Page 6 of Encore
I felt neutered. Nyx hated Bellatrix, but she didn’t want her dead. We all felt that way, even if she had every intention of killing Beyla. Well, except Arden. If Beyla’s disarming spell hadn’t backfired and she got the gun out of her hands, Arden would have happily tossed her out of the window.
Nyx was halfway through her gelato. Most of us only ate it in moderation, but we were shoveling it in our faces because this was total shit. Beyla was still in her room, and we were all emotionally eating an entire pint of gelato we were going to have to work off. Marsden and Madame Lucinda knew better than to tell a dancer they were getting fat, but the general public was pretty brutal about that.
Beyla finally came out of her room and just stared at us with our emotional support gelato. Nicolai got up, walked to the freezer, and handed Beyla hers in total silence. He’d already finished his, which wasn’t surprising.
I loved Nicolai like a brother, but Merlin and I had pranked him more than once over his blessed metabolism. Every time Nicolai got a lead, he’d hit up a Chinese buffet. He’d sit there eating until someone came out and told him he couldn’t have any more crab legs unless he paid for another buffet. The bastard never did anything strenuous after sitting at the buffet for hours and never gained a single pound.
Beyla took her gelato and wormed her way between Nyx and me on the couch. She pulled Nyx into a big hug.
“How are you?”
“Fuck me. How are you?”
“Kaine helped. It’s just going to take time and a lot of meditation. He had a good idea. We only have guesses about Santiago and this curse. Madame Lucinda has a geas on her and physically can’t tell us what we need. One person has the answers we need, and it’s time we start digging into him more. We still need to be going through those photos because Marsden isn’t going to make it easy.”
That was utterly insane. We were all fine hunting down some ancient, cursed Unseelie we didn’t know, but Marsden? Everyone knew you didn’t fuck with the Unseelie. Most of the time, we walked on eggshells around him because you never knew when his mood would change. We just sat there nodding and smiling when he brought weird shit into the studio because we didn’t want to risk his wrath questioning whatever genius he thought he was onto.
We all opened our mouths to say something, and every last one of us got an alert on our phone at the same time. If it was all of us, it was probably Marsden. I didn’t look because it was probably about Bellatrix and complete lies. He was going to have to spin this somehow to save face. Beyla looked, though.
“Is he fucking kidding me right now? A gala?”
Wait, what? I whipped out my phone and looked at the message. Marsden didn’t say a damned thing about Bellatrix. He was throwing a gala to announceThe Sugar Skull Girland introduce Beyla as his Damita. We were all looking down at our phones, just stunned.
“Bold of him to assume the curse is broken and Beyla isn’t going home,” Nicolai growled.
“He knows I’m not going home. He went over Kaine’s head. I’msupposedto be recalled, but I’m not. I have a feeling he’s trading Unseelie secrets to get what he wants.”
Arden looked stricken that she might have left. I didn’t particularly like the idea either, but I wanted what was best for her.
“What doyouwant?” I asked.
“I want to figure this out. And I don’t want to leave any of you.”
“Damn straight,” Arden growled.
“So, let’s figure this out,” Nicolai said. “I don’t know about you, but Ineverwant to see someone try to kill Beyla again.”
“And I don’t want another death omen,” Nyx said.
Great. I was totally on board with that. I also knew that when Marsden when in gala mode, no one was getting anywhere near him.
Chapter6
Nicolai
Icalled my cousin who was following Bellatrix and asked him to focus on Marsden but be careful around that Unseelie bastard. He swore up and down he never saw Bellatrix buy a gun, but by the time he made it to New York and her apartment, she may have already purchased it. He caught her coming home late the first night he was here, sneaking and holding her purse like she didn’t want to get mugged.
My family didn’t use guns for anything, but I trusted my Uncle Angelo to track down the illegal purchase of a firearm much faster than the Paranormal Investigation Bureau. I just wished I could have stolen it from that agent before we left. I could have easily lifted it and gotten it to my cousin, but Beyla would have killed me because these were her coworkers. I had no problem pick-pocketing an agent of the Paranormal Investigation Bureau before Beyla.
We’d eaten all our gelato. I’d have to forgive Arden because we only just decided we were cool with each other, but he only got me one pint. My feelings for Beyla were insane, and Bellatrix pointed a gun at her. I couldn’t do a damned thing about a witch curse, and I didn’t know where Santiago was. This definitely called for two pints.
Beyla told us Kaine was digging into Marsden and anything she might not already have at the Bureau. Marsden gave us a two-day break to get over what we witnessed at the studio, but we were back at work, so this didn’t happen again.
Some of us were back looking at those photos while Beyla and Bevan were deep down the Marsden rabbit hole on the internet. But then, someone knocked on the door, and we all looked up suspiciously.
“Are you expecting someone?” Merlin asked.
“No,” Nyx said. “I hate everyone except who is in this room. I don’t really keep that a secret. No one should be knocking.”
