“Amplified it.” He leaned toward her lips like he might get a taste. Then she ripped her fingers away and shoved him to the floor. The sadistic, delighted groan that came from him only made her hair stand on end. She stomped around him toward the desk.
“Where is it?”
“Plugged it in. Readied it. As soon as that mechanic shows up with the prototype, boom! Poof! No more shield!” Pinstripes crawled across the floor, scraping his belly across the glossy marble.
“What!” she barked, ripping back around to glare at him. “Why would you want that?”
He wheezed, flopping down onto his back. A dog with its belly out, waiting for a scratch, he begged her with his puppy dog eyes. “They won’t know what to do! I can fix it. Make a better one. They’ll have to ask me to help.”
“That’s what you want?” Katarina snarled, crouching down to grab him by the hair again. He squealed with happiness as she dragged him to lay at her feet. “You’re so pathetic and bored that you need to destroy the one thing protecting this city just to give you something to do? Some fucking purpose?”
Bjorn beamed brighter. “Who needs magic?”
Katarina dropped his head, letting it smack against the floor as she returned to his desk. “Where is it, Bjorn? Where did you hide it?”
“Shhhh,” he giggled, pushing a punch drunk finger to his lips. “Can’t tell you. It’s asecret!”
Katarina roared with frustration, tossing the things on his desk about. Each and every drawer only led her to more papers. Without proof, his confession was just coerced, succubus induced rambling. No one would ever believe her. She was, after all, just an accountant.Fuck!She needed hard evidence. If he would just tell her where the fucking device was, she could get him to blabber about it long enough to deactivate it.Or, fuck, I’ll just break it.Her claws were thick enough. In her frenzied state, her wings popped out of her back, and she was pretty sure little red flames came off her horns as she tossed his whole office. Not a letter. Not a map. Not a fucking clue.
“Bjorn!” She stomped over to him, dragging him up by the ear and forcing him to limply lean back against the bookcase. Her paralytic was too strong. He was a goner.Fuck.“Bjorn, be a good boy and tell me where it is.”
“Had to be somewhere close,” he panted for air, eyes fluttering. “Please, oh dragon’s breath, touch me.”
Katarina growled, wrapping a hand around his neck. “Where?!”
The problem was her venom could emotionally manipulate someone. It couldn’t convince them to go fully against their wishes. She couldn’t just stab someone and tell them to jump off a cliff.Not unless they were already thinking it, at least.Unfortunately, Bjorn really didn’t want anyone to know.
Tears, hot and angry welled up in her eyes as she throttled him. “Tell me where the device is and how to turn it off.”
“He’ll be here soon,” Bjorn murmured as his head flopped to the right.
“Fuck!” She dropped him by the neck. He slid down, his head cracking against the floor. She stomped away from him to take a calming breath. When she twisted back, he lay in a heap of body parts, still smiling with heart eyes. The words spilled out of her mouth. “What do you want more than to blow up the shield?”
Thankfully, a person’s deepest desires were always available to her. He gasped, clambering back up to his feet. Bjorn stumbled up toward her with a wide grin. “I wantyou—”
“No, no, no,” she laughed, grabbing him by the hands and forcing them to stay by his sides. “What do you want more than anything. What is it that gets Bjorn out of bed in the morning?”
“I want prestige. I want them to truly know how smart I am. I want them to see how I fooled them all and then I want them to thank me for making it all better.” The words oozed out of his mouth. Her lips curled up into a wicked smirk as he leaned in for a kiss he’d never get. She dropped his hands to cradle his face instead.
Holding him an inch from her face, she suggested, “How will they know how smart you are if they don’t know. You should show them. You shouldshow them allhow smart you are.”
“I am smart,” he babbled breathlessly.
“So smart,” she cooed.
“I should show them.” He nodded vigorously.
“You should show them,” she breathed, giving him one last puff of her aura directly into his face. She watched all of it sink into his skin. It soaked deep, filling his eyes with a powerful glow and his veins a brighter red. Bjorn ripped out of her palms, racing around her. She stalked after him. Letting him lead her right to it, she kept her focus on Bjorn. He grabbed a hold of a bullhorn from the mailcart as he booked it out of the department.
Oh shit…he’s really going to show them!She booked it, following the thin motherfucker out into the foyer of the Council building. He launched himself up onto the ledge of the fountain, clicking the bullhorn.Wait, no, not that.
“Attention!” His voice echoed around the whole building and Katarina skittered to a halt as she saw a foyer full of councilors.
Lord Blightwood, being the first one she saw, stood next to Lord Fowler, both feathery councilors staring up at Bjorn with daggers for eyes.
“Attention! It’s come to my attention you all have forgotten how important I am to this council.”
Aravis Blightwood’s obsidian gaze fell from Bjorn to Katarina, his eyebrows furrowed and face darkened. She openedher mouth, like she might be able to explain. His face screwed up more into a hardened scowl. Bjorn continued to call out to the crowd to gather, the other councilors yelling at him to get down. Two Enforcers rushed for him and Katarina cursed internally.Okay, maybe he’s too much. Maybe I doused him too hard.Thankfully, it would slowly seep out of his bloodstream, no one would know it was there. As Aravis made a beeline toward her, pushing people out of his way, cape fluttering behind him like a dramatic shadow, she shifted away from the fountain. Her back to a pillar, she put her hands up as a white flag before the Fowlst could get to her.
