Chapter 650
KAEL
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“Please,” Ivory said, and the tone of it was the specific Ivory tone of someone who found their opponent’s approach insufficient. “You have sent sixty-nine – now seventy
now seventy – separate attacks on me. Should I give you examples of things you haven’t tried yet? I’m certain that between the two of us we could come up with the ideal torture method. I’ve been on the receiving end of most of them. I have extensive notes.”
Jordan said, very quietly, to no one in particular: “She’s unbelievable.”
“She really is,” Nina said.
I was looking at the communicator.
At the audio feed.
At the sound of Ivory in a room with Hale and whoever else was in that room, doing the thing she’d always done, which was take whatever was in front of her and refuse to let it be bigger than she was.
“Even now,” Hale said, “you’d rather die than betray Kael.”
A pause.
“What can I say,” Ivory said. “The sex was good. Trust me wouldn’t want to leave either.”
The room.
I looked at the table.
The table was very interesting.
–
if Kael sleeps with you, you
Solander, from my peripheral vision, was looking at a point approximately six inches above the surface of the war room table with the specific expression of a man who was managing his response to something.
Ian, beside the door, had turned to look at the wall.
Nina’s hand was over her mouth.
Jordan was looking at the ceiling.
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“She just- Khris started.
“Yes,” I said.
*In front of Hale, Khris said.
*Yes,* I said.
*She said-
*I heard what she said,* I said.
*She used it,* Khris said. *As cover. As-she made it sound like-she’s telling them there’s nothing to leverage because the relationship already-*
*I know what she’s doing.* I said. *She’s communicating that the leverage they think they have doesn’t work the way they think it works. She’s removing a tool from Hale’s arsenal.*
*By telling them we had sex,* Khris said.
*By making them think the relationship is already what it would be.* I said. *Which removes the possibility of using me against her.*
*Kael,* Khris said.
*Yes,* I said.
*Did you-*
*Not now,* I said.
*Later,* he said.
*Later,* I said.
Cassium’s voice.
The specific quality of it – I’d heard Cassium’s name for years, had the intelligence files on him, had been building the picture of who this man was through Jordan’s documentation and Ivory’s healer network information and the Convention letter. Hearing his voice now was-
“She’s not taking this seriously,” Cassium said.
“Oh, the daughter-fucker,” Ivory said, and the room went completely still at the casual deployment of the title. “You know, I never did get your kink. And I have done significantly kinkier things, so that’s saying something. Do you salivate over your other daughters as well?
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::.
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Clara’s step-sisters. You have a daughter aged three. Another aged five.” A pause. “How do I know you’re not into them?”
“How the hell do you know about them,” Cassium said, and his voice had lost the diplomatic quality and was operating at something considerably rawer.
“I am genuinely offended,” Ivory said, “that you thought you kept this from me.”
“Who knows about this,” Cassium said. “Who have you told-”
“Well,” Ivory said, “I know. So does my team. And I have all the evidence necessary to prosecute you in front of the Supreme Council.” A pause. “Let’s see who gets the execution sentence first. You or me. I feel like this is an interesting competition.”
“We need to kill her,” Cassium said.
“No,” Hale said.
“I won’t let her expose me-
“No,” Hale said. “I have plans for her. She’s not-”
A sound.
Something different.
A movement that the audio captured without giving a clear picture of what it was, and then a specific sound that was a dagger in motion and something stopping it, and then-
“Impossible,” Cassium said.
“It always chooses when to save me,” Ivory said. “Selective motherfucker. It forgot to help when I was being slapped and electrocuted, but apparently daggers are where it draws the line.”
“That is the magic of the ghost council,” Hale said, and his voice had changed – the calculation in it that was Hale’s specific quality, the intelligence running in real time. “Are you an immortal? Is that why you can’t die?”
“What? No,” Ivory said. “Do I look a hundred? Damn. Okay, fine, I have a terrible back pain but that’s a recent development and I can still absolutely rock a maid’s outfit. The back is manageable.”
“Answer the question,” Hale said.
“Could you get me an outfit?” Ivory said. “I’ll strip for you. Would that be more useful than the torture? I’m flexible on methodology.”
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“I don’t have time for this.”
A pause.
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Then a sound from Ivory that was a yawn.
She yawned.
–
In a room where Hale was conducting her interrogation, Ivory produced a yawn.
Nina made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and something else.
“Oh, this is so yesterday.” Ivory said. “Darling, I lived with Kael. I have been in the direct vicinity of Kael the Deranged when he was in the specific state that makes other Alphas emigrate. Compared to that, your anger is a chihuahua. A very committed chihuahua. But still.”
Khris said: “She’s comparing Hale to a chihuahua.*
*Yes, I said.
*Using me as the comparison point.* he said.
*Yes, I said.
*That’s-*
*I know,* I said.
*I’m not sure if I’m flattered or concerned,* he said.
*Both,* I said. *Both is the right answer.*
The audio changed.
Something in the quality of the room on the other end.
Cassium’s voice, and the specific register of it was different from the anger that had been present something lower, something that had made a calculation.
“Hale said he wants you alive,” Cassium said. “He never said he wanted you unused.”
Ivory’s voice went very quiet.
“You better not be trying to do what I think you’re trying to do,” she said.
The quiet was not the calm version. It was the specific quality of someone who’d registered a threat at a level that was different from the previous threats and was recalibrating for it.
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“The rest never got to complete it,” Cassium said. “Why don’t I-”
“Get off me,” Ivory said.
I stood up.
“Get off,” she said.
I was at the communicator.
“Get OFF-”
“KAEL,” Jordan’s voice, somewhere behind me.
“Don’t-” I said.
“You need to stay-” Jordan started.
“Don’t,” I said, and the word came out at the specific register that stopped the room.
The audio was still running.
Sounds that I was not going to describe, that I was not going to process beyond the immediate understanding of what was happening and what needed to stop happening, that I was holding with everything I had while Khris was-
Khris was not being managed.
The fury that had been contained since the car, since Ivory had rolled out and they’d taken her, since the hours of getting to the safe house and the operational planning and the sitting in the war room being functional it broke surface.
The deranged aura.
–
I felt the integration straining against it.
“GET OFF HER, CASSIUM,” Hale’s voice, sharp and sudden. “That was NOT part of the deal-”
“She bit me,” Cassium said. “She FUCKING bit me-”
“She bit him,” Solander said, and his voice had the quality of someone who’d received information that was simultaneously horrifying and exactly what they would have expected.
“SHE’S RUNNING,” someone on the audio said. “STOP HER—”
Movement. The audio catching the specific quality of a space in motion, people and running
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and the sound of-
A gunshot.
One.
Then a thud.
The specific quality of something falling.
The communicator.
The room.
06
B
Finished
I was at the communicator and I was not entirely certain what I was doing at the communicator and Jordan was beside me with his hand on my arm with the specific quality of someone who’d been doing this holding onto me when the wolf was at surface – for fifteen years.
–
“What the everlasting fuck did you just do?” Hale’s voice. “You SHOT Ivory? You shot-you shot Kael’s-WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU—”
“She was escaping,” Cassium said. “She bit me, she broke the ropes, she RAN-”
“Because you tried to RAPE her,” Hale said, at a volume that communicated that Hale’s operational composure had fully exited. “Why would she STAY? It’s Ivory. It’s specifically IVORY. Did you think she was going to-FUCK.”
“The wolfsbane,” Cassium said. “It won’t kill her. They’re human. She’s human. The wolfsbane
won’t-”
“Check her,” Hale said. “Now. Check her.”
A pause.
The pause was-
The pause was very long.
“Well?” Hale said.
Another pause.
Longer.
“WHAT?” Hale’s voice.
A silence.
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“Oh FUCK, Cassium said.
“WHAT,” Hale said.
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“She’s a werewolf, Cassium said, and his voice had arrived somewhere below its normal register. “They gave them their wolves back. She’s-the wolfsbane-it’s not-she’s not-she isn’t
“Is she breathing,” Hale said.
Silence.
“IS SHE BREATHING-”
“No,” Cassium said. “She’s not breathing. She’s not-
“GET HER TO THE HEALERS,” Hale said. “RIGHT NOW. DO NOT LET HER DIE. If Ivory dies, Kael burns every territory between here and the Southern Isles to the ground and nothing in the world will stop him. GET HER—”
Running on the audio.
Movement.
The communicator crackled..
Static.
Then a different voice, low and urgent and attempting to be quiet, the specific quality of someone who was moving fast and whispering.
“Alpha Solander.”
Reka, beside me, activated the response channel.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“I have news on Ivory,” the voice said. “It’s about Ivory. Don’t-” a pause. “Don’t tell Alpha Kael. She’s-I’m carrying her to the clinic, but I don’t know if they can-I don’t think they can do a miracle. It’s bad. The wolfsbane hit her system and she’s-she’s not-”
Solander said: “Kael knows.”
A pause.
The voice: “Oh. Double fuck.”
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The communicator.
The war room.
The maps and the documents and the pin board with Cassium’s estate layout and Jordan’s hand on my arm and Solander across the table and the audio feed that was now quiet.
Khris.
Khris was not saying anything.
That was the specific thing.
For the first time since the car, since Ivory had rolled out and they’d taken her, Khris was silent.
Not the managed quiet. Not the contained fury. Not the running commentary of kill them, get her back, find her, she’s mine, she’s pack, she’s-
Silent.
The specific silence of something that had received information and was very still with it.
I looked at the communicator.
At the static.
At the space where Ivory’s voice had been.
“Kael,” Solander said.
I looked at him.
He was looking at me with the expression of someone who’d known me for long enough that they knew exactly what they were looking at and were not going to pretend otherwise.
“Tell me where they took her,” I said.
My voice was very even.