Boss Fight (Beyond the Aura Book 1) Page 16

  I slapped him. Hard. He stared at me, shocked.

  “You’re just like him,” I spat out, fast and furious. “You’ve both got power and you both abuse it to get what you want. But you know what? Lukas is better than you’ll ever be. At least he was always open about what he wanted! He never lied to my face!”

  “Daphne –”

  “Shut up! He could be here any minute.” I hoped that he would be here any minute, because if this shit went on any longer I was going to murder Lee in my own home, and damn the consequences. “For all I know he might just materialise out of thin air.”

  Or, as I found out half an hour later, he could knock on the front door.

  FOURTEEN

  “I knew you’d come to your senses,” Lukas said. “Shame it had to take three years.”

  His Scandinavian accent was softer now. He held my shoulders and kissed both cheeks; I let him, fighting the urge to… what? Recoil? Lean into him? I wasn’t sure anymore. What a mess.

  “Thanks for coming.” I ignored his comment, refusing to be riled. “Come in.”

  I had to play nice to get what I wanted. My usual tactic of ‘tell me what I want or I break your face’ wasn’t going to work, however much I wanted to punch him. My smile was small and tight.

  Today he looked every inch the debonair businessman. He was hot – as in ‘take me on the boardroom table’ hot – but I couldn’t forget that humanity was only a second or third language to him, at best. I’d never forget Kristjan’s house, the way Lukas had just casually tossed the warlock’s head up and down. Even now I thought I could smell gore.

  “Your flat is smaller than the photographs suggested,” he said as I closed the door. My blood chilled. “Though the colours are more vibrant. You have good taste.”

  He had photos. He knew what my rooms looked like, my pokey kitchen, the multi-coloured living room walls. Had he seen my bedroom? The bathroom? Did he have someone spying on me while I was naked?

  “You’ll have to point me in the direction of your photographer,” I said through gritted teeth. “So I can break his neck.”

  “Her neck.” He was amused. “She was here just once, to take pictures. I wanted to see your home.”

  “It’s not enough that you’re stalking me?” I hissed. Raz was wincing, but I couldn’t be polite now, I just couldn’t. “You paid someone to break in and take photos?”

  “I told you when we first met that I’d learn everything about you.” His eyes moved over my bruised face – the leighis hadn’t had time to work yet – and took in my dishevelled clothes. “Like the fact that you were attacked, yet again, by golems.”

  His tongue came out and he licked the air, a disgusting, vaguely reptilian movement. Then I remembered where else that tongue had been. Suddenly it wasn’t disgusting anymore.

  “What can I say?” I said, spreading my arms wide. “Guess I just seem to attract psychos –”

  “I wasn’t aware that you’d taken a lover,” he growled, nostrils flaring as he inhaled. He stared at Lee, face taut, eyes blazing green. To his credit, Lee kept a blank expression on his face and his mouth shut.

  Could he smell that we’d had sex? Fuck that. Next time I was showering in bleach.

  “I thought you knew everything about me?” I sniped. “Your spy lady let you down?” I couldn’t resist digging the knife in, even though I knew I’d probably be the one who got hurt. “Or maybe she just decided not to tell you.”

  “Daphne is mine.” Lukas’s voice was flat as he stepped into Lee’s space, ignoring me. “Walk away and I’ll let you live.”

  Fire flashed in Lee’s eyes and muscles worked in his jaw. He opened his mouth to say something stupid and macho –

  “Stop it!” I snapped, pushing between them. I thumped one hand onto the vaengrjarl’s chest, holding him back, and slapped the other none-too-gently under Lee’s chin. His teeth clicked as I closed his mouth. “You need to sack your spy or something. We’re not together anymore.”

  Would there ever come a time when saying that didn’t feel as if I was punching myself in the face?

  “Then you’re ready to accept your destiny?” The green left his eyes, replaced by the usual cold grey as they snapped to my face.

  “No!” Destiny, my arse. “I need your help.”

  “Then my price is your womb.” His smile revealed teeth. White, evenly spaced teeth, much like those a wolf might show before biting.

  “We could – uh – negotiate? Please?” The word tasted sour.

  He stepped closer, hand ghosting over my stomach. I tried to pretend that his touch was revolting but I was lying to myself, and had been since Lukas came back on the scene: - I still wanted him.

  “Our children will make history,” he whispered in my ear, breath fanning my skin.

  He’s inhuman, I told myself. Hold on to that.

  I wanted to hold on to something else. He pulled back, smiling, the corners of those ancient grey eyes crinkling.

  “Let’s do business.”

  It was tense. Raz was on one side of the room, Lee on the other, and I stood in the middle with Lukas too close beside me. The taufrkyn perched on top of the silk screen as if refereeing a fight.

  I wasn’t used to making speeches, so I’d tried to order everything in my head before I started. There was no way I’d let myself get flustered in front of Lukas. Or Lee, for that matter.

  “So here’s the shit,” I began. “We’re being systematically attacked by golems. We thought those attacks had ended with Kristjan’s death, right up until the point I got shanked.”

  “I visited you in hospital,” Lukas said. “You were unconscious. It was… uncomfortable to see a seasoned fighter so vulnerable.”

  “It was pretty fucking uncomfortable to be there,” I said, staring at him. Did he understand sympathy? Did he know how fucking cold he sounded right now?

  Then I looked into his eyes, and something inside me shifted. Yeah. He understood.

  “I hunted the assassin who hurt you. I ripped it to shreds and set the ruins to burn. It was… beautiful.”

  “Would have loved to have seen that,” I said, voice cracking on the last word. I cleared my throat. His eyes flicked over my neck, settling on my face.

  He’d come to the hospital. He’d killed for me. Both those things were creepy as hell, but they were also… comforting. Yup, we were way beyond fucked up at this point.

  “Why did you invite me here, Daphne?” I couldn’t see or hear any deeper emotion from him now, nothing even vaguely flirtatious. This was business.

  “I was attacked by a splitter. Ex berserker.” Better not to mention Lee. “Almost certainly one of Kristjan’s students. But here’s the kicker – she’s my boss.”

  “Wilhelmina Grey.” Of course, he’d know who she was – but he hadn’t known that she was splitter, either. It was grimly reassuring to know that whoever he’d sent to spy on me hadn’t found out everything. “You think Kristjan taught her to raise golems. Before or after she split?”

  “Probably after. I think Kristjan turned her into a weapon to kill other berserkers.” Either with or without the Midnight Conclave’s approval, but I didn’t need to add that. He was bright enough to work it out on his own.

  “Would you like me to kill her? Rip her apart, so that you can tell the future in her entrails?”

  “No!”

  If there was killing to be done, it would be by me, because I couldn’t control my fucking temper. I didn’t want to kill her (alright, that was a lie, I wanted to break her skull) but the rational part of me was screaming a warning.

  If she dies its murder, I thought. Murder will put you back in prison. Hold on to how painful it would feel to be separated from Raz for… fifteen years, maybe longer. Maybe life. You’d lose Lorl, too – she can pop the locks to get inside, but you couldn’t ask her to stay with you.

  I had a brief fantasy of asking Lorl to bust me out. But what then? Life on the run? Where? How?

  No. I’d g
o mad, in prison or out of it, if I killed Mina. Raz was all the family I had left.

  I almost understood how Mina felt. She’d lost something precious to her, her connection to the real world, and the woman she’d been was gone forever.

  I couldn’t murder her. I hated her, hated what she’d become, but now that I understood what was going on I also pitied her. We had to help. That was part of what berserkers did.

  “Then what do you need from me?” Lukas demanded.

  “She took my best friend Alice to lure us into a place that she could control.”

  “Ahhh.” The vaengrjarl nodded. “You want me to find her.”

  “Please, Lukas. Help us.”

  “Lay with me. Bear my children.”

  “No.” Fuck no.

  “Then I propose another deal.” His accent thickened, eyes glowing with soft emerald light. “Beat me in a spar. In return, I’ll find your friend.”

  I stared, deeply suspicious. It sounded simple enough, but I could never take anything a vaengrjarl said at face value.

  “What sort of spar?”

  “First blood. I won’t change my skin – you have my word. I’ve seen you in combat, but I want to see how you’ll perform against a true master.”

  I let out a silent sigh of relief, though I wanted to strangle him for that last comment. Being a berserker for four years and not dying didn’t make me a master, but I came pretty damned close.

  “Besides, I wouldn’t want to truly harm the mother of my future children. Which you’ll carry, when you lose the spar.”

  I was not going to scream. I was not. I was not…

  “Go up against a vaengrjarl?” Raz said, a minute later. “Are you mad?”

  I was fucking certifiable. I was still banged up and tired as hell, but I couldn’t let anything stop me. I had to find Alice. Rest? That could wait.

  Lukas had agreed to wait in the kitchen while we talked things over. He’d still hear everything, but appearances were important. He was being cooperative, and that counted for a lot.

  “I’m fighting him in his human skin,” I said, petting Lorl. She listened to our conversation with dark, grave eyes. “He won’t shift to dragon form. That would be an unfair advantage.”

  “He is an unfair advantage!”

  “I have no choice but to go through with this! We tried your mermaids. That didn’t pan out so well, did it?”

  Raz slumped. “No. It didn’t. But Daphne… how will this end? Will you indebt yourself to Lukas, too? If you lose…”

  “That’s not going to happen. We fight, I win, he finds Alice.” I couldn’t think that she might already be dead.

  “And if you don’t win?”

  “I’m highly motivated. I’ll win.”

  “But if you don’t? This is serious. You know what he wants from you.”

  “That didn’t stop you with the mermaids! End of discussion!”

  “That’s not the same, and you know it.” He jabbed a finger at me. “Mermaids value their children above everything else, including information. Vaengrjarl…” He shook his head. “They’re a status symbol. A commodity. Lukas will drop you as soon as you drop his baby.”

  “So I win the fight.” There was no need for him to be so crude. That was my job. “Like I said. Motivated.”

  “When was the last time you had something to eat?” he demanded.

  It was early evening now. I’d been out with Lee, and before that I’d been recovering from my run-in with the mermaids and the water golem. Had I eaten when I came back?

  “Uh… lunch?” I ventured. “Fry-up after we went to see the mermaids?”

  “And when was the last time you slept?”

  On that I was more certain. “Back of your van. Nice cat-nap. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that you’re about to have the fight of your life and you’re not prepared! You haven’t slept properly or eaten for hours. You’ve had a couple of fights since then. This ‘first blood’ business might be ‘last blood’. Tell Lukas no.”

  “I don’t have time for ‘no’.” I couldn’t compromise on this. “Alice might not have time for ‘no’.”

  “Lukas is like a cat, don’t you see? He’ll play with you until he’s bored! Then he’ll eat you.”

  “Don’t forget that I have something he wants,” I reminded him. “As long as I keep saying no, he’ll keep coming back. I’m using that.”

  “And how long before he just takes what he wants?” His expression was grave.

  “He won’t.” On that I was certain. He could have locked me up three years ago, but instead he’d let me walk away. “You know that vaengrjarl are honourable, in their own way. They rarely take by force what they can bargain or deal out of someone. Like the situation we’re in now,” I added.

  He shook his head. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’m a woman. I was born knowing.”

  “Don’t I get a say?” Lee interrupted.

  “You get to sit in the corner and be a good boy.”

  “I was going to tell you to go get the guy.”

  I eyed him askance. While his opinion was refreshing, it was nothing special. Lee just wanted to watch me fight a vaengrjarl.

  Which I was totally going to do.

  I really was crazy.

  I was going to do this. I was actually going to do this. Suddenly my palms were sweaty.

  “I see from the set of your chin that you’ve accepted the deal,” Lukas said as he strolled out from behind the silk screen. His accent was even thicker now.

  “You can tell just by looking at my chin?” I started to cover it but checked the movement at the last second.

  His chuckle was deep and rich and reminded me of chocolate.

  “You have an expressive face, Daphne.”

  “So how is this going to work?” Note to self: - learn the expression that says ‘fuck off’.

  Rather than glowing green – which I’d always taken as a sign of his anger – his eyes sparkled, like emeralds under bright lights. The last time I’d seen that glitter had been when we’d had sex.

  “We fight,” he said. I couldn’t look away from that shine. “You lose. We make beautiful babies.”

  “I need a few more specifics than that,” I countered, trying to keep the tone light. Trying to hide how much his eyes affected me. “Where, when, how…”

  He gave me an indulgent smile. “Name your weapon.”

  “Sword.” Like I was going to pick anything else? Maybe I should go at him with a fork.

  “Then swords it will be. We fight. Whoever draws first blood is the winner.”

  “Then we stop? It goes no further?”

  “You have my word.”

  The word of a vaengrjarl was more than good enough for me.

  “OK. Last question. Where?”

  His smile grew, became less indulgent. I saw his choppers. Gee, grandma, what big teeth you have!

  “The Dyja. We go to the Shake –”

  “Daphne, call it off,” Raz interrupted, urgent, grabbing my arm. “Call it off!”

  “I can’t.” I pried his hand away. “Lukas, what’s the Shake?”

  “I’ll tell you what it is,” Raz growled, earning a green-eyed glare. “The Shake is a vaengrjarl arena!”

  “Hold your tongue, Raz al-Essa!”

  Lukas said another word that I didn’t recognise. His voice came rumbling out of his throat in a roll: - the power of a vaengrjarl.

  Ques threw his furry neck back and screamed. Lorl, now on my shoulder, squealed and buried her face against my neck. Lee reached into his jacket – perhaps to pull a weapon – but mercifully, let his hand drop away.

  I tried to speak. It took effort. Lukas had put one bitch of a whammy on my mentor, and I’d been caught at the edge. Poor Ques was shaking, rippling orange and red.

  “He meant no disrespect,” I managed to get out.

  Lukas’s eyes were hard. Not pretty sparkles, just solid lamplights. Fuck. />
  “He will learn to speak only when I wish to hear what he has to say,” Lukas commanded.

  He clenched the fingers of his left hand into a fist, then covered it with the palm of his right hand. The magic around him lessened. Raz gasped, let out a muttered ‘sorry’, and massaged his throat. Ques immediately rubbed his head against Raz’s cheek.

  Lee, of course, was drinking it all up. He probably had some stupid idea about the Army controlling vaengrjarl, using them as weapons. Hah! Like that was ever going to happen? They’d tried that shit in Buffy, and we know how that turned out.

  Lukas slipped his arm around my waist. I didn’t punch him. His body was scorching, but not in the traditional ‘take me to bed’ way. I’d forgotten that his kind had the metabolism of a herd of wild stallions… and the libido.

  “The Shake is the most important arena in my kingdom,” he said. “You’ll be seen by hundreds, thousands of people. I want them to see the woman I’ve chosen.”

  “Where is this place?” I let that comment slide. “And why is it called the Shake?”

  “You’ll see,” he grinned. “Would you like to bring your minions?”

  “I’m coming,” Raz mumbled, pushing his shaking hands out of sight, “mostly so that I can talk her out of this nonsense.”

  “I’m in!” Lee was all blind enthusiasm. The idiot was going to get himself killed. Well, a girl could hope.

  “Can you guarantee their safety?” I asked.

  “Anyone who endangers my guests will face the wrath of a prince.” Haughty condescension, of course. “Can you guarantee that they will behave?”

  I eyed Raz and Lee. Before this whole shit storm kicked off, I’d thought I could predict what both men would do. Now? No idea.

  “You have our word,” Raz said stiffly. He glared at Lee, who gave a curt, silent nod.

  “Then let’s go. Oh, Daphne… are you afraid of heights?”

  “No. Why?”

  He clicked the fingers of his right hand. I blinked.

  When I opened my eyes we were definitely not in Kansas.

  FIFTEEN

  He’d brought us to the clouds.