Jacob's Trial [Forbidden Legacy 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (6 page)

Was Michael watching him, even now? Was the Wizard recouping his losses, entrenching himself, and preparing to attack? Or would he wait, hoping that Jacob would take him straight to Cassie? The minute they’d walked into the prison, Jacob understood that the Wizard had a plan.

He needed to get inside his head and anticipate him. To do that, he would need the permission of the inquisitor general.

Domoir prowled through Silver Lake. They both watched the sigils appearing, guiding them toward the Council’s private residence. Domoir followed the curves winding deeper into the oldest part of the city, where gentrification was deeply entrenched. The final sigil hung silently over wrought iron gates. The blackened gates arched a dozen feet up, sharp stakes glistening in the morning sun.

It wouldn’t surprise Jacob if they had called up a collection of iron swords from Wizarding’s most ancient members to create the jagged tips. Domoir, a goblin, fell silent at the gates. Goblins were Fae, and everything about the house screamed “Fae be gone.”

Patting the armrest, Jacob soothed the creature. As they waited, the gates swung inward in silent invitation, and with only the barest amount of hesitation, Domoir slid through them. They followed the long drive through the trees to the great beast of a house that waited like a sleeping dragon, one eye slitted open.

Magical shields pushed at them, weighing them, taking their measure, and memorizing them. The living construct of a dozen Wizards pooled together mired the air tighter than the smog hanging over the Los Angeles Basin.

“If you need to go, wait for me to call you back.” The Glashtyn would understand the order. The oppressive nature of the shields scrabbled against his mind, mental fingers probing for any thoughts that a younger Wizard might let stray. The white sandstone building reflected the morning sun in a harsh glare. Sunglasses muted the blaze, but the whispering in his ear intensified as he approached the steps.

Secondary defenses swept over him. Trapped fairies, bound by magic and enslaved to the task, sampled his skin, his hair, and even his scent. They swirled around the gun tucked against his side and hissed against his ears. He waved the gnats away casually and took a stance before the double-wide black doors. Constructed of steel and iron, they would withstand a tank blast, much less a Fae attack.

Clasping his hands together, he bowed his head and murmured. “Jacob Book, Fourth Wizard of Innbrooke and Innisford. I have been summoned.”

A clanking noise ground through the whisper of fairies and hum of morning birds. The doors shuddered and swung inward, their solid weight scraping the stone floor beyond. Jacob waited until they opened fully before stepping into the fifteenth century. The exterior estate blended seamlessly into the Silver Lake landscape, but the inside was a throwback to a Scottish castle straddling the hill overlooking the moor.

Sconces housed wooden torches. Oily wood smoke, straw, and the hint of furred animal hung in the air. Long trenches extended from the door to the secondary passage. This antechamber could be filled with running water, burning oil, or raging fire with a moment’s breath, killing whatever sought to breach their primary defenses.

The inner door stood open, waiting for him. The ode to fifteenth-century architecture extended to the heavy stone blocks carved from the same blue rocks that housed the ancient druidic circles of Europe. Every third stone bore the sigil for an element. The center stone of the great “lobby” bore only one sigil.

The sigil for spirit.

Striding across the patchwork placement, Jacob stopped on the sigil and braced himself. The air shimmered around him. A spell as ancient as Osiris took his measure, weighing his soul against a feather. The magic crawled over his shields, slipping through the infinitesimal seams to curl through his mind. Memories of his childhood surged to the surface, to the day of his sixteenth birthday when the bullyboys of the manor came to demand payment from his mother.

Their leader, a lad of eighteen, struck his mother as his friends seized Jacob. Their fists pounded down on him, raining brutality even as he heard his mother scream. The count’s son scrabbled with his pants, and Jacob saw through the blood pouring into his eyes the rape burning in the man’s gaze.

The lightning came, and when Jacob woke, he lay against the blackened ground, surrounded by the dead. His mother ushered him away from their home in the French countryside, abandoning their country for Spain. They never spoke of it, but his life changed that night.

Jacob’s power surged through him, and no man would ever lay a finger on his mother again.

“Welcome, Jacob.” Gustav’s dry voice peppered the cooler air.

Jacob blinked himself free of the memory to study the Council’s private-audience chambers. A dozen empty stone chairs framed a half circle, six to each side of the central chair, a monstrosity that belonged to an age before castles and seemed more suited to a giant than the lean man stretched idly in its depths.

Gustav’s age was indeterminate. He’d been on the Council when Jacob’s
Domovoi
presented him. Council status was earned through rites of passage, age, wisdom, and the most popular hazing ritual, assassination. The rank of inquisitor general signified the obeisance of the Council and thus all Wizards, including Jacob Book of Innbrooke and Innisford. The ridiculous title weighed on Jacob, but his training and subsequent admittance to the council’s notice took place in Innbrooke and hinged on the death of the third wizard of Innbrooke and Innisford.

“My lord.” Jacob dropped to one knee, ignoring the stone’s bite through the fabric of his pants, and ducked his chin an inch lower.

“You ignored my last request. But I will forgive that oversight because your task at the time was to interdict the release of the Fae from their Underhill exile.” Despite its low, even tone, Gustav’s voice rolled through the chamber, gathering strength against the cool rock.

“My apologies, my lord. Time was of the essence. I sent Paul of Tuscany to answer the summons. He was aware of all the facets of our operation.”

“Next time send young Jude. He has not quite learned the art of prevarication the rest of your cadre has developed.” Was that the barest hint of amusement in the man’s words? Jacob resisted the urge to glance upward. To do so without invitation could insult the inquisitor general and earn Jacob wasted hours in the dungeon.

“As you wish, my lord.” It would be a cold day in hell before he sent Jude to the bastard that thought hanging him upside down for a decade and peeling the skin from his back with an alcohol-soaked whip would teach him manners. But Jacob buried that thought beneath a veneer of civility.

“Jacob, rise.”

At the invitation, Jacob stood and lifted his head. Gustav left the chair and strode across the hall toward him.

“If you will pardon the bluntness, my lord, I have a case that I am investigating. Why was I summoned?”

“To explain your total failure to achieve the goals for which you were sent to Chicago.”

Around the room, the walls illuminated. Cassie stood at a podium, poised and composed. Her hair was swept back from her face in some elegant style that allowed wisps to escape. She’d murmured some nonsense about how the wispy tendrils made her more approachable and endearing to Americans. Jacob just found it sexy, but he preferred the loose, disheveled, rolled-out-of bed look.

The camera swung wide, and the angle caught Jacob standing at her right shoulder while Helcyon occupied the position to her left. They were both stone-faced, watching the crowd. It was the longest hour of his life as she made that announcement. His every sense stayed on alert and primed for an attack.

“Not only did you fail to prevent her announcement, you’re standing right next to her…next to
them
. Explain yourself.”

Jacob dragged his eyes away from Cassie’s exquisite image to meet the inquisitor general’s slate-hard gaze.

Alarm bells sounded in his mind.

This was bad.

“Cassandra Belle is a human. The only way to stop her from making the announcement would have trampled upon her rights as a human. Rights we are sworn to uphold. She’d already been victimized by a Wizard—” Jacob went silent when Gustav’s hand slashed through the air. Tension bubbled.

“Cassandra Belle has allied herself with the Fae. She has undone centuries of work in one afternoon.” With a wave of his hand, the image on the walls changed. “Notice the headlines.”

Newspapers flickered across the pale-blue wall. The headlines yelled “Real Elves of Beverly Hills,” “Teenagers Captivated by Fae Social Media Storm,” “Underhill Trends on Twitter,” “Elves Accused of Poisoning Rice Krispies Treat.” Magazine covers replaced the newspapers, and every single one featured an image of Cassie. Jacob could be seen in a handful, but Helcyon took prominence by her side with the photographers angling for a capture of his pointed ears.

People
called him the sexiest Elf alive.

Bile burned the back of Jacob’s throat. Talk about nauseating thoughts.
Us Weekly
was running a dossier on Cassie’s business with the headline “From Underhill to the Hollywood Hills, America’s Star Maker.”

The Sierra Nevada might not be far enough away from the hue and cry of the mania swelling through the American media. The firestorm of coverage had already bridged the Atlantic with a dozen British papers jumping on board, including
The Mirror
,
The Sun
, and
The Times
speculating on the Royal Family’s ties to the Danae and a “Who is Cassandra Belle, Really?” feature.

“The cat is out of the bag.” Jacob fell back to stating the obvious.

“Because you
failed
.” Gustav paced around him, a lazy lion stretching up to prowl. But Jacob didn’t make the mistake of discounting the man’s abilities or the latent danger hovering around him.

“My task was to investigate, to identify the cause of the explosion, and to assess the threat.” He’d done all three. “The Fae are all but extinct. Their population dwindles. They are dying Underhill. This”—Jacob spread his hands to the illumination on the walls—“This is the last gasp of the old guard fading from the annals of history.”

“Jacob, you are young, but you are far from foolish. The moment they took the spotlight, the yearning of humanity returned for the ideal of a more elegant age. The mysticism, the romance, the exquisite allure of their beauty will call followers to them by the thousands. Their numbers do not have to exceed a paltry few to engender the faith and the want in the humans. That power will revive them, and they will begin to breed.” Gustav folded his arms. Like so many Wizards, his longevity inherited from his Fae father, he appeared only a few years older than Jacob.

But the inquisitor general’s eyes held an aged cynicism. “What is one human’s life in the face of that atrocity?”

Jacob’s spine stiffened. The threat in the room reared its head. He met Gustav’s expression with hard-won neutrality. “Every human life is valuable.”

“I told you, my lord. He would not see reason where she is concerned.” Michael’s voice sliced through the room, and Jacob whirled. Magic surged through him, reinforcing his shields as he drew three spells into his mind. The bastard strolled through the chamber as though he owned it.

“I told you to wait.” Mild displeasure echoed in the spaces between Gustav’s words.

“You are under arrest, Michael Wentworth.” Jacob admired the evenness of his tone. The last time he’d been this close to the Wizard, the bastard called on the elements of fire and air to create lightning. He’d driven Cassie into the water, his intent clear even as the Feth Felen seized her to drag her out to her death.

He’d built a magical bomb into the body of Cassie’s assistant, slaughtering dozens in Grant Park. He’d buried a blood-tracking spell in Cassie’s chest, allowing the Feth Felen to attack her over and over again.

“Enough of the human concerns, Jacob.” Gustav strode between them, his ice-hard gaze demanding obedience. “Michael acted on his orders. He
did
his job.”

“The Council ordered him to kill all those people? To kill the Belle family? To launch human fodder into the cannons of war with the Fae?” Dread coiled around Jacob’s spine. He shuttered the doors in his mind, sealing Cassie further away. He could not think of her as she lay sprawled amongst his sheets. He erased her throaty laughter, her playful smiles, and even her dark scowls.

“He was ordered to discover why they had begun to move in our world again. Why their activity surged. Your man Jude was the first Wizard born to this new century. Their first incursion in one hundred years.”

Gustav’s words plunked like rocks against still water, sinking to the depths of a fast-rising river of hatred that would drown them all.

“Cassie Belle should have died, Book.” Michael’s smirk tested the strength of Jacob’s control. He didn’t have to lash the man with magic. Pounding his face to pulp would serve him just fine.

“You interfered. You and that Elf.”

“You set your magic on me,” Jacob countered. By their laws, he had every right to defend himself. Not that he wouldn’t have defended Cassie. “You released a Feth Felen from Underhill and sent it on a blood trail.”