Chase the Dark (2 page)

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? Smash 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 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 300 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 away 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 left of culture anywhere else. All three floors, including the basement, were decorated lavishly. 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, propping 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 face, 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 crackers, he opened the fridge to ponder its contents. She scowled at his back, then ducked past Lyre into the pantry. Grabbing a chocolate bar from the massive stack on the top shelf, she 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?”