The Staff and the Blade: Irin Chronicles Book Four (47 page)

“And she never lets them forget it.” Damien rubbed his jaw, and Sari tried not the be distracted by the flex of his biceps. “My mother occupies a position of tremendous political power, but she never becomes directly involved. My father’s mother was much more active politically. Katalin is a warrior first and always. She’s also an aristocrat on a continent that has eschewed them.”

“She’s out of touch.”

He nodded. “She always has been. But that never affected the students here. Now I fear that it has.”

And that bothered her mate. Sari tucked the idea away to mull over when she wasn’t naked and in the same room as her lover. She lifted one long leg up and hung it over the edge of the tub, drawing his eyes.

Damien walked toward her, unbuckling his pants. “That, my love, is a very large tub.”

She wiggled her toes. “It’s warm too.”

He stripped his pants off and leaned over to kiss her long and hard. Then he climbed in, sloshing water over the aged stone floor.

“You’re making a mess,” she said as he used his teeth against her neck.

“I don’t care.” Damien hooked both hands around her waist and drew her body forward, lifting her breasts out of the water before he put his mouth on them. “After all,” he muttered against her skin, “it’s my castle.”

She let her head fall back and tangled her hands in his hair, content to let him play lord of the bathtub. She had no objections, especially when he was doing marvelous things to her breasts. The tension of the day had left him in a mood. One she was happy to let him work out on her body.

Flipping her over, Damien pulled her to straddle his lap. As she sank down, he grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her mouth to his. He was rougher than usual, his grip harder as he held her hips.

“Damien.” A low groan left Sari’s throat when he tugged her hair, arching her body back before he latched his mouth to the heated flesh of her breast.

“Yes.” He scraped his teeth along Sari’s skin. “My name,
reshon
.”

“Damien,” she whispered.

“Who is your mate?”

“Damien.”

She could feel the rise of pleasure at his hands. His mouth drove her to the brink of release, and his commanding words undid her. The hand in her hair loosened, and she opened her eyes to meet the tightly leashed violence of his desire.

“Who is your lover?”

“You are,” she said.

“Who do you choose?”

Unable to speak when her body shook with release, she fell forward, bracing herself on his black-inked shoulders and pouring her cries into his kiss.

“Who is your mate,
milá
?” he asked again, whispering soft kisses against her lips.

“Damien.” Her heart raced, and her body was weak from pleasure. Something had roused in him, a fierce, possessive need to claim her.

He hadn’t finished. Nor, she realized, did he intend to. At least not in the bathtub. Sari clung to his shoulders as he stood, her legs wrapped around him. Damien stepped out of the bathtub, oblivious to the water that splashed across the floor. He made his way to the massive bedchamber warmed by a large stone fireplace. The bed fit the room, a wide four-poster platform with thick velvet curtains and an eiderdown mattress. Damien tossed Sari on the linen sheets before he crawled up her body, the air crackling with barely leashed magic.

He bit the inside of her thigh and muttered, “Again.”

※

Sari and Damien left the castle the next day to drive into Prague. The house Bruno and Karen ran served as a safe haven for traveling Irina and a few scribes they trusted, along with
kareshta
who needed a temporary place to hide. It lay south of the city in the middle of a dense forest.

The location was ideal. They were close enough to Prague to be easily connected while still isolated enough to be private. Astrid, Sari’s healer in Sarihöfn, was also living there, though she made noises about moving. Candice and Brooke had been living there until Candice accepted a position in Vienna at the Central Archives. The two had moved only six months before.

“Sari!” Karen waved and ran down the porch steps when she saw them. “I can’t believe you finally came to visit me.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” she said as she climbed out of the car. “Has it?”

“Two years,” Karen said. “Before Vienna. Shame on you, sister.”

They embraced. Karen had always been the best of the Irina, in Sari’s opinion. Fierce in her love and stubborn in her protection, she was the ideal mother. Sadly, her only daughter had been killed in the Rending. It was a loss that no one could bear to speak of with either Bruno or Karen.

“Damien!” Karen hugged Damien too. “Bruno will be back in a few minutes. He just went to the market in the village. You’re at Rěkaves?” She put an arm around Sari and led them into the house. “Why on earth are you at Rěkaves? I didn’t know Damien was in contact with his mother.”

“I am,” he said quietly. “Karen, do you know about the Fallen in Prague?”

She fell silent for a moment.

“Has the council finally responded?” she asked. “
They
sent you? But I thought…”

She didn’t need to finish the question. Bruno was one of the few scribes Damien had trusted with the knowledge that he carried a heavenly weapon again. If Bruno knew, Karen did.

“I have my blade again, sister,” Damien said in a low voice. “But the council does not know it. Katalin called for me.”

“Katalin?” Karen scoffed. “Since when has her royal highness deigned to protect any outside her little valley?”

“She waits for the council’s call,” Sari said.

“She waits for their groveling,” Karen said. “The watcher here sent a petition to Rěkaves months ago after he hadn’t heard back from Vienna. She ignored him. He must not have groveled enough for her liking.”

Had Katalin refused the watcher because she couldn’t be bothered or because she didn’t have a warrior who could wield a black blade, Sari wondered. If it was the latter, Sari could hardly imagine Katalin acknowledging the weakness. Far better to have other Irin leaders think her callous rather than ill-equipped.

Bruno banged in the door a second later, raising his enormous voice to greet their guests. “Look who is here!” he roared. “And me without my ax.”

“I’m glad of that,” Damien said, rising to embrace the giant man. “I get enough threats from my mother. It’s good to see you, Bruno.”

“And you.”

They spent a few minutes chatting about the mundane things of life. Roads and fuel prices. The odd weather that summer and new beers that were available. Mutual friends and new children.

After a few minutes of conversation, Sari decided to change the topic. “Why has the council been slow to respond to the Prague watcher?”

“About the Fallen?” Bruno asked. He and Karen exchanged a look.

“The local watcher is vocal,” Karen said. “Has become a bit of a squeaky wheel.”

“And?” Damien asked.

“And he’s asking for help. Not only with the Fallen, but with the increased Grigori activity in the city.”

“So there
is
Grigori activity.”

“Yes. But not… typical.”

Sari said, “Is any Grigori typical anymore?”

“A few,” Karen said. “But I know what Bruno is saying. These Grigori are not thieves and murderers, as Volund’s sons were. Neither are they good men or trying to protect anyone but themselves, as Kostas’s men are doing. The council knows about them but has decided it’s more expedient to put out fires instead of looking for the spark that keeps igniting them.”

“And these Grigori don’t seem to kill the humans they take,” Bruno added. “They seduce them, yes, but they have learned to feed without killing. Maybe they fear the scribes and their new mandate?”

“Maybe they fear Kostas,” Damien said. “He’s only a few hours away.”

“True,” Sari said. “Or maybe they’re taking advantage of the situation. For many scribes, offensive action against the Grigori or the Fallen is still foreign. If they can play on that, let it be known that they do not callously kill humans, then they can operate more freely.”

“Whatever their motives,” Damien said, “They are being spawned by one of the Fallen, and that Fallen is seducing more girls, breeding more children. He has to be stopped.”

“Have there been any
kareshta
?” Sari said.

“Yes.” Karen’s eyes were sad. “They met with Bruno, but he had to send them away. We didn’t know what else to do. Brooke and Candice were still here, and they freely admitted that their sire was not dead. We could not allow them to stay.”

“It’s a problem everywhere, sister.” Damien squeezed her hand. “Do not let guilt consume you.”

Sari asked Bruno, “Do you know the angel’s name?”

He nodded. “They call him Aurel. He’s not an archangel. I think his power lies in the middle of the range. Definitely no Volund or Jaron, but more than a nuisance. Whoever kills him will have to wield a black blade and be backed by an efficient and competent company of warriors.”

Black blade. Efficient and competent warriors. Sari was beginning to see why Katalin had decided to call Damien.

“Does he have any allegiance?” Damien asked. “Is there anyone he answers to?”

“Svarog,” Karen said.

“I thought Svarog was dead,” Sari said.

“He’s not,” Bruno said. “He was allied with Volund, but according to Max, he backed out of the Battle of Vienna. Left his people and his territory intact.”

“And swept up territories that had once belonged to his rivals,” Karen added. “Svarog is no fool.”

“And this Aurel answers to him?” Sari asked.

“Yes.”

Sari watched her mate, wondering what he was thinking. It was exactly the kind of twisted scenario he tried to avoid. Give him a clear target and a clear objective in battle, and Damien was a golden god of war. Give him value judgments and murky council politics…

“Well,” Damien said quietly. “It appears that I’ll be the one hunting this Aurel. Perhaps Svarog as well. So any information you can give me will be more than welcome.”

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE
following night, Damien returned to Prague, this time on his own. He’d left Sari and his mother alone. Hopefully everyone had all their limbs when he returned.

So far, the women had been resisting the urge to antagonize each other. Or perhaps they’d joined forces. After all, though Katalin was an aristocrat to the core and Sari fiercely independent, they both hated the Elder Council and politics in general.

Maybe shared enemies really did make friends.

Quite separate from politics, Sari was enjoying watching Mikael’s singers train. The regimen Katalin oversaw was ancient and more detailed than any other instruction for martial Irina around the world, though much was familiar to Sari because Damien had trained her. Sari was still hoping to pick up some new wisdom and hopefully some martial spells he didn’t know while Damien hunted with his brothers in Prague. Leo and Mala had arrived that afternoon from Istanbul, finishing a two-day drive that had left both of them itching for a hunt.

“Leo?” Damien called as he opened the door to Karen and Bruno’s house. “Karen?”

Mala was the first footstep he recognized. She skipped down the stairs and captured his neck in a quick hug before she darted outside.

“Karen?” he called again.

“In the kitchen!” she shouted from the back of the house. “I’m trying to feed the hordes.”

Damien found his way back and slapped his brother on the shoulder. Leo was eating at the table, devouring a loaf of bread with butter as Karen stood over the stove, stirring a pot.

“So good,” Leo mumbled. “Mala refused to stop for food.”

Damien chuckled. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true.” He gulped down a mouthful of bread with a drink of milk. “She would stop for gas and tell me to get something from the little market.” Leo looked horrified. “That’s not food in there.”

“This one eats more than Bruno.” Karen was smiling, but she looked almost frazzled. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Karen is a jewel among singers,” Leo said. “I knew she’d take care of me when I arrived.” He scowled at Mala when she came through the door and sat at the table. “Unlike this one.”

He complains too much,
Mala signed.
And always hungry. I think he would have stopped five or six times a day.

“That’s not excessive!” Leo shouted. “I eat six times a day at home. Do you think this body runs on candy bars?” Leo flexed a massive bicep. “No. No, it does not.”

The scribe was six and a half feet tall at a minimum. Damien was tall, but Leo and his cousin towered over him. Maxim was slightly leaner than the massive Leo, but only slightly. And yet both men were surprisingly stealthy hunters. Max was pure shadow that had Damien wondering whether the young scribe had learned some of the tricks his old brother Otto had known. A keen scribe could combine spells to make himself almost disappear.

It wouldn’t have surprised Damien one bit. Maxim was quiet about it, but Damien used the young man’s dubious connections to gather information. Long before the
kareshta
were revealed, Maxim had contact with Grigori. He had sources and traded information. Had he crossed lines under Damien’s command? Undoubtedly. But if Damien didn’t ask, then Maxim didn’t tell.