Pas by S M Reine Read Free Book Online Page B

then she was inside the BearCat, pushed into a leather chair, her ankles and wrists cuffed.
    A door slammed shut. The vehicle’s armor muffled every sound.
    Even in the darkness of the hood, she saw Gage and Stark everywhere.
    Everything was bleeding.
    This wasn’t how she’d hoped the rally would go. Deirdre had just wanted people to know. She wanted change .
    The BearCat drove slowly at first, and then faster. They must have cleared the chaos at Times Square.
    “Did you get the others?” one agent muttered to another.
    “We got the vampire guy and the valkyrie,” someone else replied. “That’s everyone the Alpha wanted.”
    “Great. She’ll be happy to hear it.”
    Deirdre wasn’t happy to hear it. The OPA had arrested Lucifer and Vidya—two people who had no relationship with Rylie, and therefore no protection.
    The OPA agents kept the bag over Deirdre’s head while transporting her, allowing her to experience only confusing, jumbled sensory information without the benefit of eyesight to help her interpret it. She heard bodies moving around her. Felt hands on her arms, the top of her head, her waist. They grabbed her like she was meat being taken to a butcher shop.
    After some indeterminate length of time, the bag was whipped off of Deirdre’s head. She sucked in air that wasn’t poisoned by her own carbon monoxide. Her vision spun, allowing the OPA offices at the United Nations to come into vivid focus.
    And she found a pair of legs right in front of her.
    Deirdre’s eyes tracked from strappy ballet flats up the curve of calves to a cobweb skirt draped over broad hips. A leather corset was cinched tightly to form an hourglass shape where there would have ordinarily been a much boxier figure. Small breasts were emphasized by leather and lace, cleavage framed by a choker dangling with leather straps, chains, and a glittering sapphire.
    Then the face.
    That wasn’t Rylie’s face.
    “What the hell?” Deirdre asked.
    “Don’t look so surprised,” Rhiannon Stark said. “You wanted my attention with your stupid rally, didn’t you? Well, congratulations. You have it.”

V

    “Where’s Rylie?” Deirdre asked.
    Mirth lingered around the corners of Rhiannon’s lips. “The former Alpha?”
    Former.
    It was all too much.
    The failed rally.
    Being arrested by Rhiannon.
    Seeing Rhiannon taking over the OPA offices at the United Nations building.
    And now calling Rylie the “former” Alpha?
    “Not until the inauguration,” Deirdre snarled. “You’re not Alpha until the unseelie leader takes over and declares you his mate!”
    “Yes, but transition is a long process. I’m getting everything set up for my mate, the king of the unseelie, to take over for Rylie Gresham.” She said the name in a coldly dismissive way, as though naming a centuries-dead President of the United States. Someone old and irrelevant.
    “The king of the unseelie. You mean the dragon I skewered like an olive in a martini? That king of the unseelie?”
    “The king,” Rhiannon said calmly. “The unseelie faction won. People didn’t vote for a specific Alpha. They voted for a faction.”
    “You’re not eligible to be Alpha. You’re not even sidhe.”
    Rhiannon didn’t rise to take the bait. She made no confessions or denials. She just stood there, as calm as could be, and spread frost throughout Secretary Friederling’s office.
    “You wouldn’t be confessing to murder, would you?” Rhiannon asked.
    “I don’t know. Why don’t you come closer and we’ll chat about it?” Deirdre twisted in her bonds. “I want to talk with you without having to shout.”
    “You’re not in a position to make demands.” Rhiannon actually took a step backward, not from fear, but because she was taunting her. “You’re not in a position to do anything except make peace with whatever gods you might believe in. Your death is scheduled for an hour from now. You might want to get started on praying.”
    Deirdre’s spine stiffened.