Saiman would screw anything that moved. With Derek’s looks, I’d been afraid I’d find him chained to a bed or worse.
“After our conversation, I recalled where I had seen our young friend.” Saiman brought over two crystal glasses, a pale gold wine for himself and water with ice for me. I checked the water. No white powder, no fizzing pill, no other blatantly obvious signs of being spiked. To drink or not to drink? That was the question.
I sipped it. If he’d spiked it, I could still kill him before I passed out.
Saiman sampled his wine and handed a folded newspaper to me. The newspapers had been a dying breed before the Shift, but the magic waves played havoc with the Internet, and the news sheets had returned in all their former glory. This one showed a photograph of a foreboding redbrick building behind a ruined wall. A dragon corpse, little more than a skeleton with shreds of rotting meat clinging to its bones, decomposed in the background among bodies of dead women. The headline proclaimed RED STALKER KILLER DISPATCHED BY BEAST LORD. No mention of me. Just the way I liked it.
A second picture punctuated the article below the first: Derek, carried off by Doolittle, the Pack’s physician. The Stalker had broken Derek’s legs and kept him chained to prevent the bones from healing.
“He was the boy targeted by the Stalker because of his association with you,” Saiman said. “I believe he was blood sworn to protect you.”
Saiman had excellent sources and paid well for the information, but Pack members didn’t talk to outsiders, period. How the hell did he get hold of that juicy tidbit?
“The oath is no longer in effect.” Curran, the Beast Lord of Atlanta, the Leader of the Pack, and Asshole Supreme, who quite literally held Derek’s life in his claws, had released Derek from his blood pledge once the Stalker affair was over.
“Magic has an interesting quality, Kate. Once a bond is formed, it affects both people.”
I knew Newman’s theory of reciprocal magic as well as anyone. Saiman was fishing for information. I was happy to disappoint him. “If you think that I came here out of some residual magical compulsion generated by an old blood oath, you’re wrong. He isn’t my lover, my secret relative, or a shapeshifter of great importance to the Pack. I’m here because he’s a friend. If our roles were reversed, you would be dead by now and he would be using your coffee table as a pry bar to wrench me out of that cage.”
I fixed Saiman with my best version of a hard stare. “I don’t have many friends, Saiman. If any harm befalls him, I’ll take it very personally.”
“Are you threatening me?” Saiman’s voice held only a mild curiosity.
“I’m simply defining the playing field. If you hurt him, I’ll hurt you back, and I won’t give a second thought to the consequences.”
Saiman nodded gravely. “Please be assured, I’ll take your emotional attachment under consideration.”
I had no doubt he would. Saiman took everything under consideration. He dealt in information, selling it to the highest bidder. He gathered his commodity bit by bit, piecing together a larger picture from fractured mosaics of individual conversations, and he forgot nothing.
Saiman set his wine down and braided the long fingers of his hands into a single fist. “However, your friend broke into my apartment and attempted to steal my property. I do feel compelled to point out that while I respect your capacity for violence, I’m confident you won’t kill me without a reason. I don’t intend to give you one, and therefore, I hold the upper hand in our negotiations.”
That was true. If this mess got out, Derek would have to deal with Curran. The Beast Lord was an arrogant, powerful sonovabitch who ruled the Pack with a steel hand and three-inch claws. Curran and I mixed about as well as glycerin and nitric acid: put us together, shake a bit, and hit the deck as we exploded. However, despite his many faults, and I would have to borrow Saiman’s fingers and toes in addition to my own to count them all, Curran didn’t play favorites . Derek would be punished, and his punishment would be severe.
I sipped my water. “Noted. Out of curiosity, what did he try to steal?”
Saiman produced two small rectangles of paper out of thin air with the buttery grace of a skilled magician. The magic was down, so it had to be sleight of hand. I filed that fact away for future reference: never play cards with Saiman.
“He wanted these.” Saiman offered me the papers. I looked at them without touching. They were blood-red.
Heavy gold lettering spelled out MIDNIGHT GAMES across the parchment surface.
“What are the Midnight Games?”
“An invitation-only preternatural tournament.”
Oh boy. “I take it the tournament is illegal.”
“Extremely. In addition, I believe the Beast Lord expressly forbade attendance and participation in the tournament to Pack members.”
First, Derek broke into Saiman’s apartment. Second, he did it with the intent to steal. Third, he tried to steal tickets to an illegal gladiatorial tournament in direct violation of Pack Law. Curran would skin Derek alive and that might not be just a figure of speech. Was there any possible way this mess could get worse?
“Okay. How can we fix this?”
“I’m prepared to let him go and forget he was ever here,” Saiman said. “Provided you accompany me to the Games tomorrow night.”
Never ask that question.
“No,” Derek said.
I studied the glittering crystal glass in my hand, playing for time. A large crest had been painstakingly cut into the glass, a flame encircled by a serpent. The light of the electric lamp set the cut design aglow, and the crystal scales of the serpent sparkled with fiery colors.
“Lovely, isn’t?”
“It is.”
“Riedel. Hand-cut. A very limited series, only two made.”
“Why do you want my company?”
“My reasons are twofold: first, I require your professional opinion. I find myself in need of a fighter expert.”
I arched my eyebrows.
“I would like you to evaluate one of the teams at the Games.” Saiman permitted himself a small smile.
Okay. I could do that. “And second?”
Saiman studied the glass in his hand for a long moment and smashed it against the table. It shattered with a pure chime, showering the carpet with a spray of glittering crystal shards. In the cage Derek snarled.
I killed the desire to roll my eyes at all the drama and nodded at the stub of crystal. “If you’re planning to cut me with that, you’re out of luck. A bottle works much better for this kind of thing.”
Delight sparkled in Saiman’s eyes. “No, actually, I was planning on making a philosophical point. The glass you now hold in your fingers is the only glass of its kind in existence. It’s the ultimate luxury—there is nothing else like it.”
The flesh around his wrist swelled, flowing like molten wax. My stomach lurched and tried to crawl sideways. Here we go again. He stored magic like a battery, but I really thought with the technology as strong as it was right now, he wouldn’t be able to metamorphose. Live and learn.
Saiman’s shoulders widened. His neck, chest, and thighs thickened, straining his sweatshirt. Crisp muscle showed on his forearms. The bones under the skin of his face shivered and I nearly vomited my water.
A new face looked at me: handsome, strong, sensuous, with a square jaw, defined cheekbones, and hooded green eyes under reddish eyebrows. Thick blond hair spilled from his head to fall in a glossy wave onto his newly massive shoulders.
“For most people, I’m the ultimate luxury,” he said.
The man collapsed, thinning, flowing, twisting, but the eyes never changed. I stared into those eyes, using them as an anchor. Even when their corners sank, their irises darkened, and a velvet fringe of dark eyelashes sheathed them, I could still tell it was Saiman.
“What I offer is much greater than sex,” a Hispanic woman of startling beauty said. “I offer wish fulfillment. Anything you want. Anyone you want. I can give you your fantasy. And more, I can give you the forbidden.”