Page 5 of Mortal Blood
“An illegal creation,” the enforcer said, his upper lip curling in disgust.
“That doesn’t make sense!” I protested.
Except…except I did seem to heal faster than most people I knew. And Thaden’s odd reaction to my blood, hisaddiction.And the way my mom had moved cities so often when I was a kid, never staying in one place for long. Oh, my God, had we been running from my father my entire life? Running until she’d forgotten what we were even running from? Had he been not a deadbeat, but a deadly predator? And—
“Wait, illegal?” I blinked the enforcer into focus. “You can’t possibly mean— I mean, not evenyoucould try to pin this on me.”
“Peace,” the councilor said, raising one hand. “No-one holds you accountable for your father’s crimes.”
“But we will hold you accountable for not sharing any information that would lead to us tracking him down.”
“Pay attention, asshole. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know who he is. He could’ve been Bigfoot for all I knew.”
“Pay attention,dhampir,” the enforcer said, leaning forward over the table. “Withholding information on the whereabouts of a fugitive is punishable by death. That applies to you…and yourmother.”
“Withholding information? She doesn’t know her own damn name half the time, you son of a bitch, so don’t youdaretry blaming this on her. She—”
Fuck, when had I started crying? I palmed the moisture from my eyes and glared at him, but it was the councilor who spoke.
“We hold no grudge against your mother,” she said. “As a human, she cannot have been aware of the crime in which she was involved. She must have been a strong woman to have survived that. Many humans would not.”
“Sheisa strong woman,” I ground out, because dammit, she fought a battle every single day for her survival, and just because no-one else could see it, didn’t make it any less real.
“We will, of course, have to speak to her,” the councilor began. I opened my mouth to tell her no way in hell was that going to happen, but she continued over the top of me. “I realize that’s not possible right now, given her current mental state. However, should she become well enough, the council will arrange an interview with her. In the meantime, we’re content to leave her under the care of Alpha Cain’s healers...for as long as he is happy to continue providing that care.”
I swallowed, and nodded mutely. As long as Cain was willing to continue providing her care. That was the kicker. He’d made it clear he wasn’t my biggest fan, and it was no secret he’d only taken my mother originally as a way keep me in line until he could work out how to safely kill me. Well, fine. I squared my jaw. I’d just make sure he continued to need to keep me in line. Be enough of a threat to him that he needed some kind of leverage over me. Better a hostage than a corpse. Of course, the idea of me being any kind of a threat to Cain, aside from to hispride by being his son’s fated mate, was laughable. But I’d been laughed at before. I was still standing.
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“You’ll be detained at Darkveil Academy while we continue to study your dhampir properties,” the counsellor said. “You can expect to hear from the council in due course.”
“Make sure I don’t have to come looking for you,” the enforcer growled. “Because you won’t like how that ends.”
I suspected that was true, and I was all out of sass, so I settled for nodding my agreement.
“Good,” the councilor said, rising to her feet. “Then that’s settled. I’ll have someone arrange a portal to the academy for you.”
And with that, she turned and left the room, taking the manila folder with her.
*
Unfortunately for me, the councilor had failed to specifywhensomeone would conjure a portal for me, and the enforcer took great pleasure in informing me they were all too busy to run around after the illegal dhampir daughter of a fugitive, and that I would have to wait until someone became available. He took equal pleasure in showing me to a dank holding cell, warded on all sides, to wait for that to happen. I was on the wrong side of a door to say for sure, but I suspect he took even greater pleasure in locking said door...and leaving me there until the following morning.
When I finally stepped through a portal into Darkveil, I was tired, hungry, and cranky as all hell. Not to mention looking like something the cat had dragged in, thanks to spending a night inmy clothes.
“Ah, Ms. Ellis. Managed not to get dead over the summer, I see.”
I twisted to my right and saw Zane leaning casually against a wall, eyeing me with faint amusement. I cleared my throat and hastily tugged my crumpled clothes down, then remembered he was an asshole, and I didn’t care about anything he had to say.
“Must’ve been all the great advice you gave me last year about not dying.”
“Oh, so she does listen. Nice to know I’m not completely wasting my breath.”
I shrugged. “I’d listen more if anyone ever said anything remotely useful.”
“Maybe if you’d listened more you wouldn’t have ended the year in the healer’s hands.”
Well, he had me there.
