Then she shook her head, and he thought perhaps they’d just had a conversation.
Storing the moment to reflect on later, he sent two of the guards to find either high-powered portable lamps or torches. While they did that, he took in the bloody ruin of Arav’s body, weighed it against the wider situation. Shabnam’s murder could perhaps be put down to a smart copycat using Eris’s death as cover, but Arav’s?
It stretched the bounds of coincidence that a second hunter had been waiting to take advantage of the circumstances. There had to be a hidden connection between the victims he wasn’t yet seeing. Also, given how determined Arav had been to act Neha’s port in a storm, it must’ve been a strong temptation indeed that had drawn him up into the skies, away from those who might oppose his bid to be Neha’s next consort.
Jason considered the way Arav had looked at Mahiya when he’d thought himself safe from other eyes toward the end of the dinner, his mask slipping to reveal an ugly possessiveness that said he saw Mahiya as nothing but a trophy, a thing to be taken and used.
As Jason had already decided to teach the other angel a lesson in fear he’d never forget, he wasn’t particularly motivated to discover Arav’s killer. However, Shabnam had done nothing to deserve the death meted out to her, and so it was for her that he began to consider the hows and whys of this crime.
A man such as Arav might well find himself unable to control the impulse to take what he wanted should the chance arise. Yet in spite of the feather Jason had found—been meant to find?—Mahiya had never left Jason’s sight, couldn’t have lured Arav into the skies.
Another woman?
Arav wouldn’t be so stupid, not now.
That left politics. It was a surety that Arav had had a spy of his own in the court. Again, however, the timing didn’t make sense—why would the angel choose to meet his spy now? Yes, he’d disappeared outside for a cigar, but it had been clear to Jason that the other man was merely passing time until Neha finished speaking to her guests.
With Rhys having left earlier, Arav had had a clear run at lingering to be the last remaining guest. He would never have chanced missing that opportunity and the associated privacy to advance his embryonic courtship, regardless of any temptations of the flesh.
Rhys?
It had surprised Jason when Neha’s senior general had taken his leave while Arav was still buzzing around the archangel, but the move would make perfect sense had Rhys planned an ambush. Rhys wouldn’t even have to worry about skirting the attention of the guards. He was a general known to hold the loyalty of his men—because he did not mind getting blood on his own hands.
“Were you here when Arav stepped outside?” he asked the closest guard, an angel who stood stiff backed and at attention, facing outward from the body.
“No, sir. I was flying past when he plummeted, came to see if I could help.” A small pause as he glanced around at the other guards present. “I think Ishya and Gregor—who went to get a lantern—would’ve been on the doors at the time.”
Jason spoke to the petite, competent Ishya next, was told that yes, she and Gregor had seen Arav walk outside for a cigar. “However,” the vampire said, “he didn’t remain by the palace. I heard him comment to another guest that he’d walk off the dinner while he waited to speak to Lady Neha.” Ishya nodded at the courtyard garden, left in heavy darkness as a frame for the glittering Palace of Jewels. “As our task was to monitor the door, we didn’t follow his path. Jian was on the other side of the courtyard, may have seen more.”
“I saw the glow of his cigar in the dark,” Jian confirmed, his uptilted eyes speaking of the edges of Neha’s territory, where it brushed up against Lijuan’s, his wings a dusty white speckled with amber at the edges. “Once I recognized him as an invited guest, I continued on in my perimeter check. He’d vanished by the time of my next pass.”
Gregor returned with the portable outdoor lamps then, and Jason waited until the strong light sources were set up to talk to the vampire. He supported Ishya’s story but added, “I did see someone fly down toward Arav as he disappeared out of view, but he didn’t raise an alarm so I thought it must be a friend.” When asked for specifics about the second angel, all he could say was, “A woman . . . maybe. Or a slender man.”
“Thank you.” Leaving the mangled remains lit to garish brightness, raw red and wet pink over broken feathers of mottled brown, he nodded at Mahiya to make certain no one disturbed the scene, and walked inside the Palace of Jewels. Neha paced within, her anger so frigid it had frosted the mirrors.
So.
“Games,” she hissed. “Someone is playing games in my court.”
Yes. It was only the pattern that was proving elusive. Eris had been Neha’s consort, Audrey the woman who’d thought to cuckold an archangel, Shabnam a lady-in-waiting Neha had mourned with genuine sorrow, and Arav a suitor the archangel had been playing on a leash for her own amusement.
Jason accepted his initial conclusion had been false; Neha was innocent of the murders of Eris and Audrey. Rather, she’d been framed with a cunning that had fooled him and Mahiya both. A smart opponent, then, and one with enough skill and power to evade elite guards and lure both a lady and an experienced general to their deaths.
“A woman . . . maybe. Or a slender man.”
It could still be either. The lure didn’t have to be sexual, not when immortals played games of power.
“You will find the person responsible,” Neha ordered, her breath white in the chilled air. “You have the resources of the fort at your command.”