Looking at Ryker, she asked, “What do you need me to do?”
CHAPTER 6
Two Options
Ryker was exhausted. He’d thought the Choosing had been draining, but the marriage competition had nothing on the past day.
He had taken no pleasure in telling Brynleigh about Emery Sylvain’s death, nor did he enjoy watching her reaction. Seeing her be sick had twisted his stomach in the worst of ways.
“It’s not going to be easy,” he warned, meeting her gaze.
Whenever he looked at her, he imagined her in Emery’s place. It was her broken body on the ice. Gray. Staked. Lifeless.
It made him want to burn the world.
“Nothing ever is,” she said.
Ryker grabbed the small black box he’d placed on the coffee table earlier, forcing himself to remain calm and in control. He couldn’t think about the fact that Brynleigh had wanted to kill him because he had to keep a level head.
He needed her to accept this deal he’d made Myrrah Challard, the Witch Representative of the Northern Region. He’d gambled on the fact that Myrrah’s desire for information and actual leads into the Black Night would be strong enough to get Brynleigh out of the prison.
After all, the rebels had nearly wiped out Myrrah’s coven twocenturies ago. She’d been a witchling then, not even Mature, but after most of her coven died, she rose to power.
By the time Ryker was born, she was a Representative. Five years ago, she’d been appointed as Head Witch over the seven covens that called the Republic of Balance their home.
Myrrah had spent considerable time and resources tracking the rebels, but they were slippery and kept evading her.
Ryker drew in a deep breath.
“The Black Night is a rebel organization that has been terrorizing the Republic of Balance for centuries.” He spoke calmly as if he was talking to an informant. “Until recently, their actions have remained out of the public eye.”
Brynleigh rubbed her neck, and he stared at the column of her throat. He could still remember his horror as the silver shrapnel had torn through Brynleigh’s neck during the Masked Ball.
Unbidden, a vision of her bleeding out flashed through Ryker’s eyes, but he banished it. There was no room for thoughts like that right now. No room for emotions.
He was stone. Cold. Lifeless. Strong.
She said, “But not anymore.”
“No, it seems they’ve abandoned their secretive agenda and have decided to work out in the open.”
After the attack on the Two Hundredth Choosing, everyone knew there were rebels within the Republic. There was no more hiding their existence.
“What does this have to do with me?” she asked.
Straight to the point. That was something he’d always enjoyed about her. Now, it was just another reminder of the way things had changed.
He cleared his throat. “As I said before, Emery Sylvain had ties to the Black Night. So does his Bound Partner.”
Brynleigh winced, but he ignored it. He had to get this over with. This was nothing but a fucking mission.
After all, that was only fair. She was the one who’d treated theirrelationship like a job first—one where he forfeited his life at the end—so this course of action seemed fitting.
“If Jelisette is a member of the Black Night?—”
“She is,” Ryker growled. “The intel is clear. We have an overwhelming amount of evidence confirming it.”
They didn’t know much about the rebels, but once they’d discovered her link to Emery Sylvain, it had been easy enough to connect the rest of the dots.