Chapter 52

Chapter Fifty-Two

Silas couldn’t say he was surprised by what they found. In many ways, he and Vanderpoel had always been after the same things. They both wanted Petra — not just for her, but for her bond and her access to the m-generator — and between them, they didn’t have a drop of morality to spare.

He didn’t have any particular feelings about it one way or the other. A different man might have felt guilt or disgust knowing he had so much in common with someone like Vanderpoel, but Silas wasn’t the type.

If anything, he was relieved. Once he understood exactly who he was dealing with, it was easy for him to trace a logical path through the ocean of information at his fingertips.

If I wanted to take over a territory, what would I do?

He’d wait for the right opportunity. A moment of profound destabilization in the center of power, perhaps, or when a new leader was at their weakest. Should that chance slip past him, then he’d find a way to make a new one.

If that plan was discovered, he’d take out the threat.

Even before he found the order to dispose of Dooraker’s body in a neatly organized file of communications between Vanderpoel and several members of his private army, Silas knew exactly what had happened.

Vanderpoel and whoever he worked with saw Delilah Solbourne’s abdication as a chance. Somehow, Dooraker discovered whatever they’d planned — an assassination, most likely — and threatened to bring it to light.

It all made sense. If the Gloriae, or just a few fanatics in their ranks, had it in their heads to rebuild the empire they’d lost, the EVP was the perfect place to start. If violence had followed the abdication, the ruling families would’ve torn the government apart. The citizenry would’ve panicked, afraid of another era of bloodshed like the one brought by Mad Thad. If a powerful, trusted entity stepped in to bring peace, the populace would’ve flocked to them before they risked putting their lives in the hands of the elves again.

But if that window of opportunity closed, if rumors began to swirl about an incredibly powerful new technology, one that could provide limitless energy…

All Vanderpoel had to do was position himself to be in the right place at the right time with the necessary manpower. Marrying Petra, San Francisco’s beloved priestess, would’ve given him credibility with the people. Most likely he would’ve put her center stage and acted as an older, stabilizing partner. Having a child on the way would’ve sealed the deal, giving him an heir and casting him as a family man. Nothing distracted an impressionable public desperate for distraction quite like a baby.

And even if all of that failed, Petra herself was the perfect connection to the Solbournes and the Tower itself. Antonin could’ve easily used her to get direct access to the m-generator first, then used the technology to get everything else he wanted quickly thereafter. Silas had planned to use her for the very same reason.

It was all there, laid out before them in coded messages, invoices, and no-frills commands shared on private encrypted servers.

The order to dispose of Dooraker’s body was there in black and white, alongside an invoice for his cremation and a flowery but vague press release about his tragic heart attack. Following the time stamps, he discovered messages between Vanderpoel and someone labeled simply as Red. A series of messages laid out their plan to replace Dooraker with a more “easily influenced” High Priest. Many more detailed their surprise as Petra was put forward by Theodore Solbourne as his choice to be St. Emaine’s High Priestess.

“Do you know who Red is?” he asked.

Petra, white as a sheet, answered, “No, but that— that note there? That’s all information that would’ve been given to the High Gloriae directly. No one else.” She didn’t seem surprised, but maybe the deluge of information had simply numbed her. “Antonin said he had a friend in United Washington who would get me to agree to bond with him. Do you think…”

“Are there any High Gloriae members there?”

“I don’t know. They’re secretive about their personal lives. All I really know about them is that they meet up every year for Temple business and make decrees on the—” Petra cut herself off abruptly. Slapping a hand on his thigh, she rushed out, “Demon, check the solstice.”

“What?”

“June twentieth.” She pointed a shaking finger at the monitor. “Look for anything mentioning June twentieth.”

“Of this year?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. His fingers flew across the familiar, smooth surface of his desk. It was hard not to look at her, to check that she was holding up okay. Petra needed him to be sharp. Never in his life could he have imagined a world where having access to so many secrets wouldn’t interest him nearly as much as a woman, but this was his mate, and nothing about her was ordinary. He suspected she’d outshine anyone and everything for the rest of his life.

Silas sat back in his seat, his lips flattening into a hard line as he watched an unsettling number of hits pop up on the screen. Instead of analyzing every document himself, his gaze slid to Petra.

She’d braced her palms on the desk and leaned forward to peer at the screen. The light from the monitor cast her jewel tones into sickly pastels, highlighting the look that grew ever-bleaker in her eyes.

“He said he planned to stick around for several weeks,” she murmured, almost to herself. “He’d be in San Francisco for as long as it took. I thought he meant bonding and knocking me up. I never considered it would be for this.”

“He definitely meant knocking you up,” Silas bit out. His headache got a little worse every time he imagined Vanderpoel putting his hands on Petra. It became distinctly uncomfortable when he thought of his mate carrying Vanderpoel’s spawn, too.

I wish I could kill him again.

Silas hadn’t even thought of getting Petra pregnant when he made his plans. He’d fully intended to set her aside as soon as Tal had a body and they had access to the m-generator. But he had no plans to take over a territory. If he had, knocking up Petra would’ve been at the top of his list.

While he still had no interest in taking over a territory, he did discover a previously untapped well of desire to see her tied to him in every possible way. After he handled everything, he decided, they’d discuss moving up the timeline on those two kids.

Forcing himself to focus on something other than breeding his mate, Silas thought, An m-generator-turned-super-weapon. A new witchbond. A small army. A wife beloved by the whole territory and a baby on the way…

Vanderpoel could’ve taken the EVP with barely any effort at all.

“Yes, but that’s not all he meant,” Petra argued. “Silas, the thing that brought him to San Francisco— It wasn’t just the m-generator. It was an event. Look at that order there. He planned to have his soldiers in the cathedral on the one day a year that… Good gods.”

He arched a brow. “What day?”

“The solstice,” she breathed. “The biggest festival of the year. The one that brings Margot and Theodore to the Temple every year without fail. They always make a speech and give an offering. Always.”

It was no wonder he didn’t realize what the date meant. Demons weren’t exactly known for celebrating the day dedicated to Glory. The solstice was celebrated in small ways, usually with a picnic and bonfires, but elsewhere it was a grand event with complicated ceremonies, feasting, and fireworks.

Silas drummed his claws on the desk. “If he wanted to plan a successful coup, his best opportunity to take out the Solbournes would be when they’re in the cathedral, surrounded by the soldiers no one even knows he has. But he’d still have to think about the Tower. That’s the seat of power, with or without the sovereign inside.”

“The solstice is tomorrow.” She paused, checked the time and date on the monitor, and blanched. “Gods, not even tomorrow. It’s in a few hours. Everyone will be out in the streets or visiting family. The Tower will be a ghost town.” Petra found his hand and gripped it hard. Her breathing went quick and shallow. “Silas, we left his soldiers in the cathedral. I thought they might just leave to hunt me, but if they’re taking orders from someone else, too, they might still be there. Oh, gods, the staff. What’s been happening to the staff?”

A look of stark horror drained all the life from her face. “Margot and the sovereign might be walking into an execution.”

Silas wished he could tell her no. He wanted to be able to reassure her, inept as he might be at it, but he couldn’t. He stared at the screen, his gaze bouncing from one incriminating document to another. There weren’t many messages between Antonin and Red. Silas suspected they did most of their communication in person, which was smart, or on another server he didn’t have access to.

But what he did have was enough.

A message from Red asked, Do you have enough soldiers? We’re spread thin, but I can send a few more. Don’t want you to miss your chance to put a crown on your queen’s head.

And below that, Vanderpoel’s answer: The elf has the rest handled. You have fun.

He stared hard at the message . Fingers moving unconsciously over the projected keyboard, he did another shallow search for the word elf.

Hundreds of results sprang up, so he sorted them by most recent. Eying an order to funnel money to an elf in Las Vegas for “the retrieval” , he asked, “Which elvish family hates the Solbournes the most?”

Petra shook her head. “I don’t know. Several of them had issues with Theodore taking over for his sister, and Mad Thad did so much damage to everyone… But I thought things settled after he lifted the ban on taking mates and married Margot. I was at the Summit when it was announced. Most of the crowd was ecstatic, and I always got the impression that he was popular.”

“In my experience, the more popular a ruler, the more determined their enemies are.” Pulling up yet another window, he searched for anything else on the dates of the most relevant messages. Amongst all the useless hits, an m-jet manifest came up.

“Who’s in Las Vegas?” Petra whispered.

Silas sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh. “The Luz family.”

He wasn’t sure how it was possible, but Petra managed to go even whiter. “Don’t they have a lot of money?”

“Yes,” he answered, claws drumming on the desktop. “Elio Luz owns most of Las Vegas and he’s a mean, petty sonofabitch. His son is worse.”

“How so?”

“He’s smart.”

“Do you think they’d help Antonin?”

Silas pursed his lips as he considered the possibility. He’d never bothered working with Elio because he seemed like too much of a pain in the ass. His son Epifanio had never reached out to Silas for a job, mostly because he was very smart and even more paranoid. Despite never working for them, Silas heard enough to make an educated guess.

“Epifanio? No,” he finally answered. “He’s too smart and he’s been planning on deposing his father for too long to blow everything up with a half-baked coup. His dad, on the other hand… Yeah, I can see him doing it. I doubt his people couldn’t get free access to the m-generator, but they could get into the Tower. With enough firepower, that’d be enough.”

Silas hated to do it, but he had to explain the reality of what they were dealing with. Placing a hand on her knee, he said, “Listen, baby. I know you think you have friends in the Tower, but that ends right now. If you see one traitor, that means there are a dozen more just out of sight. We don’t know who Elio or Vanderpoel or Red might’ve slipped into the inner circle, the staff, the guards. No one can be trusted.”

Petra looked like she was going to be sick. If it had been all Vanderpoel, he might’ve been able to ease some of her worries, but with an unknown player and an unseen snake in Theodore Solbourne’s court, he couldn’t lie and say that the threat died along with the man.

While it was possible that Vanderpoel’s death might’ve derailed any plans, Silas doubted it. There were too many players, too many moves already made. If the Ardeo soldiers were still in the cathedral, then there wouldn’t be any real reason to call it off. It seemed likely that Red was calling the shots now. If their plot hinged on taking the EVP, as it appeared to, then there was a very real possibility that the sovereign couple would walk into St. Emaine’s and never leave.

Bracing himself, he asked, “What do you want to do?”

Petra boggled at him. “I want to stop whatever it is that might be happening! We need to tell someone or— or go to Patrol or?—”

Silas hooked a finger under her chin and tilted her face up for a brief kiss. Speaking against her lips, he promised, “You got it, baby.”