Chapter 10 : Rendezvous at South Tower

Sebastian POV

The majesty of the sunrise I enjoyed every morning from my balcony was ruined by the abysmal clouds of a late winter storm. I found it did little to uplift my already sullen mood. I had, once more, managed to put my foot in my mouth when it came to Ayda.

I admit I had been avoiding Ayda since the near affair we'd almost had the night of Narcissa's birthday party. It was not intentional at first, just a natural reaction upon seeing her the next day. True, I found Ayda to be attractive; her beauty called to me like a siren. She ensnared my senses, invaded all room for thought in my head, and in the late nights that were early mornings, it shamed me into saying that I touched myself to her.

But more than that…she was kind. I see the way she interacted with the staff and how she treated all fairly, no matter their designation. She was polite and classically trained in the matters of the court, and I wondered how she came to know such etiquette. A governess' daughter, perhaps?

Miss Ayda certainly had the steeled type of command of one when crossed. But she was also mischievous; I'd caught her stealing tarts from the baker every morning with that ginger man-hater. Marisa, I believe her name was. Learned too, more so than Narcissa, which rankled the blonde something fierce when the stylist would educate her on topics that seemed above her station.

Ayda was a mystery, a riddle I wanted to puzzle out. Just who was this woman that walked with the confidence of a Luna but dressed in the plain mantle of a commoner?

"Are you ready to go yet?" Andreas complained on my bed, socked feet propped up on my pillows. He was looking at me upside down, hands swiftly trying to deconstruct some puzzle box or another. His dreadlocks meandered like unruly tentacles across the gold of my sheets. "Because we should have been on the scene an age ago."

He was talking about the brutality of the South Tower massacre that occurred last night. The reason for my argument with Ayda and our current fractured relationship. I ignored his complaining, focusing on the straight razor in my hand as I swept over my Adam's apple.

"You could have gone on without me; I know how your father doesn't like to wait."

"He thinks I'm squeamish. Not cut out for our line of work. Like I haven't trained my whole life to be a Remus like him." I'd finished my shave, wiping the cream from my face. "Finally, I thought we'd never leave!"

"Unlike yourself," I motioned Andreas over, straightening his bowtie into a passible Western Square End. "Some of us have a sense of appropriacy when it comes to grooming."

"I have appropriacy!" Andreas stretched his arms out with a jaunty grin, slowly turning so he could show off his new suit. It was an abrasive tangerine with garish gold flowers embroidered across the shoulders and bottom edge. "I've never had one woman complain about my looks!"

"Just the morning after, right?"

"Come here, you little arse!" Andreas wrestled me into a loose chokehold, using his slight height advantage to his favor. He pressed knuckles to my crown, grinding them hard enough to muss my hair. "You pop your cherry a year ago, and now you think you're a proper rake! Careful ladies, hide your daughters; Prince Sebastian is on the prowl to regale them with tender prose and hand-holding!"

"You play guitar and croon ballads!" I protested, reversing the hold with a sharp elbow to his hip. I put him in a full nelson when he doubled over. "You still have Sofia's token from primary school!"

"Scoundrel!" Andreas stomped his heel into my foot, and we came away from each other panting. It felt just like our final school days as boys before he joined up with the Imperial Forces and I'd gone to attend college. He raised his fists, arms extended from his body, side facing, a bare-knuckle boxing style.

"Let's see what those stuffed shirts have taught you."

We fought, long enough to wind ourselves, enough to split my lip and Andreas his brow. I touched my mouth, wincing at the tear as I helped him to his feet. The room was a chaotic mess, but I'd worry about that later.

"I yield," I said, clapping him on his back. "You've gotten better with your right hook."

"That's bullshit, and you know it," Andreas took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his cut before tossing it to me for mine. "Now hand me a sword, and there I would truly shine unparalleled."

"We'll have to test that sometime. It's been a minute since I've had a fencing partner."

Not since Alex had died.

My mood soured in an instant.

"Well, let us make haste then," Andreas straightened his waistcoat, sliding back into his blazer that he'd left on an overturned chair. "We've got a killer to catch!"

***

The village looked worse somehow in the bleak light of a pallid afternoon. Many of the local shops had shuttered, whole packs moving either to Eventide City or Lodestone Falls to escape the unfair taxes. Those who were left now had to contend with Father's numerous hunting bans. We'd been lucky enough to escape the drought like the Southern Lands or the fires that raged in the east, but the influx of refugees from the Uprising had upset the natural balance of our hunting grounds, and we were paying for it.

Now, to save face for when other lords came, father had encroached upon

lands set aside for the commonwealth for his perusal. The people were going hungry, all because Father wanted to show off.

It sickened me.

No wonder so many people had lost faith in the ruling class.

The automobile passed the square to the South Tower, an ungainly relic from an earlier time before we'd controlled our wolf sense. My father was nowhere to be found, but Remus Elias Sala—Andreas' father—was standing at parade rest as he interviewed the survivor, a courier who was barely over his fourteenth year.

"About time you lot arrived," Remus Sala never looked up from his legal pad, jotting the last of the details he'd always meticulously recorded in his reports to Father. "Was thinking the two of you tender-foots would never show."

"Good morning to you too, Father."

There Remus Sala looked up: "I thought I told you not to call me that at work, Lt. Andreas."

Andreas had the grace to look repentant, "Sorry, Sir. Won't happen again."

"Good," Remus Sala pocketed his pad, crossing his hands behind his back. "That will be all, lad. We may pull you into questioning again at a later date after we've caught the criminal, of course."

"Right, sir. Thank you, sir!" And away the lad went, dusty taupe waves and overly large ears disappearing into the lunchtime crush.

"Follow me," Remus Sala said without so much as a backward glass, his boots marching in a faster military parade cadence. He led us to the mess hall, the stench of blood still heavy in the air. The bodies were mangled, torn in a way that suggested the killer had shifted when he'd attacked. He'd rag-dolled them around like children's toys.

Torn limbs from bodies, cleaved skulls in two, a heart ripped from the ribcage of the head guardsman rested on the center table on a plate made of pure silver. The heart blackened and burned where it touched.

Andreas' vomited immediately, and I could not blame him.

"Disgrace," Remus Sala sneered, backing out of the way from the noxious puddle. "And you think yourself fit to carry on my work once I retire?"

"I think his action appropriate for the level of violence around us, Remus Sala," I offered Andreas a hand, but he slapped it away, determined not to look even weaker to his peers and father. "Besides, this is his first active crime scene."

"Second," Andreas corrected, spitting remnants of his sickness onto the floor. "The first was the Westgate Murders."

"And you made a similar mess there as well, or so I'd been told," Remus Sala snapped his gloved fingers, and a guardsman came forward with a brooch, it was fashioned in the shape of a thorned crown, a ruby dangling like a blood drop below it. "Does this look at all familiar to you, Your Highness? I was told that in your studies, you excelled at ancient cults and heathen symbology."

Ah, so that's why Father had wanted me to come.

I held the brooch between my fingers, careful not to get the blood on me. I didn't recognize the pack symbol, but I knew from its finery that's what it was. Maybe one of the packs to the far north, past the mountains? The Alpha of the Spinel Spires was known to dabble in darker houses of worship; perhaps I could send a letter to him to see if this symbol belonged to any of his packmen.

"Would you mind terribly if I borrowed this? Nothing springs to mind at the moment, but I have some volumes dedicated to such iconography."

"Sure, by all means, Your Highness," Remus Sala saluted me, clicking his heels per regulation. "Thank you for the assistance; it's good to see a man use his skill set to help others. Your father must be proud to have a son like you bearing his family name."

Andreas' didn't say a word, hunched in on himself as his dreads slid forward to cover his face.

We understood each other in that way, lost in the shadows of great men, failing to coax a bit of recognition in our work.

"I thank you for the high praise, Remus," I bowed so he wouldn't see my fury. "Was there anything else that we may be of assistance with in this investigation?"

"None at the moment, My Liege. Just be on the lookout for a woman in indigo. The witness still maintains that it was a Southland's girl who'd exited the hall last evening before the discovery was made. Said she was just about five and a half feet tall and had a wealth of black hair, down to her derriere."

"Well, that certainly will stand out in a crowd. Until then, Remus, may the Goddess watch over you, and may the Deserter never catch you."

"And same to you, Your Highness."

***

"I'm just saying, would it kill him to just be nice to me for once in his f*cking life!" Andreas' slammed down his mug of brew with enough force to rattle the table we were seated at. "Man acts as though I sick myself on purpose! As if it's for attention."

"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad not to be the Remus of our clan," Andreas looked at me as if I sprouted two heads and one was singing in reverse. "Oh, come now, when we were children, you never wanted to be a guardsman! As I recalled, you wanted to be the next greatest bard!"

"I was ten!" Andreas' ran his fingers through thick dreads. "I also wanted to be a great warrior and fight a hydra."

"I'm just saying not all dreams are impossible to reach, is all. And you don't have to follow in your father's footsteps just for him to acknowledge you."

"Pot meet kettle, or are you no longer decided to get hitched to the Ice Bitch?"

"Ugh," I flagged the barmaid down for another round of drinks. "Don't remind me. I've had my fair share of women problems as of late."

"Oh, is the new girl playing hard to get?" Andreas' looked positively delighted to steer the conversation from himself and onto my troubles. I'd indulge him…for now… "Last time we chatted, she was practically in your lap!"

"I don't want to talk about it." I could taste the salt of her skin in my mouth, the way her pules trembled against my fangs. "I'm afraid that ship has sailed."

"What did you do and don't—don't give me that look! You know exactly what I mean, Mr. Dark and Brooding!"

"I did nothing!" He pinned me with a most unimpressed look. I rubbed my temples, self-consciousness setting in. "I maybe told her she couldn't leave the castle."

"Told her?" Andreas steepled his fingers, hazel eyes lidded and mouth pursed. "Or ordered her?"

I looked away. Where was that blasted serving girl with my order?

"Sebastian!"

"I said I messed up!" Ah, there she was now! Perfect, alcohol, what my body desperately craved! "I was just worried! She'd left the castle to who knew where, and with the killer on the loose—"

"You did that thing you do. That controlling prince thing. The 'I know what's best for you, so you will now do it with no sass or else' thing. Goddess Sebastian, what is wrong with you?"

"I think I'm in love!" I blurted out. Oh, Goddess, why had I said that? Why did I say that to Andreas, of all people?

"You're joking."

I could't say anything, only stare at him.

"You're not," his eyes were wide. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. "Sebastian, it's been a week. You hardly know her!"

"I know," I dropped my head in my hands, unsure what else to do. "I'm stupid and horny, and she's lovely and confusing, and I want to pound her into the earth and be a father to her son."

"She's married!?"

"No, she's—" Actually, I didn't know if Ayda was married or not. Come to think of it, I'd never asked. Never thought to ask. I couldn't recall a mating mark on her neck, but that didn't mean she was not betrothed. "Shit!"

"You never asked!?"

"I was preoccupied!" By her sweet face and bare breasts and rich doe eyes bathed in moonlight. "I'm going through a lot right now."

"You are beyond stupid," Andreas flicked a finger at me. "Unbearably stupid. Like I feel ashamed for you. Wow, to think I once thought you the brightest man I knew."

"Why thank you, Lord Salas'," I deadpanned as the serving girl came by again to clear our empty table. "So good of you to know that when Ms. Sabine decides to file a restraining order against me, you'll be a wonderful character witness for me as she slanders my good name."

"Did you say, Sabine?" We both looked at the serving girl. She was missing her front teeth and had an upturned nose that might have been cute if it wasn't at odds with her receding chin. "That was the same name as that noble girl masquerading like she was just like the rest of us that came in yesterday. I knew she was odd the moment I lit eyes on her." She tapped at her nose. "I've got a sense about these things. A nose for deceit, it's got to do with my Calling, you see."

"I'm sorry, Ms.…?" I offered my hand to the woman. What was this about Ayda being of noble origins?

"Agatha, Agatha Tsaoussis, m'lordship. Hey, anyone ever told you you're the spitting image of the prince?"

"No," Andreas covered smoothly, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "He's too commonplace to be our bonny prince! Do you see how large his nose is?"

"Mmm, you do get a point there! Too boxy, like a carton of eggs plastered in the middle of an otherwise fond face…"

I was not going to look at Andreas. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"Right," I deadpanned. "But back to Ms. Sabine. You said she was a noble?"

"Why? What's it to you?" Agatha crossed her arms under her breasts, giving me the stank eye. "You one of them skirt chasers? Trying to bed a noble and trap her with children so she'll clear away all your debts?"

I elbowed Andreas in the side before he could even open his mouth.

"Not at all," I said with fake cheer. "I'm her potential boss, and I just want to ensure that she is exactly the person she said she was on her resume. For legal matters, you understand."

"It'll cost you. I want two hundred Orichalcum."

"Are you trying to hustle us, you little—" Andreas began.

"Done," I dropped the coins on the table in front of Agatha as I covered Andreas' mouth with my hand. He side-eyed me, licking it like the child he was. Disgusting. "Now please, ma'am, as you were saying."

"All right then. I didn't get to hear the whole tale. They were drunk, your Sabine and her lady-in-waiting. She was confiding in her maid about how she was actually a princess on the run. Had a bad run-in with an Alpha and was banished from her pack because she'd gotten with child. A loose woman that one couldn't even tell the girl who the father was. She met the man while in Eventide, went down to a pub like this one, and got herself right pissed. She fell on the first Alpha she saw; dancing was all she needed to be wooed, the strumpet."

I felt sick to my stomach, but not because of Ayda's besmirched reputation.

This all sounded far too familiar…

Dread began to build in the core of my being, a cold sweat gathering at the nape of my neck.

At Alex's bachelor party, we'd ended up at a bar like this, and drunker than we'd ever been. It had been Alex's idea to get shit faced; he said he'd wanted to make as many mistakes as he still could before Narcissa was going to set him straight. I'd never smoked before, but I'd trusted my brother enough to know he wouldn't lead me completely astray. I'd taken the cup to my lips again and again and felt—

I felt everything.

And then I saw her. A woman with long dark hair who carried the scent of oud and roses. Did she have eyes like a doe, or was my mind melding memory with hopeful fantasy? The two were of similar body shape and height. It would explain the strange pull I felt to Ayda…

I wished I could recall more, but my mind was an incomplete blur. I don't remember waking up next to her; she must have left before I did. Maybe if it hadn't been a year since—

A year…a year.

Long enough to bear a child of her son's approximate age....

"Sebastian, where are you going? Sebastian? Sebastian!"

***

"What's wrong with you, Sebastian, barging into the room like that?" Narcissa tugged her robe on tighter to her person, hiding the pale stripe of skin that showed off her modest breasts. Ayda was pining primroses to her pompadour in strategic locations. Getting ready for the garden party later this afternoon, no doubt. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I need to speak to Ayda—to Ms. Sabine alone. Now."

Too harsh, I'd spoken too harshly again.

Ayda's smile lowered into a displeased tight line while Narcissa spun back around in her chair, placing cucumbers back over her eyes.

"No, I don't think I shall let you."

"Narcissa!" This wasn't a game. If there was any truth that the boy was my son—"Don't be childish."

"You're the one acting like a rude brat, barging in where you are not wanted. How about you say the magic words, and maybe I won't tell you to f*ck off?"

"It's a surprise for you," I didn't care about lying, but the anticipation was killing me. "One of several, and I want to make sure it goes perfect for you, you bi-beautiful goddess."

"Oh," Narcissa tossed the cucumbers away, drumming excited fingers on her knees. "Is it the albino peacocks I requested? The diamond tiara I showed you last week?"

"Better than that," I'd doomed myself at that moment, but I would do anything just to have a word with Ayda. "But first, I need to talk to Ayda and see if it's appropriate."

"By all means, take her!"

And with that, I pulled Ayda into a darkened corner of the hallway.