“What complaints have you heard?” Mireille asked.
Sonya answeredher, and Ronin bit his tongue to keep from throwing his hands up in consternation. Like he needed this bullshit on top of the massive hangover he was nursing. He’d gone on a bit of a bender after that visit to the chronomancer.
“I gave you the reports about those Fae who disappeared, right? Their loved ones were sure they’d been at the estate, but Otto and his associates somehow managed to persuade the IA they were lying.” Sonya frowned. “I never bought it. Grease the right palms, and rich bastards like Otto can make any story disappear.”
“Right.” Mireille nodded. “Thought maybe you were talking about something else. I haven’t gotten to those files yet.”
“Maybe your newpartnercan help.” Sonya aimed a shit-eating grin at Ronin, who merely grunted back.
Mireille swept away from the desk, and Ronin hustled to keep up.
“Be nice to her, Butcher!” Sonya called out. So shehadknown who he was.
Mireille wended her way around empty tables and stacks of books, then stopped at the last door in the back corner of the hall. She swiped the card across a black panel, a beep sounded, and the door swung open. The lights flickered on, revealing awindowless room containing a table piled with documents and open filing boxes.
“Have you searched through all this already?” Ronin asked, incredulous, as Mireille settled into a chair and motioned for him to take the one beside it.
From her bag she pulled the original folder, the one Skanisse had given them days ago, and plopped it onto the table. “What did you think I’ve been doing for the past three days while you were out”—she sniffed, her upper lip curling—“fucking females and getting plastered on Delirium?”
“Had some sinning to work out of my system before shackling myself to your prim ass.” Ronin stretched his legs out under the table and cupped his hands behind his head.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself.” She pushed the folder toward him, her silver eyes dragging over his muscled arms as if she couldn’t help herself. “But now it’s time to work. You need to read this.”
He didn’t budge. Maybe even flexed a little. “If you’ve already read it, why don’t you just tell me what you’ve learned and spare me the homework.”
“Lazy ass,” she muttered under her breath. “You planning to just coast along and let me do all the work for you?”
“Again,” Ronin said, chewing on a fingernail, “if you’ve already read through all this, what’s the point of me wasting my time? You’re the super-spy genius, right? What could I possibly find that you haven’t?”
Mireille’s fists clenched, her teeth grinding. He’d caught her. No way would she admit she might’ve missed something.
She glared at him, but opened the folder, then brought a hand to her neck to smooth a few red curls that had escaped her bun. The movement washed her scent over him, that odd mix of musk and ripe flowers, and his wolf perked up.
Tell her to let her hair down, the creature purred.We want to see her wild and untamed.
Ronin ignored him as Mireille removed several photographs from the folder and pushed one across the table.
“Otto.”
Ronin rolled his eyes. “I know what Otto looks like.”
Her face was tight, like an exasperated school teacher, her fingertips lingering on the photo’s edge.
He snatched it up for a closer look. He was still amazed by the clarity opticorders could achieve, a Fae invention about a century after the war. Before that, all visual representations were drawn or painted. Whether the device had been invented by science or magic, Ronin didn’t know. Though he supposed, in Ethyrios, they were one in the same.
Thanks to his severe, triangular face, Otto looked even more serpentine than most Deathstalkers. Dark, vertical pupils stood in stark contrast to his pale yellow irises, and his nose was so flat it nearly disappeared into his ghostly skin. His black hair was short and slicked back from his forehead. In this particular photo, his sharp fangs were popped, extending past lavender lips to his pointed chin.
A notorious dandy, he wore an impeccably tailored three-piece suit in a loud purple-and-green plaid, and the stunning female clinging to his arm wore a long fur coat in matching purple.
Otto was staring at the female with such predatory possessiveness that Ronin shivered. The Deathstalker’s intensity was legendary, though Ronin suspected one didn’t earn the kind of wealth Otto had acquired without it.
He handed the photo back to Mireille. “Your future boyfriend looks dangerous. Like he might just eat you alive.” Mireille sniffed, not taking the bait, and he wondered why he had such an urge to rile her. “Assuming you know who that female is?”Mireille shook her head. “I can’t remember her name. Veronica? Vanessa? Something with a V. Former mistress of one of the Emperor’s cousins. She left the male for Otto. Skanisse wasn’t wrong about him being a famefucker.”
“How doyouknow that?” Though her tone was incredulous, he swore she looked impressed.
“He brought her to a few of my fights a while back. Haven’t seen them together since, though. Rumor around town is she left him. Went back to the Emperor’s cousin. Good news for you. Nothing heals a broken-hearted male like a good rebound fuck.”
She vented a disgusted scoff, then slapped another photo onto the table. It had been taken on the same day, though the view was wider. Otto was helping Veronica-Vanessa into a black sedan on some street in Kheimos. Two Fae stood behind him, one male and one female.
