Chapter Thirteen:
Jace

 

It happened without warning.

One moment, Spencer was standing there, and the next…

The next, he was crumpling to the floor, a bewildered expression on his face. Even that turned slack as the blood spilled down his neck and soaked his formerly pristine, expensive shirt. The pale blue cloth turned dark, drinking in every drop, but even that couldn’t hold it as the body hit the ground.

Blood continued to flow from that open, gaping fish’s gill of a wound in Spencer’s throat. It started to slide into the slats of the floor and left a trail as they made patterns along the fine wood.

Jace watched it for a moment, spellbound by the sheer… swiftness of it, the thoughtless violence of it, then his head snapped back up so he could see Elias.

Elias ran a handkerchief along the bloody knife, frowning as it, too, reached its saturation point. “I’ll have to see that cleaned better later,” he murmured as though that was the issue. “And the floor…” He sighed, shaking his head in disapproval as though Spencer had purposely ruined the cloth and the floor alike.

Without meaning to, Jace gagged, unable to drag his eyes away from the scene before him despite his every nerve screaming for him to look away. No, one of the trails of blood was seeping toward him, and if it didn’t stop, it would soak his dog bed, too—

“You’ve seen death before,” Elias noted, wrapping the blade in a hand towel atop his desk. “You didn’t act nearly so squeamish then.”

No. Those times, it hadn’t been someone he’d known…

Someone he’d once cared about.

The reason he was here, curled up in a dog bed with a collar around his throat and a slave’s mark on his arm…

“Surely you didn’t expect me to allow him to live?” Elias said, arching a brow. He looked genuinely surprised, which was an odd look on him. He tilted his head slightly as he gazed with no small amount of curiosity at Jace.

No.

Yes.

He didn’t know.

“Come,” Elias beckoned him as the blood got closer to him. “Don’t forget your little pillow.”

Jace hated him for the amusement in his voice, but he grabbed the small pillow between his teeth and carried it carefully toward Elias — the long way, because there would be hell to pay if he left a blood trail by traipsing through it.

Besides, he didn’t want Spencer’s blood on his pillow.

“You didn’t use magic,” Jace found himself saying once he was free from the threat of blood reaching him, even as it slowly continued to seep from the wound.

Elias’s jaw tightened. “No,” he agreed, the edge warning Jace not to continue.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about what Nyla Ivers had said, about Elias not being a powerful witch — and how many things he’d seen that had supported that.

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Elias was a powerful witch in his own right. His connections and allies and subjects and wealth made sure he could leave a deadly mess in his wake.

But he’d used a blade instead of a spell to kill Spencer.

Maybe he’d been trying to make a point. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to warn Spencer that it was coming…

Then again, what would Spencer have done? He’d always been a pathetic excuse for a werewolf, barely able to take care of himself. He couldn’t even shift outside of the full moon — not that Jace could shift at all, these days, so who was he to judge? — and even then, it was hard. He wouldn’t have been any threat at all.

Many men would fight for their lives when it came down to it, but Jace didn’t see Spencer as someone who would try. He thought the other ‘wolf would’ve just closed his eyes and welcomed death, which was a thought that disturbed him far more than he’d thought it would.

“Do you still care for him?” Elias asked, running his fingers slowly through Jace’s hair.

The question caught him off guard. Once, he’d have said yes, but now… He couldn’t remember the last time Elias had used Spencer’s well-being against him. If he had, Jace wasn’t so sure he would’ve cared.

A chill ran through him.

It meant he was behaving, acting like the perfect pet, because he’d turned into what Elias wanted him to be. It was no longer blackmail or compulsions or spells or whatever it had been in the beginning… and he didn’t know how long that had been true.

Too long. Far, far too long, because Jace couldn’t remember the last time he’d even stood up to Elias.

The thought of it was inconceivable, too, like something distant and from a dream. He couldn’t even stand it, knowing all too well what the punishment might be.

No, that wasn’t even true.

Elias was creative enough in his punishments to where Jace never knew what was coming next, and that had been one of the things that had terrified him into submission when he’d first arrived.

Before he’d been broken.

Because no matter how much he wanted to argue that he wasn’t broken, that he was merely bent a little, Jace knew that was a lie. He’d been snapped into pieces, and Elias was slowly putting them back together again. Into what, he wasn’t really sure, but he was glad he wasn’t being turned into something utterly mindless.

Just…

Dependent. That was all.

“Elder Ivers?” a shaky voice sounded from the door, a trembling woman wringing her hands as her eyes darted from the corpse to Elias and back again as though she couldn’t look away.

Jace couldn’t help but think she looked like prey.

“Yes?”

She smelled like prey, too.

If he was bothered by the dead body, Elias wasn’t showing it, but Jace would’ve been stunned if he was. He’d learned enough about the witch to know something like this wasn’t going to bother him. Not now, not ever…

Sometimes Jace wondered if anything could.

Well. Nyla. Nyla had gotten under his skin, and Jace could understand why. He was still pissed about the way she’d so casually lashed him to the chair, keeping him back and unable to protect his master. At the same time…

He didn’t know what to think.

Desideria had been there, the odd vampiress treating him both like a pup and something precious all at once. It had been a strange counter to the way he usually felt with everyone else, though with Elias…

With Elias, things had gotten downright strange.

“The Palmero patriarch is holding on the phone for you,” the woman said, hedging a little before looking back at Elias.

A faint smile briefly crossed Elias’s lips, satisfied and smug, before it vanished. “I’ll take it in my office,” he said. “I won’t be but a moment.”

The woman nodded once, quickly, and turned for the door, all but fleeing.

“Oh, and do something with this body,” Elias said dismissively to her retreating back. “Get the floor cleaned, too.”

The woman squeaked out a response and nodded again without turning around, fleeing the room before Elias could do anything else.

She’d probably see those dead eyes in her dreams, too, of someone who had been a member of the household for even longer than she’d been there…

“And so the next round of games begins,” Elias told Jace, petting his hair. “It all starts to fall into place eventually, pet.”

That was more than he usually told Jace, but then, that had been true ever since… that night.

Jace said nothing, instead rubbing his face against Elias’s hand.

The man didn’t want speech from him, didn’t want any sort of responses. What he wanted was blind, fervent devotion… and so help him, Jace couldn’t help but give him exactly what he wanted.

“Come,” Elias said.

Jace followed him toward the door, the tags at his throat jingling quietly. All he could think about was Spencer — Spencer, and the way the fear and horror had emanated from the woman like strong perfume.

He had to stop thinking of her as prey.

It wasn’t like he was much of a predator anymore.

Elias led him into the office, closed the door behind him, and picked up the phone. “Mr. Palmero,” he greeted gravely, as though he hadn’t just been damn near smirking — as though he didn’t know exactly what the witch was calling about. “What can I do for you?”

“Get your useless Council to get off their asses and do something!” Palmero said on the other line, his voice just loud enough for Jace to hear even without needing a ‘wolf’s sensitive hearing.

“We’re looking into Elder Isedora’s death—”

“And you have been for how long now?” Palmero demanded. “My sister was assassinated, and all I’m hearing is that you’re working on it. That’s all. Working on it, like that’s going to do a damn thing when it hasn’t yet!”

“I thought I found the culprits,” Elias said, leaning back in his chair and scratching Jace behind the ear. “But the fires I ordered as retribution were put out.”

“Put out?” Palmero asked, disbelief evident in every note of his words. “Why on earth would they have been put out?”

Jace leaned into the touch, glad Elias was so gleeful about being able to have done… whatever it was he had done. He didn’t understand, but then, who did? He wasn’t sure anyone could put together all the pieces of Elias Ivers’ actions, least of all a werewolf pet whose mind barely belonged to him any longer.

“My fellow members of the Council made that decision, Mr. Palmero. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more.”

Oh, Elias was smirking again, and that was a good thing for Jace. It meant he wasn’t going to get hell tonight. No, tonight, he’d get another night in bed, another night of comfort, while his master reveled in what he was doing.

Plans within plans — none of them made sense to Jace, but that didn’t matter. Only one thing did.

As long as Elias was happy, he was safe.

Safe, and happy, and so much more.

A happy Elias was obviously a great deal better than one who had been pissed off. While the witch had initially been infuriated when the other members of the Council had called off the fires, he’d quickly enough started to use it to his advantage with the others.

“I’m losing patience, Elder Ivers,” Palmero warned.

Elias only smiled.

Jace didn’t know why Elias wanted everyone mad at the Council, not really, but he knew that every person who was against them and for Elias was another gift to him.

“I know, and I understand,” Elias told him after a moment, his voice bland. “I assure you, I’m doing all I can. There has been a bit of discord among the Council now that your sister no longer holds the mantle. We are working that out.”

“Sort it out faster,” Palmero snapped from the other end of the line.

“Of course, Mr. Palmero. I’ll call you with any updates as soon as I have them,” Elias promised. “Good day.”

For Jace, it really was a good day.

He glanced up at Elias, enjoying the sight of the smile on his lips. It was far better than a scowl or a snarl, what he’d much rather see, and he let out a happy little huff of breath.

“See?” Elias told him. “It all just takes a little bit of time. We don’t have an abundance of it… but we have enough.”