My Wicked Enemy by Carolyn Jewel Page B

the first to join him when he decided the time had come for him to pull together a fighting force. A clan. No more freelancing, lone warlord for him. Warriors fight. Warlords lead. It was time for him to lead. He needed Durian, his intelligence and his skills. Durian wasn’t afraid to think out on the fringes. The guy had a way with the other warlords. The whole meeting would never have come off without his skills.
    Durian smoothed his pants leg. “Kill her now, Nikodemus, before she runs back to her lover and begs his forgiveness. And then tells him all about us.”
    He shook his head again. “No way. She’s scared to death of him. And besides, Magellan never made a move on her. He gets his rocks off with Kynan.” He stared at the label of his beer, feeling sick at some of what he’d seen in her head. “That’s a memory of hers I could have done without. She saw them once. Kynan was giving him a blow job. Her boyfriends, all two of them, she met through Magellan. Probably mages, but there’s no way to be sure about that. Neither of them lasted long.” He swallowed more beer, but it didn’t drown the taste in his mouth. He knew for a fact Kynan didn’t swing that way. Some did—in that regard fiends were no different than humans—but not Kynan. He was strictly hetero, and if Magellan was fucking him, then it wasn’t Kynan’s choice. Nothing ever was with a mageheld fiend.
    “Just how deep were you in her head?”
    Nikodemus plucked at his shirt. Really deep. So deep he wasn’t sure he was completely out yet. “She’s a scrappy little thing.” And a liar. Not that he blamed her, but still, she hadn’t told him everything.
    “Scrappy.” Durian drank more of his beer. “You’re losing your objectivity.” His voice rapped out his displeasure. “She’s a witch, Nikodemus.”
    “A witch who can’t pull. How can she be dangerous if she can’t pull? Magellan wants her dead, and she believes Kynan’s going to find her and make it happen. Based on what I saw, she’s not wrong.” Durian’s expression was unreadable. “The kill order had to come from Magellan.”
    “Why, if she’s going to die anyway?”
    He shrugged. “What Magellan did to Carson is borderline unlawful among the mages. There are certain mages who, if they find out about it— snick. ” He slashed a finger across his throat. “If she’s dead, there’s no evidence.”
    Durian sat forward to put his beer on the table. “Why did you call me, Warlord?” He stared at Nikodemus. “If you want me to babysit your scrappy little witch, I decline.” His eyes flashed. “With all due respect. I don’t want anything to do with her.”
    “Not her.” Durian owed him. In a karmic way, Durian owed him. Durian had sworn him fealty, so it wasn’t just a matter of him calling in favors and Durian being honor bound to pay them back. Durian was magically bound to give Nikodemus the aid he requested. Just as Nikodemus was bound not to make capricious or self-serving requests of those who were sworn to him. Warlords who did soon found the bonds weakening. Nikodemus turned his head and looked at his friend. “I need you for something else, Durian.”
    He sat up straight, gaze fixed on him. Durian blinked, once, and his pupils were huge. Yeah. That was Durian’s thing. He said he’d given up the killing that made him feared among the kin, and maybe he had. He’d have been hunted down and taken in Copenhagen otherwise and, if not dead, then serving some Danish mage. “Kynan’s out there. Without Magellan stuck to his rear.” A warlord himself, and not to be lightly dismissed. Kynan Aijan was scary as hell, and right now he was playing on the wrong side. “I want you to find him and take him down. Permanently.”
    Durian grabbed his beer by the neck and spun it. “For being Magellan’s fuck buddy?”
    “Killing him is the only way to call him off. I want the witch alive and Magellan dead.” Nikodemus heard Durian’s heart beating. He