Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Arkon paced around his rooms while he waited for Zarya. He chewed on what she had told him. She was still holding back, but he could understand that. They had been enemies for so long, and she had taken the biggest step by coming to them.

Arkon didn’t know why he asked about her relationship with the emperor. It had come out of his mouth of its own accord. Why should he care if they had been lovers? He did want to make sure she killed him like she said she was going to. It seemed there was history between them and their families, but no one had ever said they were related.

Families are more than blood, he reminded himself. He barely talked to his brothers, but he had people like Zahir that he counted as family.

As long as Zarya could convince the council that she was on their side, they wouldn’t object to him working with her.

Arkon thought about what she had said about a vision of him helping her. He had never put much stock in seers and visions. He didn’t want to know his future because his present kept him busy enough.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Arkon stopped pacing. His first thought was that Zarya looked good in Venetian fashion. She wore a black suit with a pale gold top under it. She was in his colors on purpose.

Technically, they were equals in their political standing, and the visual reminder of that would act as a warning to any council members who forgot who they were dealing with.

The second thought he had was that he was going to be in so much trouble if he didn’t stop staring at her.

"I have been forced to wear some kind of traditional saint’s outfit for years. Thank you for giving me pants," she said with a smile. Her makeup was understated, but the gray and black on her eyes made their unusual silvery blue color glow.

She was beautiful. Painfully, uniquely beautiful.

A part of Arkon’s brain had purposely locked up that fact since she had appeared naked in the ballroom. Now, it wouldn’t stay in the box he had put it in. Her choppy blond hair had curled up, and she somehow made that seem stylish.

Arkon cleared his throat and tried to get words out of his mouth. "You ready? They will be impatient to hear what you have to say."

"Lead the way, sorcerer," Zarya said and held out her wrists to him. "Do you want to put some cuffs on me?"

"Yes. I mean, I should. But no. Are they necessary?" Arkon stammered, fighting his mind’s inappropriate association with cuffs. What the hell was the matter with him?

"They aren’t necessary. I just thought they might make the others more comfortable." Zarya straightened the woven bracelets on her wrist. "Let’s get this over with. I want to do some magic. Don’t you?"

A tingle danced through Arkon’s fingers. Some people felt anticipation through butterflies in their stomach. Arkon was tactile by nature, so it was always his hands that warned him he was getting excited.

"Literally always, lupa," he said and opened the door for her. "Speaking of your other furrier side… Are you a wolf shifter or is it something else?"

"You mean: was I born shifter naturally like your shedu? No."

"Care to elaborate?"

Zarya’s lips twitched. "No."

"You are no fun at all," Arkon lied.

"If I told you all my secrets straight away, we would run out of things to talk about," she said.

Arkon laughed loudly at that. "I don’t think that would ever be our problem. After years of being vexed by you from afar, now you’re here to vex me in person."

"I’m having fun too," she said and winked at him. Arkon’s hands tingled again.

The council rooms were open, and the other members were already waiting for them. Their eyes focused on Zarya and seemed to narrow.

"Why isn’t this woman in chains?" Frederico Romaro asked. He was a representative from Coins, a lawyer and the only non-magical human apart from Gio on the council. He was also an insufferable git.

"I didn’t think it was necessary. Zarya has defected to our side. If we made a habit of putting our allies in irons, we would have none at all," Arkon said smoothly. Zarya gave him a pointed look that said, "I told you so" very plainly.

"I wouldn’t worry, Frederico. She’s no match for me and Arkon together," Zahir commented in a bored tone. He was watching Zarya like she was a curious type of venomous spider. Beautiful and deadly. Arkon understood that feeling.

"Let’s all be seated. I’m interested in hearing why Varangia’s most feared saint has ended up on our doorstep," Gio commanded.

I came for you. Zarya’s earlier words echoed in Arkon’s mind. Four simple words that were going to cause so much havoc to his insides if he let it. He wasn’t sure if he believed them. He really needed to learn more about the vision she’d had about them.

Arkon pulled a seat out at the table for Zarya before taking his place beside her. Zahir nudged him with his foot under the table. Arkon frowned at him, and Zahir suppressed a smile.

"What’s your problem?" Arkon whispered to him.

"Nothing. I just didn’t realize you had any manners all these years," Zahir whispered back.

"All it took was the right utterly terrifying woman to bring them out in me."

They all quietened down, and Zarya told the council more or less what she had told Arkon the previous evening—she had left Arkadi after learning of the death camps, the bone mages, and her sister’s death. She hadn’t been responsible for any of the magical attacks on the army since she’d left Kyiv eight weeks ago.

"And why would you come to Venice, seeking help from your enemies? You clearly have the magical capabilities to fight your own battles," Dom Aladoro asked, his golden eyes shining. Arkon would have to ask him what his shifter senses told him about Zarya.

"I came for Arkon," Zarya replied, making more than one council member start in surprise. Dom and Nico grinned at him, showing too much fang.

Big idiots.

"Why would you want him?" Nico D’Argento asked bluntly, a sly gleam in his eyes.

"Thanks, Nico," Arkon huffed. "That’s the last time I gallantly offer my services in a battle that you’re leading."

"It’s a fair question," Gio said.

Zarya laced her fingers together. "Have any of you experienced a winter in the north? No? We have six weeks between now and when the storms begin. It’s still mildly autumn here in the south, but in Varangia the snow will start soon. I need Arkon’s help if I am going to stop the war before the winter arrives."

"Stop the war in six weeks? I’m breathless to hear how you will achieve that," Zahir said, crossing his arms.

"There have always been four major players in the Varangian court that have kept the war going," Zarya replied, leaning back in her chair. "They are the reason that every attempt at a peace talk has been shut down over the last two years, and they need to be stopped if we want to see an end to it."

Zarya’s index fingers danced in a graceful pattern, and Arkon’s magic rose. His mouth went dry, and his fingertips tingled at the first winter chocolate taste of her magic. Four faces made of blue light formed in the center of the table, and he fought to look at them and not her.

"Siderov," Nico growled, staring at the face of a man with a moustache.

"Yes, he was one of them," Zarya said, and she pointed to a man of about thirty-five. He had hair to his shoulders and a cruel sneer to his lips. "Emperor Arkadi, you will all recognize. The other two are Stas Gusev, the empire’s treasurer, and Igor Zaytsev, the general of the armies.

“If Arkon and I kill them and the three bone mages that Arkadi has created, then the war will end. The rest of the ministers have had enough and have been pushing for peace. The people are also clamoring for it to end. They never wanted it to begin with. Arkadi always had ambition to be greater than his father, and he just used a war against magic as an excuse to try and capture the Republic’s trade routes. If you don’t stop him before winter, by next summer, he will have an army big enough to push Constantinople into a siege."

Arkon didn’t think anyone was breathing. They were staring at the glowing faces with a new kind of curiosity and horror. None of them had thought Arkadi would be that bold.

"You still haven’t said where Arkon comes into this," Zahir prompted her. He had seen Constantinople fall, change names, and become Constantinople again so many times it didn’t seem to bother him that it could fall again.

Zarya’s eyes turned silver. "I can’t teleport, but Arkon can. We don’t have time to travel by conventional means. I’m the best mage in Varangia, but I have no idea what capabilities the bone mages have. I need to kill them and destroy the camps that they have been running. I don’t know what I’m facing—none of us do—so I want the best by my side. That is Arkon."

"I’m flattered, Wolf Mage. Zahir, I do believe I’m blushing," he said, trying to lighten the mood.

"You wouldn’t know how to blush," Zahir replied.

"If Arkon is going to help you, I want you to sign an official contract," Gio said, studying them both closely. "I want Zahir to write it, and for it to be magically binding."

Zarya’s eyes narrowed. "Do you have djinn oversee all your other contracts with allies?"

"No, but none of them want the use of my Grand Sorcerer, whom you have been enemies with. I value him too much to have him be killed in some frozen forest in Varangia because you’ve decided to murder him once you’ve gotten what you wanted," Gio replied, his tone turning to pure cold bastard. He so rarely rolled it out that Arkon felt like a scolded child.

Zarya was bold enough to glare at Gio. Her tone was even icier when she said, "I would never cause anyone to get hurt, let alone Arkon. And while we have been on different sides of this war, under other circumstances we might have been friends. He’s the only one that will be able to understand my magic, and that makes him valuable to me, doge. More than you could possibly fathom. So, get your djinn to do his magic if it will make you feel better about it. I don’t care."

"Please, please, don’t fight over me. I know I’m amazing, but there’s plenty of me to go around," Arkon said, feeling a little light-headed at how wanted he was all of a sudden. "Also, Gio, I’m not going to let you be magically bound to Zarya. If anyone is going to do that, it’s going to be me. You are the doge of Venice and shouldn’t be in any magical contracts."

"I agree with Arkon," Carmella Aladoro interrupted.

I bet you do, Arkon thought. She was alpha and overprotective of her dear friend Gio more than anyone at the table could possibly imagine. And that included Gio himself.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Zahir whispered to Arkon. "You know both of your powers could react poorly to it."

Bits of Arkon hardened, and others melted at the thought of his magic tangling up in Zarya’s unknown power. He must have been smiling a little too widely because Zahir face palmed himself.

"You are going to die a horrible death one day, sorcerer."

"We all know that," Arkon said with a soft laugh. "Might as well have fun before I do."