Dark Descendant (26 page)

care what happened to Jamaal one way or another. Blake was giving him a death glare, and

Anderson looked cold and deadly.

“You’ve broken our trust,” Anderson said, and he sounded about as warm as an iceberg.

“You disobeyed my direct orders, and you hurt someone who was under my protection. Pack

your bags. I want you out by noon.”

Jamaal’s jaw dropped, and his face turned ashen gray. “No,” he whispered, not in refusal

but in dismay. “Please.” He gripped the seat of his chair until his knuckles turned white, as if he

were holding onto it for dear life. “Anything but that.”

My throat tightened in sympathy. Damn it, it was too easy for me to empathize with him!

I’d been kicked out of too many homes in my life not to know the sickening lurch of it. And

most of the homes I’d been kicked out of hadn’t really felt so much like homes to me as way

stations. Jamaal might not have an easy rapport with the rest of Anderson’s people, and he

definitely held himself a bit aloof, but this was truly his home.

What would he do if he were no longer part of Anderson’s crew? His divine ancestor

wasn’t Greek, so he couldn’t become an Olympian even if he wanted to. And if being separated

from Emmitt had worsened the effects the death magic had on him, I couldn’t imagine what

being separated from all his friends and his home would do to him.

“Maybe he deserves another chance,” Jack said into the silence.

That surprised me—and everyone else, too, by the look of it. Jack seemed to have

embraced his trickster heritage with gusto, and I’d never seen him be serious about anything. Of

course, Jamaal, with his nonexistent sense of humor, was Jack’s favorite target. The jokes

sometimes had some pretty sharp teeth, but he wouldn’t have teased Jamaal so much if he didn’t

like him.

“He’s had enough chances,” Blake countered with a snarl. “He’s proven he can’t control

himself—or
won’t
—and there’s no place for him here.”

“Surely he’s learned his lesson,” Maggie put in softly, and I was glad I wasn’t the only

bleeding heart in the room.

“Too late!” Blake snapped.

The tribunal was about to devolve into a free-for-all, but Anderson nipped that in the bud.

“Show of hands. How many of you think we should give Jamaal another chance?”

Maggie, Jack, and I all raised our hands. I got a couple of startled looks—and a sneer

from Blake—but I was sure giving Jamaal another chance was the right thing to do. I didn’t think

he would fall over himself in gratitude because I supported him, nor did I think he would

suddenly be convinced I didn’t work for Konstantin. Maybe I’d end up regretting the decision

later, but I couldn’t vote to throw him to the wolves. Steph might have been hurt because of him,

but that certainly wasn’t what he’d
meant
to happen. And there was no guarantee Steph wouldn’t

have been hurt if I’d made the rendezvous in time.

Blake, Logan, and Leo didn’t raise their hands, despite the sad look in Leo’s eyes. That

left us deadlocked, though in truth I wasn’t sure how much our opinions really counted.

Anderson had made it very clear: his house, his rules.

Anderson thought about it for a long moment, then nodded. “Since Nikki, as the injured

party, is willing to give you another chance, I’ll let you choose your punishment. You can either

pack your bags and leave. Or you can submit to an execution once a day for the next three days.”

There were gasps and winces all around the semicircle of
Liberi
, and I saw the flicker of

fear in Jamaal’s eyes. Nevertheless, he didn’t hesitate in his answer.

“I’ll submit to whatever I have to if you’ll let me stay.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what it all meant. Obviously, the
Liberi
couldn’t die, so this wasn’t

a real execution we were talking about. (Not to mention that a real execution is a one-time deal.)

But something about it sure gave the rest of the
Liberi
the shivers.

Anderson nodded regally. “Logan will perform the executions,” he continued. “I’ll leave

it to him to decide the methods.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll convene at sunset at the

clearing. Attendance is mandatory.” He shot a look at me, as if knowing how little I’d want to

watch whatever was going to happen. “Jamaal, you will remain downstairs until the sentence has

been fully carried out. No passing through the door, or you’re out. Clear?”

Jamaal held his chin high. “Clear.”

Anderson stood from his chair, still running arctic cold. “Everyone out,” he said as he

turned his back on all of us and headed toward his desk to pull it out of the corner it had been

shoved into. I think more than one of us considered offering to help him put the room back to

rights, but we all thought better of it.

I gave Maggie a significant look as we left the room, and she got the message, following

me up to my own suite.

“I don’t want to go into this thing tonight uninformed,” I told her as soon as I’d closed

the sitting room door. “Jamaal can’t die, so what’s with the execution thing? And why did

everyone look so sick about it?”

Maggie shuddered as she dropped onto the sofa, wrapping her arms about herself like she

was cold. “It’s not true that we can’t die,” she said. “We just don’t stay dead.”

I joined her on the sofa, feeling a similar chill. “Huh?”

“If we’re dealt a serious enough wound, we die. Our bodies will heal the damage

eventually, and we’ll revive, so it’s not permanent. But it is dead.

“I’ve never had a fatal wound myself, but from what I’ve heard, it’s horrible. It has

nothing to do with the pain of the wound or of the healing—though that can be considerable in

itself, depending on the cause of death—but dying itself is a massively unpleasant experience.

Even as an immortal, you want to avoid dying at all costs.”

I salted this information away for later. I probably wasn’t cruel enough to kill Alexis over

and over again if I ever got my hands on him. But at least for now, it made a comforting, if

gruesome, fantasy.

TWENTY-ONE

I checked on Steph
every couple of hours until the Valium had worn off and she was

awake and alert. I had to admit, Blake seemed to be taking good care of her. Her face and throat

were still darkly bruised, but judicious applications of ice had reduced the swelling. There was

also a bottle of Advil on the bedside table, beside a cheerful flower arrangement exactly like the

kind you might send someone in the hospital.

He’d given her an oversized T-shirt to wear, along with a pair of drawstring running

shorts that would probably fall off if she tried to walk around in them. She was propped up in his

bed, surrounded by mounds of pillows as she sipped from a mug of hot chocolate, when I came

in.

Blake, still in guardian angel mode, was sitting on the side of the bed, his hand stroking

idly up and down the covers over her legs as he kept her silent company. They both looked up

when I knocked on the bedroom door, but Blake spared me only a brief glance before he turned

his attention back to his patient.

Steph cupped her hands around her mug as if they were cold, then looked me up and

down, her head cocked to the side. There was no way she could miss how my injuries had

disappeared overnight. She didn’t look completely shocked, so I suspected Blake had told her all

the secrets I’d been unwilling to share. Just one more thing to feel guilty about, though truthfully,

if I could have gone back in time I’d probably have made the same decision.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, though it felt like a dumb question.

She raised one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “To tell you the truth, right now I’m kind

of numb. I don’t suppose it’ll last, but I’ll take what I can get.”

The flatness of her voice made her sound as numb as she said she felt, and I wished to

God I’d been able to save her. It took about a thousand wrong decisions on my part to put her in

this situation, and I couldn’t stop myself from mentally recalling and regretting each one.

“How about you?” Steph asked. “You looked pretty rough last night.”

“I’m fine now,” I answered, which was true as long as we were talking only about my

physical injuries. The emotional wounds left me in a state that was very far from fine.

Steph set her mug down on the bedside table, then lightly touched the back of Blake’s

hand. “Could you give us a few minutes alone?”

I could tell by the look on his face that Blake was reluctant to leave her side, but he

sighed and nodded. “I’ll be right outside if you need anything,” he said. “Just give me a holler.”

She managed a small smile. “I will.”

He leaned over and kissed her forehead, like a father comforting a little girl, before he left

the room, but I didn’t think his affection for her was exactly paternal. Was it just his guilt over

having failed her last night that made him act so devoted, or had he really formed such a quick,

strong attachment?

“Come and sit down, Nikki,” Steph beckoned.

I hadn’t realized until that moment that I was hovering near the door as if ready to make a

quick escape. It was almost impossibly hard to face my sister and be forced to see what had been

done to her because of me. But she needed every ounce of support she could get, so I manned up

and took Blake’s place at the side of the bed. She reached out and took my hand, giving it a firm,

comforting squeeze.

“I’ll survive,” she told me softly even as she squeezed my hand harder. “You know that,

right?”

My throat ached so much I couldn’t answer, and if I wasn’t careful I was going to start

bawling. Steph shouldn’t need to comfort me after what she’d been through. I should be strong

enough to hide my own pain and guilt, deal with it on my own rather than burdening her with it.

“I’m not as fragile as you think I am, Nikki,” she said when I still couldn’t force myself

to speak. “It’s going to be rough for a while, but I swear to you, I’m going to get over it.”

I sucked in a breath, and it loosened my throat enough to let me speak. “I’m so sorry …”

Steph shook her head. “There was nothing you could have done. This Alexis creep was

never going to just let me go. You know that, don’t you?”

Actually, I hadn’t thought about it, about what he would have done if I’d gotten there on

time. I had a suspicion Steph was right. Alexis wasn’t what you’d call the honorable type, so

expecting him to keep his word was wishful thinking. But having not made the rendezvous, I

couldn’t be sure. I guess I didn’t look convinced, because Steph continued.

“Blake says Alexis wants you to track down a bunch of innocent people so he can

slaughter them. Do you think for a moment that’s what I’d have wanted you to do?”

I scrubbed at my eyes, wiping away the hint of tears that had gathered in them, wishing I

could wipe away the aching exhaustion as easily. Obviously, Blake had done a lot of talking.

And been very convincing. “No, of course not.”

“I’d like to take you and Blake and knock both your heads together. The self-flagellation

the two of you are doing is getting on my last nerve. Bad things happen to people, and unless

you’ve got an infallible crystal ball, you aren’t always going to be able to stop them. Just deal

with it and move on, because let me tell you, knowing you’re miserable about it doesn’t help me

one iota.”

I flinched from the anger in her voice. The numbness appeared to be gone for now.

“What do you want me to do? Smile and act like nothing’s wrong? I’m not a good enough

actress to pull that off.”

“No,” she replied with exaggerated patience, “I want you to stop wasting your time and

energy feeling guilty about it and start figuring out how you’re going to get the
son of a bitch

who did this to me!
”

There was nothing I wanted to do more. The problem was, how do you “get” someone

who’s immortal? Unlike the Olympians, Anderson didn’t have a bunch of indoctrinated

Descendants sitting around waiting for the opportunity to kill a
Liberi
.

An idea struck me before I even managed to finish the thought. “The list,” I murmured,

not meaning to say it aloud.

“Huh?”

“Konstantin gave me a list of Descendants he wanted me to find. Maybe if I could find

one of them, we can use him to kill Alexis.” What a sweet irony it would be if the very list the

Olympians gave me turned out to be the key to destroying Alexis! I’d enjoy rubbing his smug

face in it, right before—

“Wait a minute,” Steph interrupted before my thoughts could gallop too far ahead. “Your

plan is to hunt down some random civilian who probably has no idea that the
Liberi
even exist,

then … what, exactly? Hope he’s a homicidal maniac who’ll be happy to kill Alexis at your

command? Or were you thinking of kidnapping him and forcing him to kill Alexis? Or maybe

doing to him what this Emmitt character did to you, somehow
tricking
him into killing Alexis?”

Damn. Steph had a few too many good questions for my taste. I frowned. “I only came up

with this idea like five seconds ago. Give me some time to work out the kinks. Besides, how else

are we supposed to make Alexis pay for what he did? There’s no other way to kill him.”

“Who says you have to kill him? Blake told me you’ve been searching for a woman the