I reeled back with a gasp, but Valens caught me.
“What is it? What did you see?”
“She’s wearing an anklet. It’s tiny because she’s small, but it’s there. It’s got the same signatures. I don’t think the king is only after other species. I think… I think he’s enslaved his own people too.”
Chapter 36
Valens
We’d tucked the melted collar into a discreet box stored inside the apartment while we were staying in the council’s building, until we found someone we could trust to examine it and not cover up their findings. I ran up to get it once Rubix settled down, seeing that we weren’t withholding anything from her. My phone buzzed repeatedly in my pocket, but I ignored it.
It took only a few minutes, but every single one of them apart from Elodie seemed to drag. At this point, I believed Rubix wouldn’t harm her, especially not under the council’s own roof, where there would be serious repercussions.
But still, my wolf pushed me to my limits of speed until I was standing back in front of the grisly door to Rubix’s office.
I let myself in, not bothering to wait for her assistant to reappear.
“Here,” I said, dropping the box on her desk and crossing to Elodie’s side. I limited myself to brushing my fingertips over her cheek when what I wanted to do was pull her against my chest.
It was already unprofessional, but my wolf needed the reassurance.
Rubix calmly opened the box and withdrew the misshapen metal inside. She turned it over in her hands, brows drawn down and her mouth twisted skeptically. “And you think this is the same thing on Ransom? Why?”
“Consider it a hunch,” I said, trying to keep a threatening growl out of my voice. Elodie’s abilities weren’t her business, and she was certainly not a friend, even if we might have been very shaky, temporary allies at the moment.
She pursed her lips as if she tasted something sour. “I see we’ve reached the end of our sharing. You said this one doesn’t have the gnomish signature?” The question was directed to Elodie.
“No, Councilwoman. Just dwarvish and pixie. We’ve… got reason to believe the pixies are the main drivers behind this plot. A witness, now exiled from the Hungarian pack.”
She hummed low in her throat, then crossed her office to unstopper her decanter of blood. I looked away as she poured herself a highball glass.
But she simply swirled it around, staring down into it as she paced back over to lean against her oversized desk.
“And what might the pixies be looking to gain by capturing members of other supernatural species, hmm?” She took a dainty sip from her glass, humming happily before setting it aside.
“An army.”
That gave her pause. It was in the tense lines of her neck, the way her fingertips whitened against the shining finish of her desk. “I see. Thank you for sharing your information with me and for taking the time to stay. It seems as if, perhaps, the gnome Sandrine has been pressed into service against his will to fortify these devices. For the pixie king,” she repeated slowly.
“Yes, that’s our working theory.”
“Carmine shared what your pack mates wanted from him and why. Have you considered that this is all your doing at the root of it?”
I shook my head, not accepting responsibility for another being’s evil. “Wolves deserve to live free, unhunted, same as every other supernatural race. We’re not asking for domination, only freedom.”
“Perhaps you ask too much just the same. Leave me to mourn my cousin, and I will look into this collar.” She scooped up her glass again, turning to stare sadly into the cell, where the soulless eyes of the other vampire still stared through, even as his fingers bled from his clawing at the bars.
Dismissed, we left behind the melted collar and headed for the door.
My hand was on the knob when her parting words reached me.
“A three-strand cord is not easily broken. Three-strand magic, impossible. Oh, and one last thing. This was given to my assistant right before you arrived. It’s for you.” She passed me an envelope from her desk, then threw back the glass of blood, downing it in one go.
Chapter 37
Elodie
Valens and I stopped in the hallway outside Rubix’s office and quickly opened the envelope. He scanned it, then passed it to me. It was a request for a meeting as soon as possible with Councilman Lug, who’d just returned from the local goblin clan.
