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Winston turned the phone around toward me so we could see the screen better. A thin man swayed back and forth slightly, his arms shaking in uncontrollable twitches. His head jerked every few seconds, and his complexion was pale, almost greenish. No wonder Magnum thought he was sick. Rail thin and raggedy, almost like a skeleton, with a dirty shirt hanging on his shoulders, I’d say he looked more…
Dead.
The pit of my stomach weighed heavy like cold, hard lead.
He wasn’t sick. He looked like Greyson, Mom’s former alpha who’d turned thrall after she dissolved the nest and his bond. The man who’d killed her and hunted me relentlessly. Thralls damned themselves by feeding on humans after they lost their queen.
Goddess. Magnum didn’t have anyone to protect her other than a few human security guards. The house didn’t have a blood circle to keep him out.
“Thierry,” Llewellyn whispered hoarsely. “He’s turned thrall.”
Wavering, the man shook his head so vigorously he lost his balance and staggered. “Thrall.” Then he said another string of words, looking at the phone intently. He could understand us and wasn’t mindlessly attacking like a vicious animal. Though Greyson had been perfectly cordial.
Until the truth of what I offered began to burn him alive.
Thierry said a word again, straining so hard tendons stood out on his neck, his jaw working back and forth. Again. I could tell it was a word, but the syllables were all jumbled together. Plus it sounded like he had a mouthful of cotton preventing his tongue from forming the sounds correctly.
“Queen.” He said very clearly. Then the jumbled word.
“He’s spelled by someone.” Certainty tinged in my head like a silver bell. Softly, I whispered, “the Dauphine.”
Nodding hard, he squeezed his eyes shut and bloody tears tracked down his wan cheeks. “Help.”
Lew blew out a slow, controlled breath, but the gryphon rended his bond with sorrow and rage. Thierry had been his closest friend in Esetta’s Blood, as close as Rik and Daire. But like the prime fucking alpha he was, Lew said, “By your leave, I’ll go to dispatch him, my queen.”
My heart wrenched, even though I didn’t know this man. If he’d been Esetta’s Blood, she loved him. Lew cared for him like a brother, and he carried her blood. She must have sent him to the Dauphine, like she’d sent Lew to Keisha Skye. So they’d be there if and when I needed them. Even knowing the risk and likely torture awaiting them, they’d gone.
Simply because she’d asked.
Hoping for a chance to serve me and House Isador again.
If I’d acted quicker and taken steps against the Dauphine rather than going to help Helayna, maybe I could have gotten to Thierry before she’d hurt him. Though he looked like he’d been wasting away for years, not a few months.
“Is there any way I can heal him? Maybe I can break the spell like the geas on Mayte’s nest.”
Rik’s hands squeezed reflexively on my shoulder, his instinct to keep me safe curling his fingers hard. “We can’t risk you. If she boobytrapped him like the saleswoman in Kansas City, we’re all doomed.”
“Plus you can’t risk bringing him into your blood circle,” Guillaume added. “She might have embedded a curse in him that will only flare when he’s inside so he can bring the whole circle down around our ears.”
“That’s possible?”
:I can absolutely bring down blood circles.: Sekh responded in the bond. :I came in like a lamb with the scarab, but I could have decimated your nest and dissolved the entire blood circle like it was nothing but cobwebs. It takes time, depending on the queen’s power, but it’s certainly possible.:
“There’s no blood circle at the Park Avenue house.”
“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Rik retorted. “You can’t risk yourself trying to save one former Blood. Any one of us would rather die than compromise you.”
Lew nodded. “I assure you, Thierry would want the same thing if he was in his right mind.”
“Help,” Thierry said again, harder with more force. Not plaintive. He wasn’t begging for mercy.
“What if he has information that might help us?”
“It’s not fucking worth it,” Guillaume said. “Even looking at him on video could be compromising you this very moment. She might be looking at you through his eyes. Maybe she’s trying to see how many Blood you have now. She might have even given him a nugget of something important just to lure you in for the kill.”
“I don’t care what he might know,” Rik agreed. “It’s not worth exposing yourself.”
But there was something in Thierry’s blue eyes that reached into me and touched my heart. Burning with intelligence, his emotions flickered rapidly from desperation and frustration to rage and resignation. And then growing hope as I delayed the order.
