CHAPTER 1
Attempted murder was not how Piper liked to start her afternoon.
As an Apprentice Consul, she had a lot of responsibilities. Unfortunately, one of them was breaking up fights between over-sized, over-muscled idiots. Murderous idiots.
The shouts were the first thing she heard when she walked in the front door after school. Wonderful. She was only ten minutes late. How could the shit hit the fan in only ten minutes? Speed walking and projecting unfazed confidence at the same time—she hoped—she homed in on the sound. Other guests of the Consulate beelined in the opposite direction, varying degrees of irritation on their faces as they cleared the scene. If only she could have left the two asses to duke it out on their own, but she would get in trouble if someone died—even if it were the victim’s own stupid fault.
At the bottom of the stairs, she assessed the scene. The two combatants stood in the center of the media room. The bone-rumbling voice of the one had warned her to expect a big guy, but the six and a half feet of tattooed muscle, shaved head, and mean little eyes that filled half the room outdid her imagination.
His opponent, however, was a total surprise: if he was taller than Piper’s five foot five, she’d eat her boots. And that would suck, because she loved her boots. They had steel toes and steel-plated shins, all the better to kick ass with.
“Where,” the little guy demanded, voice scooping into higher notes of distress, “is he?”
Piper launched into a sprint across the room. Shrimpy didn’t exactly look like the fighting type, with clean-cut good looks and a modest sweater vest over his polo shirt. Who wore sweater vests? He was going to get shmooshed.
Gigantor guffawed like a baboon—a scary baboon—and gave Shrimpy a shit-eating grin. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, Ether. Where’s who?”
Ether’s hands balled into fists.
“Hey!” Piper shouted.
Ether’s eyes snapped toward her. Irises black as pitch glared at her. She met his glower and her heart jumped in her chest. She threw on the brakes. Skidding gracelessly, she altered her trajectory to crash into Gigantor’s side. Better she piss off Gigantor than Ether. Gigantor had no idea what he was messing with.
She bounced off a wall of muscle, barely eliciting a grunt from Gigantor, and caught her balance. Tugging her shirt back down for a semblance of dignity, she stepped sideways to put a slightly less suicidal distance between her and combatants.
“Gentlemen,” she said, going for firm yet calm and hoping her galloping heartbeat didn’t give her away. “Let’s be civil now. What’s the problem here?”
Ether’s expression didn’t shift from stony anger but Gigantor’s lip curled in a sneer as he looked her up and down. So maybe her tight, dark-wash jeans with the knees torn out and her black halter top with a lace-up front weren’t professional enough for an Apprentice Consul. Or maybe her shoulder-length hair, streaked black and red, wasn’t sleek and blond enough for him. Too bad for him Consuls didn’t have a dress code. She could boot his ass to the curb no matter what she was wearing—theoretically, anyway.
She turned to Ether. “Can you tell me what the problem is? Let’s get this sorted out, okay?”
He flexed his clenched hands. “I can’t find Shishu. He knows where Shishu is.”
She held back a relieved sigh. If they talked to her, maybe she could sort this out without anyone dying. She glanced at Gigantor. “Who is Shishu?”
The man-mountain grinned again. “Frog.”
Her mouth fell open. She closed it. “I beg your pardon?”
“Ether’s pet froggy. Cute little frog.”
Piper turned to Ether, barely managing to keep her expression neutral. “You have … a pet frog?”
Ether gave a jerky nod, his ebony glare locked on Gigantor. Piper quietly cleared her throat. If Ether was what she thought he was, he could tear Gigantor to shreds with the equivalent effort of peeling an orange. He was pure badassery hidden behind a sweater vest and he was losing his shit over a pet frog? She cleared her throat again and turned back to the idiot troublemaker of the two.
“And do you know where Shishu the frog is?”
Gigantor nodded, flashing his teeth at Ether.
She waited a moment. “Where?”
Another grin. He patted his stomach.
Piper blinked. She glanced at Ether, who stared back at her with an equally blank expression. They both looked at Gigantor.
“I’m sorry?” she asked tentatively.
“The frog was annoying. Ribbit ribbit. Wouldn’t stop. So I had a snack before dinner.”
“You … you ate his frog?”
“I didn’t break any rules. No bloodshed.” He grinned. “I swallowed it whole. Wriggled all the way down.”
“You—Ether, no!”
Ether sprang for Gigantor. Piper whipped a leg up, slamming her shin into his belly. He grunted as he went over backward. His back hit the floor—and he was lunging up again. An animal snarl tore from his throat as he dropped into a predatory crouch, his stare fixed on her.
She froze in place. “Ether, let’s stay—”
Ether jumped her. She grabbed his wrists as his weight drove her down. Somewhere above her, Gigantor roared with laughter. She tucked into a ball, got her feet under Ether as they hit the floor, and catapulted him over her head. She rolled to her feet but somehow he was already up. His fist closed around a handful of her hair and the next thing she knew, she was flying through the air. She hit the coffee table and the legs snapped, dumping her onto the floor.
She rolled over as Ether turned back to Gigantor, murder written in every line of his body. Gigantor’s laughter abruptly cut off and his muscles bulged as he prepared to defend himself.
“Stop!” Piper shrieked.
Both combatants went rigid. She paused halfway to her feet, wary at their reaction. Bloodthirsty berserkers didn’t normally freeze at her command. Ether and Gigantor straightened from their aggressive poses and focused on the other end of the room. Piper followed their gazes and felt her blood chill.
A newcomer stood in the doorway, cloaked in shadows. Menace clung to him, speaking more clearly than the dark clothing and leather accents to his outfit. She couldn’t make out his face but she felt the touch of his gaze as he took in the scene.
“What are you doing, Ether?”
Piper shivered as his voice slid through her like hot silk, rubbing against her bones.
Ether cleared his throat. His eyes were no longer black, but pale blue and wide. “Ash,” he mumbled. “Ozar ate Shishu and I—”
“And it’s your own damn fault. Don’t break the rules because you didn’t protect your own. No bloodshed.”
Ether cringed, not daring to argue. Ash’s attention shifted to Ozar. “You’re leaving the Consulate tonight.”
Ozar blinked vacantly. “What? No, I—”
“You’re leaving. Tonight.”
Ozar hunched his shoulders. “Yes … right away.”
Ash stood in the doorway for another moment. Piper kept her gaze on the floor as his stare swept over her again. If she looked up, he would see her fury and that would be bad. Damn him. This was her job, not his. He’d prevented murder with nothing more than his presence when she hadn’t been useful in the slightest.
It wasn’t until Ozar heaved a giant sigh that Piper dared to look. Ash was gone. Ozar and Ether exchanged a dagger-filled look and stalked away in opposite directions. Alone in the room, Piper stepped over the flattened coffee table and surveyed the damage. As an Apprentice Consul, it was her job to enforce the rules of the Consulate. One of those rules was no bloodshed. No fighting. No killing other guests. She was supposed to prevent fights and mediate disputes before they got out of hand.
Dropping onto the nearby sofa, she turned away from the evidence of her failure. The room was decked out with every luxury and priceless technology available, all for the comfort and convenience of the Consulate’s guests: flat screen televisions and leather furniture and gaming systems that hadn’t been manufactured in decades. What did they do with it? Smashed it apart in stupid fights.
She lifted her arm and touched two fingers to her elbow. They came away smeared with blood where the edge of the coffee table had scraped her. No bloodshed.
Her father was going to be pissed.
***
Piper leaned back in her chair and folded her arms—anything to keep from cowering. On the other side of the wide mahogany desk, her father didn’t alter his expression—meaning his scowl. He was always scowling, especially when she was in his office. Probably because she was always in trouble whenever she was there.
The desk lamp lit half his face with yellow light and glinted off his shaved scalp, leaving the other half of his head obscured by shadows. He tented his fingers over the desk.
“Tell me what we do here, Piperel.”
She flinched. Only strangers called her Piperel. “At the Consulate, you mean?”
He nodded.
She hesitated. She knew the answer but the simplicity of the query suggested a trick question. “Our primary function is as an embassy for the visiting and emigrated daemon community. Our secondary functions include acting as a hostel and sanctuary for daemons in troubled circumstances or in need of protection—”
“Protection from what?” he interrupted.
“Humans. Other daemons. Anything, really.”
“Other daemons,” he repeated. She shrank a little in her seat. “And that would include being attacked by other guests while inside the Consulate?”
“Yes,” she mumbled, unable to maintain eye contact.
Someday she would love to have an actual personal conversation with her father. But he didn’t do personal. He only did business. Quinn Maddox Griffiths might be the Head Consul, the ultimate authority in charge of three hundred Consulates across the continent, and an accomplished warrior with weapons mundane and magical, but “parenting” came in on his skill sets somewhere below unarmed lethal combat and above flower arrangement. Not that far above.
He tapped one finger on the desk. “As Consuls, what do we do, Piperel?”
“We … keep the peace between daemons and humans, and between daemons and other daemons.” It was a simple way to sum up a complicated role. Consuls were not only peacekeepers; they were also negotiators, mediators, judges, and enforcers.
“Tell me how you kept the peace today, Piperel.”
She pushed her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “When I became aware of an escalating verbal altercation, I approached the involved guests—”
“How did the situation escalate in the first place? Why didn’t you intervene immediately?”
“I was a little late getting home from school and …” She trailed off under the weight of his disapproval. It wasn’t her fault class had run late. Marcelo, the dayshift Consul, never waited one minute past four o’clock. She cleared her throat. “I approached the involved guests and initiated a discussion of the issues at hand.”
“Did your assessment of the situation note Ether’s lack of emotional stability?”
She fought the urge to shrink again. “Yes.”
“And you still decided a friendly discussion was the best course of action instead of separating the aggressive parties before it became physical?”
She couldn’t help it. She wilted in her chair. “I didn’t think it would be something so sensitive.”
“That is why you should have fetched a Consul. Apprentices are permitted to intervene in verbal altercations only.”
“It was verbal-only when I got there.”
A long moment of silence passed, more accusatory than shouted words. She bit her tongue. Way to point out her own failure to diffuse the shouting match.
Her father leaned back. “Our primary purpose as an embassy isn’t to protect daemons from one another. Our purpose is to protect the human community by regulating and controlling daemons. If we can’t control daemons, we cease to be useful and we will lose the backing—and funding—of the government. Without their support, we have no power.”
She said nothing because she knew that already.
“Who stopped the fight you failed to prevent?”
She chewed her lip. “Another daemon, but they often police themselves. It’s one of the reasons—”
“A daemon took control. And not any daemon, but one of the daemons we exist to protect the community from. Do you see the problem here, Piperel?”
She nodded. The whole Consulate system was pretty much useless if dangerous daemons were controlling other daemons.
Quinn surveyed her for a long minute. “We can’t afford any mistakes right now. The daemon ambassadors will be arriving this evening.” He pulled a file folder in front of him and flipped it open. “Don’t you have a class with your uncle?”
She gritted her teeth. Her class wasn’t for another fifteen minutes, which he knew perfectly well. She stood, recognizing her dismissal. “Yeah, I’m going.”
“No more mistakes, Piperel. More so than any other Apprentice, you cannot fight daemons. You must prevent physical confrontations—every single time. Either learn how or give up your apprenticeship.”
Her whole body went cold. “But—”
He looked up. “If you can’t prevent these kinds of incidents, you can’t be a Consul. It’s simple fact.”
She clutched the back of the chair until her hands ached but no words formed on her tongue.
Quinn turned back to his papers. “Go before you’re late for your lesson.”
She walked stiffly to the door and let herself out. In the hallway, she pressed both hands to the wall and bowed her head, battling the wave of panic rising in her chest. Lose her apprenticeship? It couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it.
She marched toward the back end of the manor through halls paneled in dark walnut and decorated with oil paintings. The Consulate, because it was the Consulate, had to set the standard for luxury, especially since there wasn’t much culture left anywhere else. All three floors, including the basement, were lavishly decorated. There were eighteen rooms on the two upper floors with another dozen hotel-style rooms for guests in the basement. The main level alone had two living rooms, a gourmet kitchen, offices, parlors, meeting rooms, a library, a sparring gym, an infirmary, and more. A lavish sitting area and reception desk filled the marble foyer at the front of the house, a spot she was all too familiar with. As an Apprentice, she spent far too much time manning the front desk.
The upper floor was her favorite. As the living quarters of the Consul’s employees, it was a sanctuary for the live-in Consuls and their families—no daemons allowed. Her Consulate housed only her, her father, and her uncle. The other half dozen Consuls who worked there lived close enough to commute.
A warm glow from the recessed lights under the cupboards illuminated the kitchen as she entered. Shadows drifted around the long dining table and a huge square island. Somewhere in the cavernous walk-in pantry, a gooey chocolate cure for her anxiety waited—except the pantry door already hung half open, gaping like an open maw.
She paused, squinting into the shadows. Last thing she wanted right then was company. Grimacing, she circled the island and reached to pull the door all the way open.
Warm hands landed on her waist and she choked on a shriek of surprise.
The hands slid downward to curl over her hips as they pulled her back into a hard body. Hot breath bathed her ear.
“Hello beautiful,” a male voice purred.
Piper flung an elbow back with enough force to crack a rib. Chuckling, her assailant slid away as though she were moving in slow motion, his fingers trailing across the small of her back as he retreated. She whirled around with her fists ready to strike.
The young man with wandering hands casually put himself out of easy reach and propped an elbow on the counter. If sex appeal were an artist, he was its masterpiece. Golden brown skin sheathed lean muscle and flowed over the sharp planes of his cheekbones. His hair was an impossible platinum blond much lighter than his skin, his eyebrows dark, and his eyelashes thicker than any man should have. They framed eyes of an exotic amber shade like a dark patina brushed over ancient gold.
Piper gave him her most disgusted glare. “Lyre, can’t you ever keep your hands to yourself?”
“No,” he replied in his deliciously deep voice. There was no apology in his expression, only grinning amusement at her discomfort. “You’re just so easy.” His eyelids lowered. “So am I.”
She straightened from her aggressive stance and gave him an insulting once-over, taking in his impossible style of metrosexual crossed with a hint of Goth. He pulled it off and did it well. The wide leather cuffs with metal studs shouldn’t have looked good next to his sleek gray shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The chain running from hip to pocket really didn’t match his designer jeans, but it did. Damn, the guy knew what he was doing. Clean, safe, and charming but with that oh-so-sexy hint of bad boy—exactly the kind of guy who would appeal to almost any girl. And that body packaged with that face? Very few women said no to Lyre.
Surprisingly, he didn’t seem offended she was one of those few. Then again, he never missed a chance to flaunt his availability.
“Would you mind finding someone else to harass?” she growled. “I’m not in the mood right now.”
His mouth quirked up. “I’m always in the mood.”
Before she could come up with a retort, the second half of the dream team drifted out of the pantry, a box of crackers in his hand. Piper’s back stiffened.
Ash barely spared her a glance as he crossed the kitchen to the fridge. Since he wasn’t aiming to terrify two bloodthirsty daemons, the aura of intimidation he carried was muted but still undeniable. Unlike Lyre, he didn’t have that cultivated appeal of “I’m a little bad, but you can trust me.” Ash was all bad. Dressed in black from head to toe, some of it leather. His hair was even more impossible than Lyre’s—a wine-red so dark it was almost black. It was long enough to hang in his eyes and the left side was braided alongside his head with a blood-red strip of silk woven in. The loose end hung to his shoulder, the only color in his whole ensemble. Even his eyes were a cool, storm-cloud gray.
She exhaled with a little too much force. “Ash,” she greeted him. She’d been aiming for polite but it came out flat and angry.
His slow, sharp gaze turned. She froze, hardly daring to breathe, as he seemed to look right into her, taking her apart piece by piece as though he knew her every secret. She shivered, feeling more violated by his look than Lyre’s touch.
Then he popped a cracker in his mouth and the dangerous moment shattered. She sucked in a breath as he nodded an oh-so-casual return greeting as if he hadn’t butted into her business and made her look like an incompetent idiot less than an hour before.
Lyre’s arm slid around her waist as he took advantage of her distraction. His fingers trailed suggestively up her side.
“Would you get off?” She twisted away, glaring as he laughed and leaned against the counter again. “I just got in serious trouble and I’d like an excuse to punch something soft and bruisable.”
His eyebrows rose. “The frog thing didn’t go down well with the Head, did it?”
Her shoulders slumped. “You know?”
“Everyone knows.” He shrugged. “It’s not that big a deal. Ether is an emotional dipshit. Powerful, but a dipshit.”
“My father thinks it’s a big deal.” She scrunched her face and tried not to whine. “Why did Ether even have a pet frog?”
“He’s pretty amphibious himself, you know. He’ll get over it. That frog was damn annoying.” He slid a little closer. “But if you need comforting, let me know.”
She slapped his hand away before it could reach her. “Quit screwing around, Lyre. I’m in serious trouble, don’t you get it?”
“I haven’t had a chance to screw around yet,” he complained. “What’s the big deal about a frog?”
She shot a cold look at Ash in answer. Still munching on crackers, he opened the fridge to ponder its contents. She scowled at his back then ducked past Lyre into the pantry. She grabbed a chocolate bar from the massive stack on the top shelf and returned to the island.
“So?” Lyre pressed. “What’s the big deal?”
“It’s just such a bad time,” she mumbled as she tore open the wrapper. “It would be seriously bad for the Consuls to look powerless today.” She took a huge bite, almost moaning as the chocolate melted on her tongue.
Lyre watched her eat the chocolate bar with a little more intensity than was normal. “And what’s special about today?”
Ash reappeared from the fridge with a can of cream soda in hand. It wasn’t fair. Even with a pink soda can and crackers, he was still frightening.
“So it’s tonight then?” he asked. “They’re moving it out of the Consulate before morning?”
Her head jerked up in surprise. He met her stare, expressionless.
“Move what?” Lyre asked blankly.
She fought not to shrink under Ash’s gaze. How did he know? Sure, the guy had a reputation for being in on just about every secret out there, but only a bare handful of people knew the classified object, the very one being discussed in the confidential meeting that night, was hidden in the Consulate itself. The ambassadors who would be arriving in a couple hours didn’t even know the object of contention was in the country, let alone in the manor.
She almost said she wasn’t at liberty to discuss it. “I don’t know,” she answered instead, following a vague instinct that he would force it out of her if he knew she knew.
His eyes narrowed for an instant. He suspected she was lying but didn’t say anything. Just ate another cracker.
“I … have to get to my lesson.” As she walked out of the room, she glanced back. As
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