not know each other well.”

“But you do know each other,” she pressed. “How?”

Was it her business? No. Was she dying of curiosity anyway? Absolutely.

Vejovis studied her, seeming to weigh whether he wanted to respond. “I saved Ash’s life once, years ago.”

“He hates you for saving his life?”

Vejovis’s dark eyes drifted across Piper’s face, and she suddenly felt young and na?ve, as though this daemon really had been wandering the three realms for a century or more.

“Ash has been driven to unbearable extremes,” the daemon said softly, not with judgment but with compassion. “He will either break, or he will betray you. It is inevitable.”

Piper stared at him, no idea how to respond. With a final look she couldn’t read, Vejovis turned away. Lyre followed him out of the room, presumably to check on Ash.

Drawing in a deep breath, she pressed a hand to her chest where the ring box and its priceless contents were hidden. What did Vejovis know that made him so certain Ash would betray her?

She knew perfectly well that some daemons could never be trusted. But when Ash had carefully wrapped his arm around her in the medical center, a tiny part of her had felt safe and protected in his hold, even while fear had been coursing through her.

She rolled her shoulders. She had to be smart. The Sahar Stone represented unlimited power for whoever held it—excluding her—and she couldn’t trust anyone while she possessed it.

“Fourteen, twenty-five, nine,” she whispered. The combination to her father’s safe.

Inevitable betrayal or not, all she could do was move forward—and thanks to Uncle Calder, she knew exactly where to go next.