Page 121 of The Shade of Things
“Why not?” He raised an eyebrow.
She didn’t answer.
“I don’t have time for this,” he snarled. He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. “Give. Me. The Ascendant.”
Tatiana struggled against his compulsion, her eyes wide with shock and hurt. She stood up and grabbed on to the top of the sofa but couldn’t defy him. Tearing free, she dragged herself toward the stairs.
Quivering, Emmett grabbed my hand.
I squeezed back just as hard. “Why is your…” I paused, keeping the estrie secret. “Need so urgent?”
The vampire ignored me, tapping his foot impatiently until Tatiana returned with a blue velvet pouch, which she placed in his outstretched hand.
“You swore to never compel me. I’ll never forgive you,” Tatiana spat.
“You think that,” he said, “but you will. I forgave you, after all. What do I need to use it?”
Tatiana answered through gritted teeth, “A Banim Shovavim.”
I jumped to my feet. “Is that why you hired me?” Emmett pulled me down, but I shook him off, too furious to do more than pace. “I should have known it wasn’t about protecting me in exchange for working for you or doing your memoirs or professing that I’d liven things up. You wanted me for one reason and one reason only.” I was furious that I had to blink away the dampness in my eyes.
Tatiana bit down on her bottom lip, then she gave an uncaring shrug. “You were just so exploitable.”
Zev laughed. “You and I were always more alike than you’d admit, Tanechka.”
I stopped, frowning. How had the vamp exploited me? He’d hired me because I was a Banim Shovavim? Sure. Cloaking and traveling the KH would be advantageous when the Ascendant could have been anywhere, but if he’d already known I had to be the one to use it for him, he wouldn’t have asked Tatiana what to do. So how were the two of them alike?
Tatiana threw me a mean little smile. She’d figured it out.
Zev had offered me protection because the hunt for the Ascendant had begun again. I frowned. He’d claimed that whoever was searching for the magic amplifier didn’t know about my magic yet, but I’d accepted the job because someone had killed my parents and McMurtry. The thing is, I’d been at the Lonestar’s death and I’d been left alone.
The killer had to know who I was, so they must not have believed I was a threat. Still, even if they weren’t the ones hunting for the Ascendant now, whoever was had to be deadly.
Had Zev lied about protecting me? I shook my head. He wouldn’t outright lie when he’d given me his word on that. Exploitable. There was an element of gullibility I was missing here.
My brows shot up. James Learsdon had never said there was anyone else hunting for the Ascendant. Only Zev had. And like a fool, I’d believed him.
“Learsdon was the only person ever after the Ascendant, wasn’t he?” I said. “You let all my assumptions and fears based on the past do your work for you.”
Zev inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I always said you were clever. Incredibly easy to manipulate when it comes to the safety of you and your family, but you get there in the end.”
“Our deal is void,” I said through clenched teeth. Anger lashed across my skin, my shadow magic whispering to me to set it free.
Sparing me the barest impatient glance, Zev pulled a silver orb out of the velvet bag.
The magic amplifier was no bigger than my fist, and other than looking like a space egg, it was unassuming to the point of bland.
“Tell Ms. Feldman how to activate this, Tanechka, and we’ll be on our way.”
“I told you, we’re done,” I said.
The vampire swatted me aside like I was a mosquito, not making contact, just getting me out of the way. “Get on with it. I’m running out of time.” The thread of desperation laced through his menacing tone settled under my skin like a splinter.
Time for what? How could any conversation with the estrie who sired him be that urgent?
“She has to use her Banim Shovavim vision to open it in a hidden space,” Tatiana said tightly. “Then you call forth whatever you want to let loose.”
Images of Arlo’s fate washed over me, and I shook my head violently. “I can’t use it. I’ll be damned to eternal torture in the KH.”
