Chapter 40
Viviane’s POV
I’m shaking so violently I feel like my bones must be rattling in my skin. “he’ll smell me.” I whisper desperately. We’d been counting on any rogues we’d meet to be strangers, but Mordred is no stranger, he knows my scent as well as anyone.
Kiera whips her head around, looking through the dark space for anything to help. She swiftly rips the crooked grate off of the long-doused fire pit in the middle of the space, digging her fingers into the thick black charcoal and coming up with heaping landfills. She darts back to me with feline grace, smearing the chalky substance all over me.
My friend works fast, returning to the pit and repeating the process until there is nothing left to spare. It felt like hours, but it was probably only thirty seconds.
We press our backs into the wall as his footsteps near, holding our breath and praying to the Gods her quick thinking would pay off. The footsteps stop on the other side of the tin wall, and I can actually hear him smelling the air.
My stomach turns sour, and just as I’m convinced I’m going to be sick, his voice cuts through the silent. “I know you’re there.” He growls. “Your kind has no business here, Lynx”
Kiera’s shoulders relax when she realizes he hasn’t smelled me, then stiffen again when she realizes it’s her scent he’s picked up. I clutch at her arm, shaking my head frantically when she steps toward the curtained doorway.
She shakes me off, smearing her soot-coated hands across her face and clothes before stepping outside. The voice I hear next sounds nothing like my bold friend, instead she whimpers submissively. “Please don’t hurt me. I live here.”
“With bottom-feeders?” He scoffs. “No shifter would choose to debase themselves that way.”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” She moans, sounding near tears. “My parents died and then I was all alone and –”
“Alright, I get it.” Mordred cuts Kiera off brusquely. There’s a long moment of silence, and blood rushing in my ears is so loud it almost blocks out his next words. “Do you want to make some money?”
“How?” Kiera asks, somehow managing to entwine distrust in her frail tone.
“I’m looking for mermaids.” He answers simply, “Young ones mostly, but I’ll take any who can still produce tears.” A decidedly cunning note propels his next words, “having a pair of eyes here could be useful.”
“Why do you want them?” Kiera inquires. “I mean, what will happen to them?”
“That’s none of your concern.” He hisses, “You can take the job or leave it; it makes no difference to me.”
“No!” She exclaims, “I- I want it, just tell me what I have to do.”
“If you see a mermaid fitting that description: young, able to produce tears, or especially beautiful, collect as much information as you can about them and then call this number.” He orders, “And speak of it to no one else.”
When Kiera steps back inside the shack, her face is blank with shock. “What the hell just happened?”
“Is he gone?” My voice is quiet as a mouse.
She nods, gulping in a few relieved breaths of air. “We have to get out of here.”
“What about my Mom?” Images of Mordred finding her here are already flowing into my head. Unless Nerissa told him her suspicions about me, which I doubt, he has no idea what we truly are. That won’t last if we’re caught here.
“I’ll get her.” Kiera promises, “just stay here and don’t move.”
“I don’t think I could if I wanted to.” I reply hoarsely, still frozen in the same position she’d left me in when she went to face Mordred.
“It’ll be okay.” She assures name anxiously, “just hold on.”
By the time she gets back with my mother in tow, I’m curled on the floor, having slid down the wall a little more with every minute that passed.
“I’m sorry it took so long,” Kiera frets, “he was still hanging around so we had to circle back around the bridge.”
My mother’s green complexion and huddled posture helps me break out of my paralysis. I suppose it would have been impossible for Kiera to fetch her without filling her in on the situation, but I wish she hadn’t.
Mom looks about five years older than she did when we left the house, and my fear for her health sends me lurching me to my feet.
“Are you okay?” I gasp.
She shakes her head, reaching for me like a crutch, but pulling me into her arms rather than using me for support. “I’m so sorry, Angelfish. I never should have let you come here.” She apologizes despondently, “but it’s okay.” The words are surprisingly firm, “you’re safe… we’re safe.”
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James’ POV
I haven’t had much luck lately. It seems like all my best laid plans have been doomed to fail. First the pack games, then the kidnapping - even Mordred has been a disappointment to me.
When I first learned of the mermaid settlement on the city’s outskirts it seemed like I’d stumbled onto a gold mine. I’d already been smuggling nightshade girls over the border to supply the Bloodstone pack’s brothels for a few years – part of a lucrative deal with The Calypso Alpha in exchange for his support in my own endeavors.
I knew Damien had farms, I knew fresh mermaids were still caught from the sea to fill them, but he never told me how many escaped. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I realized such a valuable resource was sitting right under my nose.
I would have been a fool not to jump at the opportunity. Planning a revolt is expensive even in the best of times, and when that whelp Caspian came of age, it became clear that I needed to escalate my plans.
He’s already stronger than Jasper, and when he comes into power, he won’t be the anemic Alpha his father has been. He won’t be distracted and detached from Pack business. He won’t be completely oblivious to the thriving underworld of his own city.
The more time that passes, the clearer it becomes that my only shot at success is going to be Damien’s backing: his money, his mercenaries, his strategists. I have to do everything I can to stay in his favor, and that means bolstering the black market mermaid trade as much as I can. Thankfully they are plenty of mermaids in Asterion to harvest – if you know where to look.
Though I originally brought Mordred into the fold simply to keep him close, I decided that he could be of more use to me than as a simple thorn in Caspian’s side. After all, no one is more loyal than the man who owes you their life, and no one is more reliable than the one who has nowhere else to go.
I sent him after the mermaids as a distraction more than anything else, intending to keep him busy until I could find a way to use him against Caspian. Still, his yields have been disappointing. I should have known better than to hire a wolf who’s never held a job, but he seemed so perfect at the time. Desperate, depraved, lacking all morals – how could it go wrong?
Apparently there were lots of ways. Half of the dried-out mermaids Mordred has brought me have been so brutalized at his hands they’re useless for the brothels, and even those still producing tears are so exhausted from their tribulations that they sell for half the price they would have mere months ago.
It was beginning to feel like the entire world was set against me, especially after I was kicked out of my own house – and all for daring to touch Caspian’s little whore. It was barely a kidnapping, more like a forced vacation than anything else, but you would have thought I committed murder by his reaction.
Amidst all of this strife, one thing has become clear: Viviane Belle is the key to bringing down Caspian Shaw. She is his weak spot, his achilles heel.
He knows it too. Otherwise he wouldn’t have her barricaded in the Pack House, surrounded by guards.
I’ve been looking for an inroad to her for days now, with little luck. But it seems like the Gods are smiling on me at last; my luck has finally changed for the better.
How do I know?
Because Viviane Belle is walking towards me at this very moment, covered in soot, half-carrying her mother, and entirely unguarded. They make their way up the back alley, a little known passage between the council hall and Pack House, accompanied by no one other than another young cat shifter.
My lips unfurl into a smile which cannot be contained as I move toward their small party, elation pulsing in my veins. It takes a moment for them to notice me: first the Lynx, then Viviane and finally her mother.
Their faces contort as one, eyes widening, mouths twisting into frowns, distrust flowing off their feline bodies in waves. I relish their fear. I relish knowing I am seconds from the kill.
“Hello Viviane,” I greet her warmly. “Did you miss me?
