Taste a Thousand Deaths (Marionettes of Myth #3)

Chapter Ten

They did not wait long.

The force of a car collided against the doors, splintering the wood, sending the leftmost door flying off its hinges into the glass wall of the window. The impact left behind a spider web of cracks before the wood shards clattered to the floor.

Aemilius remained in his chair, watching from the distance as Milan stormed in first, dressed down from his usual street wear, only a white shirt and jeans, his overgrown thistle of black hair showing the navy roots of his true lineage. Despite how age had evaporated the earthy pigment off his flesh, his strong features still showed Amon, especially as his lips pulled with a silent snarl, fingers curled with a driving thirst to crush spines.

Luckily—and by 'luckily', Aemilius surely meant luckily for Milan—he was wise enough not to pursue Cassius, who sat in his throne, his double-edged sword in hand as he tenderly polished the blade.

As Milan dropped down to Cain's side, head Demon Allegiance Lord Mazin came in next and he couldn't hide how the mix of unfiltered panic and anger and stark terror frothed inside him, burning in his near black eyes and tightening every tendon and sinew in his body. He moved brusquely, the march of a man ready to climb into his own coffin and close the lid. Behind him, Aemilius recognized Muhammad and Nicol, his nine o'clock and his eleven o'clock, respectively.

He had decided against bringing his ten o'clock.

Interesting.

"My dear Mazin," Cassius said as the man moved straight to the chair where his daughter's pallid body was slumped. "Storming my palace will hardly appeal you to the rest of the world."

Mazin said nothing. He stooped down to his knees to check Kali's slack face, to collect her wrist and check for a pulse. His face turned to stone. Not a word left him as he ever so gingerly scooped her limp body into his arms, cradling her head against his chest the way he must have done one-hundred-nine years ago.

Something slipped from her pocket and clattered to the floor.

Arsinoe shifted behind Aemilius, sitting upright and licking her chops, ears alert. Mazin only tossed her and Aemilius a glance before he turned away from the desk without ever looking at Cassius.

But Cassius only laughed, and as Amon's first and only heir, Milan, carefully collected Cain's unconscious body into his arms, Cassius lifted the petition of vampire transformation and tossed it to the other end of his desk. "If she doesn't survive this, Mazin, she's mine. She'll belong to me."

Mazin stopped. Aemilius felt it, the ripple in his flesh, the tickle of Mazin's demon sixth sense—which was more of an ability than any sense. Aemilius had only ever heard of him using it once.

Once, and never again.

Muhammad's large hand collapsed onto Mazin's back and guided him to the gaping entryway. Nicol took him from there and Muhammad steeled himself, hardening his face as he stepped up to the desk and claimed the petition. Cassius smiled up at him, his voice losing the honey that he had only for Mazin, darkening with the threat of a knife to the throat. "Where's Anita?"

There was no answer for Cassius. Muhammad turned, his unkempt dreadlocks swinging, and left with the others.

The office screamed with the silence of two near deaths. Arsinoe collected herself onto her feet and sashayed over to Cassius, who set aside his sword to greet her with nothing but affection.