Chapter 1

There were somany moving pieces, Kaine Lenoir didn’t know if he’d be able to solve the puzzle the Shadow Board had created. It was becoming the thing that kept him up at night. That chewed at his consciousness every waking moment. There was a way to stop them. There always was. But it didn’t matter how many times he read over his notes or read the files the Coven had created. He couldn’t see the solution.

And if he couldn’t see the solution, then he was damn sure no one else could.

Instead of going straight home or to the castle to have dinner with Everest while Gerrit wasn’t there, he walked through the city center. Many of the buildings were old, not as old as the castle, but several centuries. In this area, the streets were cobbled. This was the street that often ended up in holiday photos and tourist calendars and postcards. But that wasn’t what he was seeing as he walked.

How many times had he walked along this street over the centuries?

Had he overseen the construction of the road or any of the buildings?

How many times had all of this repeated over the centuries?

The Shadow Board, by a different name, trying to expose paranormals to humans. Paranormals trying to seize power for themselves, whether they be witches or shifters or something else. Even paranormals liked to forget that more than just witches and shifters existed—most of them would shit themselves if they came face-to-face with a ghoul. But they were very efficient at cleaning up the kind of messes that no one wanted to let humans find.

The cold mountain air chilled his cheeks and fingertips, but he didn’t shove his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. If anyone attacked, he’d be too slow to free his hands. A year ago, the idea of being attacked in his own bloody country would’ve been laughable.

A year ago, the Shadow Board had been a whisper. A rumor. A society of blue-blooded witches from England. Now they were anything but shadows, and he was jumping. They’d sent someone to kill Gerrit because they wanted Everest on the throne. For the moment, he had given them what they wanted because he wanted to see what they’d do next. He wanted to control what information they got.

In England, Dalmon, as head of the Coven, was following up on his own information. Kaine hadn’t worked this closely with his older brother in this lifetime. And if he was frustrated, Dalmon was ready to tear apart everything to find the rot. Dalmon lacked patience. He wanted answers yesterday, and Kaine was rapidly reaching that point. The longer this continued, the more the risks increased.

For everyone. Human, witch, and shifter.

He raked his fingers through his hair, aware that, at the moment, he looked less like the Chief of Security for the whole country and more like someone searching for trouble.

The pistol he wore beneath his leather jacket and the knife in his boot did nothing to alleviate that appearance. He walked past the cafe that doubled as the front for the Coven in Mont de Leucoy and considered going in and buying dinner because he couldn’t be bothered, going home and reheating whatever the chef had made earlier in the week. Unlike his brothers, he didn’t like having staff in his personal space. Nor was he a member of the royal family this time. Logically, it made sense that one of them was on the outside.

It had probably been him who thought of that rule centuries ago.

But that didn’t make it easier to be on the outside.

No, if he went into the bustling cafe, it would be filled with happy, chatty paranormals, and some of them might recognize him, but he didn’t want to talk to anyone. On the other side of the road was a bar that wasn’t very busy, given the early hour of the evening.

He’d sit in a booth and watch the door, have a beer and dinner and tumble round ideas. Perhaps the change of location would shake loose an idea or two. Then he’d walk back to work, collect his car and go home, which sounded even less appealing than it had been when he’d left work.

Going home to his empty house was the last thing he wanted.

Yet he hesitated.

He didn’t know what he wanted or what he was doing. The longer he danced with the Shadow Board, the dizzier he became. He needed to stop for a few beats and catch his breath.

He waited for a car to go past, then he jogged across the road and into the bar. It took him a couple of seconds to scan the room and locate the best seat, and then he made his way over to the booth and sat.

For several heartbeats, he didn’t move. Couldn’t. He was tired and at a dead end, chasing his own burning tail. He raked his fingers through his hair again, exhaled, and reached for the menu.

He didn’t want food.

He wanted a fucking solution.

Exposing paranormals to humans before the Shadow Board was not a solution he was ready to pursue. That needed to be done in a careful and controlled manner, to prevent another round of witch and shifter hunts. And they didn’t have time to put together that kind of operation.

But it was something he wanted to work on because it had become clear that hiding in a world filled with high resolution cameras in every pocket, and every pocket connected to the Internet, was nearly impossible.

Dalmon and his cover-up agents and lawyers were fighting an unending tide of accidental sightings and such.

It was exhausting.

From the corner of his eye, he saw one of the bar staff walk over. He was dressed in black, aside from the rainbow shoelaces in his boots. Something about that small splash of color and individuality made Kaine smile.

“What can I get you?” The man asked. There was a trace of an accent in his French, but not enough that it grated.

Kaine glanced up and almost forgot the question because the man was so pretty. And pretty was exactly the right word for the honey-haired man who was all dimpled smiles and bubbling energy. Kaine blinked and glanced away. He wasn’t looking for a distraction. He needed dinner and a solution.

“Whatever mid-strength, local beer you have on tap, and…” He scanned the menu. “And the beef pie. Thanks.”

The man tapped the tablet in his hand a couple of times and then held it out for Kaine to pay. He waved his watch over the screen and heard the beep of acceptance.

“It won’t be too long.”

“Great.” Kaine gave him a polite smile and hoped he’d wander off to go do bartending stuff.

He did, and Kaine didn’t look away, mostly because of the way the black jeans hugged his ass. As if knowing he was being watched, the man glanced over his shoulder and tossed Kaine a smile that was anything but professional and more of an invitation to follow.

Kaine shook his head. No distractions, no matter how pretty. Though he wanted to rip the elastic out of the man’s hair to find out how long it was. Instead, he pulled his notepad and pen out of his jacket pocket and, for what felt like the tenth time today, he listed everyone he knew and their connection to the Shadow Board, no matter how tenuous.

He connected those people to each other where possible.

He listed the people that he knew were on the Shadow Board and how they connected. The strongest connection they had was through Everest, but if they overplayed that hand, they would all be burned.

The man returned, placing the beer on the table. Then he hesitated.

Kaine paused. He wasn’t worried about anybody reading his notes because he wrote them in his own personal code. “Can I help you?”

“It’s nothing, just a thing of mine… I thought that script was no longer used here? It’s the way the accent slashes through the E instead of sitting on top that gives it away.”

There were a few other differences between the standard French alphabet, which Mont de Leucoy used now, and the one they had used five hundred years ago. “You’re correct. It’s not used anymore, though I like it.”

The extra three letters and the different placement of the accents made it that little bit harder for someone to break his code. He pushed the notepad aside and turned it over so the man couldn’t make any further observations. “You’re not from here.”

Was he a Shadow Board spy, or was Kaine seeing things that didn’t exist? Flinching at ghosts and seeing monsters in the shadows?

The man laughed, rubbed the back of his neck, and glanced away. “Yeah, I’ve been told my accent is pretty bad, even though I’ve lived here since I was fifteen.”

Kaine let himself breathe a little easier. The man looked to be around twenty, which meant he’d been living in Mont de Leucoy for five years. He was unlikely to be a Shadow Board spy. But his parents might be.

And Dalmon’s PA had come from a family who’d lived in Mont de Leucoy for over two hundred years. No one was safe and nothing was sacred. Everything was an opportunity to be exploited.

So that’s what he did. “Why did you move here?”

“My father’s work. He wanted a fresh start after my mother left, but you didn’t need to know that.”

It was interesting that he stayed with his father instead of living with his mother, but the bartender was right; Kaine didn’t need to know. He was prying when he should be ignoring. But it was the man’s interest in a forgotten alphabet that sparked something inside him. “What did you mean when you said it’s a thing of yours?”

“My degree is in dead languages and such. Much to my father’s disappointment, as he calls it a waste of time.”

Kaine nodded. He understood why most people considered dead languages, forgotten scripts, and even archaeology a waste of time. Most humans were more obsessed with looking into the future than they were about learning from the past. To them, the past was nothing more than a collection of dry bones, clay, tablets, and forgotten kings. They didn’t think there was anything there to learn. But they were wrong. The past wasn’t useless or primitive. Like the present day, it was filled with people whose main concerns were having enough to eat, having a roof over their heads, and finding love…or at least someone to spend the night with.

His gaze skimmed over the man’s body as he considered his next few steps. He didn’t need but he wanted. And he couldn’t blame the beer because he hadn’t started drinking yet. Maybe he needed to blow off some steam or something. He was so caught up with the Shadow Board drama and then the snowstorm and attempted assassination that he was too tight for a solution to make itself visible.

Suggesting something now was too soon. Too obvious, but he could start laying the foundations and testing to see if the man was even interested. Maybe he was being polite. It wasn’t as though the bar was busy.

Kaine leaned back against the leather seat of the booth. “It’s a father’s job to be disappointed, but yours to make yourself proud.”

The man smiled and something in his eyes changed. “Sounds as though you know a bit about that.”

He knew a lot about that but wasn’t sure where to start. He disappointed people in every life. It seemed impossible to be on good terms with all of his brothers at the same time, not that he believed them to be brothers by blood. There was a natural friction between him and Dalmon that had existed for centuries, according to his books.

“I know a little about many things.”

“Including alphabets… Would I be wrong to guess that’s not the only one?” Hope bloomed on the man’s face as if he’d found a kindred spirit.

He wasn’t wrong, but Kaine didn’t see any reason to divulge that information. There was a part of him that was still suspicious that all of a sudden, there was a man who understood dead languages right in front of him. There were so many books in the private library that he and his brothers couldn’t read because they no longer understood those languages. They didn’t even have names for some of those languages.

Once again, he rued the fact that when they died, they were reborn with no knowledge of their previous lives. Gerrit called it a blessing, as it meant they were unburdened by it. He thought they were blinkered. If they learned more of their past and what had happened, then perhaps they wouldn’t be the only four phoenix shifters in the world. There had been a fifth, but Olier had been taken a couple of centuries earlier. And while Everest burned to find him, in part because he felt responsible for the loss, Kaine wasn’t as fussy. He just wanted to find others.

Honestly, the whole idea of dying and turning into an egg only to be lost and forgotten as a rock, waiting to be hatched, was his worst nightmare. Akin to when humans worried about being buried alive. Not only that, but once hatched, they were as helpless as a human baby until they reached puberty and could shift.

“You got a name?” Kaine asked.

“Quentin.” He offered his hand.

Kaine clasped it. Quentin wasn’t a shifter, and he didn’t seem to be a witch either. They usually had an energy about them. Quentin’s skin was cool against his, but that was common, as no one’s blood ran hotter than a phoenix. Now they were touching, he didn’t want to let go. Had it really been that long since he’d been with another person? Connected with someone about something other than work?

“Kaine.” Some people knew who he was from his first name. They recognized him by sight and by reputation. Mont de Leucoy wasn’t that big of a country, so some people made it their business to know those in powerful positions.

If Quentin knew who Kaine was, there was no flicker of recognition. It was then Kaine realized that’s what he’d been waiting for. Instead, the lack of recognition was another point in Quentin’s favor. The odds of him being a Shadow Board spy were decreasing every minute.

A bell chimed. Quentin glanced over his shoulder. “That’ll be your dinner. Are you in a rush to go somewhere after? I finish at eight.”