Talion rule, p.1
Talion Rule, page 1
Talion Rule
Whitney Hill
This is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, people, or places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.
TALION RULE
Copyright © 2023 by Whitney Hill
All rights reserved. This book is for your personal use only. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Thank you for supporting the author by purchasing this book.
Benu Media
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Durham, NC 27713
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ISBN (ebook): 979-8-9873785-1-9
ISBN (pbook): 979-8-9873785-2-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023903182
Cover Designer: Pintado (99Designs)
Editor: Jeni Chappelle (Jeni Chappelle Editorial)
Contents
Content Warnings
Dedication
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18
19. Chapter 19
20. Chapter 20
21. Chapter 21
22. Chapter 22
23. Chapter 23
24. Chapter 24
25. Chapter 25
26. Chapter 26
27. Chapter 27
28. Chapter 28
29. Chapter 29
30. Chapter 30
31. Chapter 31
32. Chapter 32
33. Chapter 33
34. Chapter 34
35. Chapter 35
Acknowledgments
Also by Whitney Hill
About the Author
Content Warnings
This book contains strong physical violence and gore, on-page death, swearing, slurs (not toward any real racial or ethnic group/identity), alcohol use, knife violence, the threat of sexual violence, mention of past abuse by a guardian, deadnaming, state-sanctioned violence, blood-drinking, and consensual on-page sex scenes.
For everyone who ’s enjoyed the love story I’ve been building in this series, and for everyone who’s still looking for one of their own.
Chapter 1
Duke was avoiding me.
I wasn’t sure at first. He’d visited readily enough when I’d asked him to look at the blood-magic ring the witches had gifted me for my birthday. Magical trinkets generally caught a djinni’s attention. But after that? Crickets.
To be fair, it’d only been ten days or so since we’d last spoken, but that’d thrown his earlier absence into greater relief. I’d been busy trying to pretend my life could go back to normal after the Wild Hunt. Now it was apparent that was neither good nor desired, so I was picking up all the threads I’d dropped. Duke’s bizarre, extended absence over the last few months and the walled-off callstone connection was one of those threads. It was long overdue, given how tenuous my link to the djinn was, which was why I was at the boathouse at Jordan Lake on a balmy March afternoon, working up the courage to break a promise to Duke and use our family tie to summon him here.
If I didn’t need his head on straight to basically be a Watcher for me, I’d keep giving him space to work out whatever it was on his own. Or at least not be so invasive as to invoke a blood summoning. But Duke had become one of my more solid allies—when he was around—and I needed answers. Not as his little cousin, but as Arbiter of the Triangle and the Carolinas. And aside from all that, strengthening my connection with the djinn faction would get me a step closer to what I really wanted now that I’d decided I was going to rule the Carolinas and Virginia: to see my parents’ vision of the Atlantis War truly ended and reconciled come to fruition.
Maybe if I achieved that, the Elemental Collective would actually talk to me.
A nudge in the bond from Troy preceded his mental whisper, cranky with the nearly full moon even in my head. Dragging it out isn’t going to make him less mad when he gets here.
I turned and scowled at the tree line, where Troy was checking the security measures we’d set up here and renewing Aetheric protections.
You know I’m right.
That didn’t mean I had to like it.
Duke and I had a rocky history. His fault, mostly. He’d been the one to pluck me from my dead mother’s arms on the banks of the Cape Fear River. But he’d been an abusive guardian, and not all of it could be laid at Callista’s feet, even if she’d been holding him with a geas. I was still navigating how I felt about our slowly evolving relationship, which I had thought was on the upswing after freeing Iaret and stopping the Wild Hunt. I got the feeling there were things he wasn’t telling me though, and I hated being ignorant.
More than that, I was afraid those things might be about my parents and their forbidden djinni-elf love affair. Or maybe about the djinn at large, given they were still holding themselves apart and Duke had complained they were breaking his balls.
Part of me wanted to just let it rest. My parents were twenty-eight years dead now. I’d killed the people responsible, and with Troy, I was rebuilding my father’s elven House. But every time I thought about them or fiddled with the gold-and-onyx prince’s pendant hanging alongside the hematite callstone around my neck, I got a nudge.
The Sight. A djinn talent that was growing in me of late.
I had questions for Duke.
More to the point, I needed to know what Duke had needed to talk to Iaret about when he’d spoken about Dreamwalking and my mother having the talent. Maybe he’d been referring to the tricksters though?
Quit stalling, Arden. I have to get back home for more negotiations with Samarre and the Lyon elves.
I blew out a breath. “Fine.”
Just to be fair—and safe—I tried one last time with the callstone. I hit the same wall I had nearly every other time I’d tried to reach Duke for the last few days.
Okay then.
From the leather backpack at my feet, I drew out a hand-sized box of carved black walnut and a bottle of Shiraz. The wine, I set on the ground, hoping Duke would either be happy to drink from the bottle or would take it with him rather than bitching about not having a glass. Opening the box, I plucked an old iron railroad nail out and scratched the eight-pointed star of the Goddess in one of the bare patches of dirt, then placed a cuneiform-etched bone in the center.
While I technically didn’t need to draw blood to summon Duke—being cousins was enough of a blood tie—I had a feeling he was going to be pissed about my using a binding summoning ritual. Using my blood as an anchor to tighten the call would piss him off even more, but I was tired of playing hide-and-seek with him at such a critical time. And as Troy had pointed out, we didn’t have the luxury of waiting and letting him decide when he wanted to show up.
I drew the elf-killer I’d taken to carrying again from its sheath on my thigh. The enchanted lead-and-silver blade was overkill for the little bit of blood I’d need to compel Duke, but it was my best option for defense if someone—an elven someone—tracked down this property and ambushed us here. The slice the knife made in the heel of my palm was so clean I didn’t even feel its bite until my heartbeat throbbed.
Grimacing, I squeezed out a drop on each line of the star before carefully stepping out of it. “Nebuchadnezzar, come to me.”
The bright scent of lemon zest suffused the clearing. The wind chose that moment to pick up, sending a cloud scudding across the sun and making Duke’s entrance extra dramatic.
“What, by Ishtar’s flaming tits, do you think you’re doing?” Duke roared even before he was fully materialized.
“Hey, Duke. Sorry about the—”
“You’re not sorry yet, but you bloody well will be when I’m through with you.” The djinni finished materializing in the star, all smoke and lightning with carnelian eyes. “I was in the middle of something, you little bitch.”
“Keep shouting at me and calling me names, and I’ll leave you trapped in there until I can find a Goddess-damned bottle,” I snapped.
“You dare threaten me with that? I swear, I—”
“Swear all you want. If you hadn’t been avoiding me I could have spoken to you in a more civilized fashion. But you wanted to act like—”
“Avoiding you?” Duke spluttered, and his cloudy form expanded like a cat going fluffy. “I have no fucking need—”
“Then where have you been? I told you—”
A hand on my shoulder made me jump and whirl, already moving to free myself and punch the attacker.
Troy blocked me easily, despite keeping his attention on Duke. “Hello, Duke. I don’t have time for the two of you to squabble. Let’s get to the point.”
Du
“You don’t have time,” he drawled.
“That’s right. I don’t. We’ve all but declared war on the Richmond Houses.” Troy bent to scoop up the bottle of wine. “Stick around and have a drink. I’ll fill you in on the plans.”
That caught Duke’s attention more than anything else had. “War? Between elven Houses?” He chuckled. All his earlier outrage fled. “Little bird, why didn’t you lead with that?”
I glared at him. “I was getting there.”
“You were making threats about bottling.”
“Enough,” Troy snapped. “Duke, stay long enough to hear us out. Take this when you go. No harm or mischief on us or this place. Do you accept the terms?”
The djinni rolled his eyes. “Fine. You lot are so boring sometimes. You’re lucky it’s war, or I’d tell you to hang yourselves.”
I sighed and crossed my arms, trying not to remember the bad old days of being under Callista’s guardianship. Duke—and my other cousin, the now-dead Grimm—had had a big role in the bad times. Things had gotten better, but not always and not as much as I might like.
Troy nudged me and tilted his head toward the summoning star.
“Be free in this place,” I muttered. For good measure, I reached out with a toe and scuffed one of my lines.
“That’s more like it.” Duke stepped quickly out of the star and accepted the bottle of wine from Troy. “Now. When last we spoke, little bird, you were simply dealing with that pompous ass Santiago and this Bureau for Supernatural Investigation—delightful assignment, by the way. Plum job.”
“Glad you’re enjoying yourself. I need an update on that situation as well, if you please.”
Duke waved a hand like it wasn’t important. “How much more trouble could you possibly have gotten into between then and now? It hasn’t even been a fortnight.”
I tightened my shields as another gust of wind buffeted us. Spring was on its way, and if last year was any indication, my Air powers would get a boost. Having to maintain so much control and focus was making me as cranky as Troy was at full moons, when his power ebbed. It hadn’t been like this before I started practicing. Well, before I’d reached my greater potential as a primordial elemental.
I refocused on the topic at hand. “House Ead is working with the Sinners.” For an elven High House to work with the mundanes was outrageous, and a sign of how much they hated me as an elemental and feared Troy as a king. They’d risk giving up Otherside’s secrets to bring us down.
Frowning, Duke tilted his head. “So you declared war.”
“We need a buffer between the Carolinas and Washington, DC.”
“Again—so you declared war?” He grinned. “I’m not complaining. I’m just surprised at you. You’re not usually quite that delightfully chaotic.”
I couldn’t help the defensive note in my voice. “We haven’t officially declared it, and either way, it’s not like I wanted it. What I want is to keep people safe. The feds went on live TV and basically said they want to hunt us down. I can’t let that happen. I’m trying to protect my people as best I can.”
“So you’ll hunt Othersiders yourself.”
Troy huffed an annoyed sigh. “Enough, Duke. Quit picking at her. We have an offer for you. And the rest of the djinn.”
Duke’s brows lifted. “Oh, now, this should be rich.”
“Help us against the Richmond elves.”
“Help you.” Duke narrowed his eyes. “Ninlil got involved with House Solari, and look where it got her.”
Troy met his gaze with a level one of his own—he had his mission, and it supported me in the end—but I grimaced at the mention of my mom.
Duke pounced on my uncertainty. “And now you want us as—what? Mercenaries?”
I hugged myself tighter at the reminder of my mother’s choice and the fate it’d sealed for her. The muscles in my jaw hurt from how hard I was clenching it. Technically, the djinn and the elves were still at war over Atlantis, even if it was more of a cold war at this point. But the steps I’d taken to secure the Triangle from the Chapel Hill Conclave and stop their bounty hunts and attacks on me had dramatically reduced the number of local elves. Even with Omar Monteague bringing us the Darkwatch, between deaths and desertion, we had a fraction of the elven population we once had. I was working with Troy on reforming elven society to make it more appealing for our recruiters, but truth be told, I was still iffy on how many elves I felt comfortable having in the territory. Especially new elves, background checks be damned.
“The capacity is up to you,” Troy said. “This is just the opener. I fully expect there to be counteroffers.”
“Interesting.” Duke’s grin showed sharp black teeth. “You know the Djinn Council is going to put you over a barrel.”
“I know.” The grim note in Troy’s voice carried through in the bond as well. “We’re working on other alternatives.”
Duke turned to me. “You’re awfully quiet, little bird. Don’t like this plan?”
“I don’t like a lot of what I’ve had to do in the last two years. But I’m here, and the people who tried to hurt me are not.” I gave him a pointed look. “I’m gonna keep doing what I have to do. I told you. I will keep the people who look to me safe.”
“So I see.” He gave me a peculiar look, one I couldn’t read. “Very well. I will take your opener back to the Council.”
“Thank you,” Troy said.
Glad to have that part done, I said, “What’s going on with the Bureau?”
“Much less than there would be without Iaret and me interfering.” Duke grinned. “What did you do to Senator Wright, Arden?”
I glanced at Troy. “Um. We broke into his house and told him to back off.”
Duke tsked. “Heavy-handed play. Absolutely no subtlety to you. Never has been.”
“It was my play,” Troy said.
“That surprises me.” Duke studied Troy with eyes gone back to djinn carnelian. “Reckless. Messy. That’s not like you. Did Arden finally find the stick up your ass? Or was it her hand there, guiding your actions?”
“It was a necessary risk,” Troy snapped back. “I can’t spend all my time looking over my shoulder for the US government’s next attempt to kidnap my bondmate.”
“Hmm.” Again the strange look flashed across Duke’s face.
I was tired of it. “What is going on, Duke? What aren’t you saying?”
He stiffened. “Nothing. I’m just worried about this path you two seem to be heading down. Be careful. Both of you.” Raising the bottle of wine, he offered a quick fist-to-heart salute. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“Send a report, Duke. Please,” I said. “Or check in more often. We need to know what this Bureau is doing.”
“For now, not much of anything. You scared them to Erṣetu and back, so they’re re-evaluating their plans and doing research.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, but it was better than making plans to attack. “What kind of research?”
“Mostly hassling other agencies or organizations for all their weird cases that have anything to do with what looks like vampire, werewolf, or elf involvement. Not that they’ve quite figured out what elves are.” He glanced at Troy. “Lucky for you, little king.”
“Good,” I said. “See that they don’t, please. We’re working on disrupting their communications with House Ead, and so far, they’ve been reluctant to share information about elves with the feds, but that could change.”
“Understood. Now, if that’s everything?”
I nodded. I still wanted to ask about Dreamwalking, but he and Troy were both anxious to get back to what they’d been doing. “Thank you, Duke. And whatever’s going on…I need to know you’d tell me if it would impact the alliance. I can trust you that far, right?”
The flicker of what might have been a wince crossed Duke’s face before he softened slightly.
“Yes, little bird.” With a quick, unexpected chuck under my chin, he offered a lopsided, almost paternal smile before changing planes with a shimmer of Aether.
Drained by the whole exchange and the mental whiplash it gave me, I dropped to sit down on the ground right where I was then kept going and went all the way onto my back. Fortunately, it’d been dry lately.
