On a whim, I run my hand over his skin, tracing his various tattoos. I had asked him not so long ago to tell me what they all meant.

Now I don’t need to.

“Your first hunt,” I say softly, tracing a ram with a twisted torso on his arm. “And your first animal kill,” I say, moving my fingers over a fallen deer. My hand moves to a horse whose body is decorated with swirls and stripes. “Your first battle,” I say. My fingers move to another fallen ram with designs on its body. Looming over it is a fanged predator. “Your first human kill,” I say. “And your first brush with death.” My touch moves up to his neck. “Here’s my familiar, and—” My fingers glide to his other shoulder. “These are the various tribes you unified, and here are more whom you defeated.”

My hand drifts to the skin above his heart. “Here’s your family crest,” I say, tracing the dragon, “and…” He was planning to add the tree of life around the dragon as a representation of me and the bond that ties us together, but he was cursed before he got the chance.

Memnon watches me like he’s hanging on to my every word. I realize how truly lonely it must be for him, living in this modern world where no one understands who he is or where he came from or what his life was like. His people are hardly more than a shadowy smudge in history books.

“It’s still surreal that we had an entire life together,” I murmur.

Memnon’s eyes turn sorrowful, and his hand slips down my torso, his index finger tracing a design over my abdomen, right where, long ago, I carried his child, and right where, long ago, Eislyn shoved a knife through me and ended that possibility.

“But we didn’t have an entire life together, little witch,” he says softly. “Look at me. I may have been in my prime by ancient standards, but by yours, I am young. We were young when things ended. You and I were robbed of our life before we could fully live it.”

I have to breathe through my nose, just to alleviate a sudden tightness in my chest. Once the feeling abates, I exhale. That was then. This is now. He and I may have once shared something real and amazing, but things are different. I am different. And Memnon has been unforgivably cruel to me.

I pull away a little, gathering my blankets against my chest like a shield. I clear my throat. “We should talk about the witches who have been murdered,” I say, trying to get the focus off our relationship and on to something else.

Memnon raises an eyebrow. “Now? You’d like to discuss this now? When the taste of your pussy still coats my tongue and your thighs are still slick with my⁠—”

I cover his mouth again before he can finish the sentence, my cheeks heating. His eyes go right to my blush, and I feel him laugh beneath my palm.

“You will tell me about the murders,” I command him, removing my shaking hand. I don’t know what I’m thinking, insisting on this. I’m in no state to solve anything—not when I’m in my problem-making era, the man in my bed case in point. But last night keeps playing on loop in my mind, and if we don’t focus on the most sobering topic I can think of, I might just fixate on how good it felt to be fucked again and again by this man.

I need a distraction.

Memnon must feel the grip of my magic, because I see his throat work almost immediately.

All right, est amage. All right.

He pushes himself up in my bed, leaning against the headboard. I have been trying to establish myself in this city since I arrived.

With that admission comes something else down our bond, something that feels like maybe desire, only this isn’t a lust for flesh but for power. It unnerves me, especially because I’ve felt this sensation from him before, when I was Roxilana.

There are other supernaturals here—sorcerers like me, he says.

Okay, I respond, not sure where this is going.

A family of them—the Fortunas—hold most of the power in this area. On paper, their business, Ensanguine Enterprises, is an investment firm, but in reality, it’s…a shell company? Memnon sounds confused about this, like he’s still figuring out these concepts and terms. It’s a criminal organization masked as a corporate entity. Shortly after I arrived in the Bay Area, he continues, I began working for Ensanguine Enterprises. I don’t know if this is how they approach everyone looking for a job, but I was taken to a mage named Patrick, who works directly with the Fortunas. He tried to bind me.

My heart begins beating fast. He tried to bind you?

What is with everyone trying to bind others?

He believes he did bind me, Memnon says, rubbing his lower lip, his eyes distant. As do the other supernaturals who were in the room. I touched their minds, altered a few memories, and now when Patrick gives a command, I do it.

Inwardly, I cringe. It was bad enough when I was the only person who was ordering Memnon around. To know someone else is demanding things from my mate… An angry, sick feeling stirs up in me.

Can’t this Patrick tell there’s no bond? If I focus hard enough, I can feel the forged bond I made with Memnon.

He hasn’t questioned it yet.

Lingering in the air between us is the possibility that one day this mage, Patrick, might. And despite all the resentment I still hold toward Memnon, a spark of fear blooms in my chest.

Just…be careful, I say.

Memnon’s eyes twinkle. My queen, are you concerned for my well-being?

Yes. I frown, disturbed by my own concern. Finish the rest of your story, I command.

Patrick is the head of security for the Fortuna family, Memnon says. The Fortuna empire is run by the patriarch of the family, Luca, and he’s who Patrick takes direct orders from. But Patrick’s staff runs security for Luca Fortuna as well as his wife, Annalee, a few mistresses, and Luca’s three children—Leonard, Juliana, and Sophia. There are also a few distant relations, though it seems Luca’s siblings and their children are either dead or on the other side of the world.

I barely notice Memnon’s magic unfurl around him. Its presence is so common in my memories—memories of talking in bed just as we’re doing now—that I barely bat an eye at the tendrils as they brush against my skin and weave through my hair.

Because Patrick believes he exerts total control over me through the bond, Memnon continues, he’s had me stand guard outside buildings and suites where Luca Fortuna and his son, Leonard, have illicit dealings. These aren’t normal meetings, Memnon says. People come out of them bloody—if they come out at all.

I feel myself pale. Is that where you found the murdered witches? I ask.

Memnon gives his head a shake. Those bodies come out of the Equinox Building in San Francisco. It’s one of Ensanguine Enterprises’ properties, and the Fortunas tightly control who goes in and who comes out. Patrick’s called in to dispose of those bodies, which he then has me and a few other men deal with. That’s how I’ve gained access to the murdered witches.

What were those witches doing there in the first place?

So you haven’t seen who murdered the witches or how it’s done? I ask.

Memnon shakes his head. The bodies are usually waiting for us in a car in the parking garage.

I try to hide my disappointment. I was hoping for more. I’d figured all-powerful Memnon would know more.

At least I now know the bodies are linked to that family, the Fortunas. That’s not nothing—especially since I have heard of them before. The Fortunas are an old San Francisco supernatural family. All I really know about them is they raise a lot of money for charities and civic causes.

Is there anything else you know about the murders? I ask.