The Shifting Price of Prey

Chapter Sixty-Two

‘Ah! And now we come to the Encore.’ He raised a mocking brow. ‘To have something you want, my sweet sidhe, fills me with such glorious anticipation.’

I glowered at him. Sadistic prick was obviously going to spin this out, whereas I wanted it done so I could kill him. ‘What’s the deal, Bastien?’

‘Patience, my princess.’ Slyness glinted in Bastien’s brown eyes as he moved to squat by Malik. He brushed a hand over Malik’s shorn scalp, smudging the glyphs painted there. ‘Does my loyal commander, my shadow, my kingmaker not deserve some care first?’ He bit into his own arm and held his wrist over Malik’s mouth so drops of dark crimson blood splashed on to Malik’s parted lips. ‘Were it not for his perfect plan none of this would have been possible.’ He smiled gleefully.

Fuck. Malik had planned it all. He’d used me, put those I’d cared about in danger and all to help Bastien gain power. It felt like his soul turned to ice around my heart and shattered into sharp icicles. Leaving me bleeding. How the hell could I have been so stupid to think that Malik cared for me? That we could have something together? We couldn’t. Not if he was prepared to put innocents like Katie and Freya in danger to get what he wanted. Furious and heart-sore, I wanted to shout at Malik, tell him there’d been no need to involve them. Hadn’t the Machiavellian vamp understood that if he’d told me his plan, I’d have gone along with it willingly? After all, he’d known I needed to see the Emperor, and I’d told him I’d help. And even if I’d ended up hurt or dead as I had in the past with a couple of his plots, it wasn’t as if I’d held it against him—

Malik wasn’t the type to put innocents in danger for his own ends.

But Bastien was. Bastien was also the sort to slither like a poisonous snake into my head and sic his mind-mojo on me. Sadistic prick was playing me. And, as an amber glint near Malik’s slab caught my eye – the dragon’s tear in Janan’s handle – I realised Bastien’s gameplaying wasn’t only for his own amusement. He wanted me angry with Malik because he wanted something from me. Malik’s soul.

‘You want me to give you his soul back, is that it?’ I snapped.

‘Actually, my bride’ – he lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug – ‘I do not. It is liberating to be without its depressing weight.’

Depressing? I blinked ‘What about its immortality?’

‘Ah. It appears that while my loyal shadow and his soul are truly immortal, that immortality is not bestowed on the bearer.’

I frowned. ‘But then why—’

‘Greed, envy and the lust for power are eternal motivators, my princess. In that the Emperor and my beloved mother, the beautiful Shpresa, were very much alike.’ As he spoke a centurion marched into the tent like an automaton. He carried a woman’s lifeless body. He laid her down on the stone circle recently vacated by the original Emperor, then saluted Bastien and left.

The Empress.

Bastien looked at her like she was something he’d scraped off his shoe. ‘She was the favoured Ikbal of Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, powerful, rich, vaunted, her children destined for greatness. But it was not enough. She lusted after eternal youth and beauty and so absconded with Romulus Augustus willingly. He did not, as some imagined at the time’ – he sneered down at Malik – ‘force, or persuade her in any way.’ He squeezed his arm to reopen his bite wound, so more drops of blood splashed on to Malik’s mouth as if he were performing some sort of vamp Chinese water torture. ‘Shpresa, as the blood-bound consort to a vampire, gained the immortality the sidhe denied her as a changeling. The Emperor lusted after a sidhe to bond to his blood. It was a match made in mutual delusion and betrayal. He discovered too late she was not the solid gold he sought, but only polished brass. She paid for her duplicity with her freedom and the enslavement of her children. But in spite of his Empress’ predilection for perfidy’ – Bastien squeezed the wound on his arm with a slight grimace – ‘the Emperor did not heed the lesson history should have taught him. Once again he let his lust for something he wanted override his good sense, and found the sting in the tail. As we are all wont to do at times, my lovely princess.’

I rolled my eyes, so not appreciating his spouting off about how clever he thought he was. ‘I get it,’ I said. ‘You and Mommie Dearest pulled a fast one on the Emperor. Bully for you. What I was asking, before you so rudely interrupted, was, if Malik’s soul doesn’t bestow immortality, why the hell did you have it?’

He gave me a smug smile that told me I wasn’t going to get an answer.

‘Fine. Don’t tell me,’ I snapped, irritated, ‘I’ll ask Malik myself when he wakes up. So how about you forget your final curtain speech and let’s cut to the deal.’ Then I can kill you.

He flashed fang at me. ‘I would not think you were so eager for my loyal shadow to wake, my bride. Not when your . . . situation will dishearten him so.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

He gave me a sideways look. ‘My loyal commander might not be recovered for some time, even with my blood’ – he lifted his chin and sniffed – ‘so it may be that the stink of the satyr will have faded somewhat by then. Your secret is safe with me.’

Fucking vamp supersenses.

I cast a concerned look at Malik, wondering if he could hear. It didn’t matter that I thought Malik would understand how it had happened; it would still hurt. If it had been the other way round . . . damn it, I’d be hurt too, devastated, even. In fact, I was devastated about Finn, Gold Cat and the whole mating thing: it was a heartrending muddle of epic proportions. But it wasn’t something I’d planned keeping secret from anyone, let alone Malik. It would turn what happened from a muddle that could be sorted into a nasty festering sore that would come back and bite me and everyone else. But I had hoped to pick my moment, not have Malik hear it from Bastien, especially not with the spiteful spin the sadistic prick was bound to add.

‘That.’ I jabbed Ascalon at Bastien. ‘Is none of your business.’

‘I quite agree, my lovely sidhe.’ He stood, keeping his gaze on me as he licked the wound on his arm with obvious enjoyment. I frowned at Malik. He looked as pale and lifeless as before; Bastien’s meagre donation didn’t seem to done anything. Still Bastien wasn’t the only one with blood. If Malik didn’t wake up after I gave him his soul back, I’d feed him myself. And if Bastien was finished—

‘Look,’ I said, forcing a conciliatory tone. ‘You want something from me. I want my question answered. So let’s get things sorted.’

‘I will be delighted to, my bride.’ He lifted a creepy finger. ‘When the time is right.’

‘Which is when?’

‘When the last tarot card appears, of course. Or have you forgotten that part of the proceedings?’ I hadn’t, but since he and Viv were in league with each other, I doubted the last card was going to tell me anything Bastien didn’t already know. ‘Now I must leave you and greet my new subjects. Until anon.’ He turned on his heel, marching away, toga flapping around his knees. The previous Emperor had been about a foot shorter, and, I noted bitchily, Bastien had the legs of a scrawny chicken.

‘You told me you didn’t know,’ I shouted after him. ‘And the Emperor told me the same.’

He swung back, anger twisting his face. Accusing a vamp as old as he was of lying, even if only by suggestion, was a huge insult. Not that I cared if it got me the answer I needed.

‘Knowledge is one side of the equation, bean sidhe, application is the other. Two plus two do not become four until one understands how they should be tallied. A tally, in this instance, that will not be complete until the last tarot card has been read.’

He turned and left, leaving me scowling after him.

In other words, Bastien had known part of the answer but not the whole of it until he’d munched on the Emperor, and now he had to confer with his scheming spirit sidekick. Crap. I wanted to run after him, lop his scrawny legs off at the knees, skewer Ascalon through his sadistic heart and turn him into a magical bonfire. Reluctantly, I let Ascalon slide back into the ring, wondering how long the sadistic psycho was going to make me sweat. And what price he wanted.

‘As if I can’t guess,’ I muttered, glowering at the dead Empress. After all, I couldn’t count the number of times he’d called me ‘my princess’, ‘my bride’, or ‘my sidhe’. Still, he wouldn’t be the first vamp to get my blood-bond and, like the last one, I’d be happy to make sure the psycho’s ashes ended up feeding the fish in the River Thames.

Frustrated and angry, I sighed and took stock. I needed to go and ‘claim’ Katie, Freya and the rest of my bartered auction lots and get them to safety. But first, Malik needed his soul back.

Gingerly, I scooped Janan up, glad my hands had started healing—

A shimmering, transparent figure padded into the tent carrying something in her mouth.

Gold Cat.