investigate who we can kill and who we can trust. I still don’t know what Titus is doing, but I know for sure we can’t trust Amos. That leaves Derrin and Greta.
I follow her first, making sure to stay out of her deadly, icy grasp.
The only reason she doesn’t notice me is because she believes I am beneath her. She struts around the mansion in her flowing white gown, never once checking to see if her nephilim guards, or slaves as she calls them, are who they say they are. She trusts in her power, and in the power of the council, that we will be there to protect her from any threat. Her eyes do not even graze across us.
The icy tendrils of her power pass over us, making us shiver as she enters the breakfast room, which is the size of a house. She sits at the head of the table, sipping on champagne and staring out of the window until her voice suddenly barks out, “Slave.”
I spot the nephilim in the corner cringe slightly before he straightens and heads over, getting to his knees beside her and bowing his head. Her hand reaches out and she pets him like a dog. I feel anger on his behalf flowing through me, but I stay pressed to the door like a good little slave.
Not yet, I will not compromise my mate’s mission over one nephilim who hates me.
She carries on stroking him, sipping her champagne before leaning back in her throne-like, wingback chair and finally looking at him. She grabs his chin and lifts his head, staring at his face the same way you would cattle. “Not bad looking, have I had you before?”
“Yes, my lady,” he replies.
Her lips tilt up at that. “Good. Under the table, slave. Show me why I shouldn’t kill you here and now for meeting my eyes.”
He stills for a moment before ripping up the tablecloth and slipping under the wood. A moment later she groans, her eyes closing in bliss, her other hand dropping her champagne glass, which causes another nephilim to dash forward and catch it, placing it on the table beyond her reach as slurping, wet noises sound.
Cringing, I slip from the room. No fucking way am I going to stand there watching her get head. Christ, she even made that seem cold. Not like my mate who is all fire, all passion. When she wants, needs, she takes it, but oh fuck, it’s so good.
Shaking my head, I decide to try Derrin instead. The incubus tends to rise late, so he should just be waking after his orgies last night, or feeding fest, as the nephilims call it. They wait until morning to dispose of the bodies he drains dry. I’ve heard them speak of it often, how many sheep he goes through.
I hate sheep, especially the small ones, but he tosses their lives around without thought. Like they are nothing. Maybe I always thought that previously, but my mate was once human, so I can’t hate them too much.
They might be destructive, self-serving creatures with a short lifespan, but they are more like us than we want to admit.
I head to Derrin’s chambers on the top floor. The doors to his wing are open, so I slide through them, moving into the dark space that smells of blood, sex, and death. I pass his sitting room and kitchen and other rooms until I find his bedchamber. The doors are open and the scent is stronger here.
Some candles are burning, illuminating the area which is covered in satin and silky materials, red and gold everywhere. It looks like an old, French tart’s boudoir I saw in a film once.
And there is Derrin, positioned in the middle of the double king-sized bed, with silk draped across his thighs, his arm over his face. His body is naked and covered in...well, fuck, I don’t even want to know. Next to him are five women, all spread across the bed. Some face down, some on their backs.
All dead.
All naked.
Derrin’s eyes open and he locks his gaze on me. Grinning, he slips from the bed, unashamed of his nakedness as he heads to a bar in the corner and pours himself a drink. “On body duty, fallen?” he asks, his voice infused with the power he drained from those sheep.
He tosses his drink back and looks over at me. “Get to it then, can’t have their bodies rotting and stinking up the place.”