Courts and Cabals 2 by G.S. D'Moore (best novel books to read .txt) 📕

joke. I had to put my back into it to get it closed behind us. On the other side was a plain antechamber; a barrier between the leaders of the cabal and the rest of the world. It made sense. You didn’t stick your bedroom right next to the front door. That would make it super easy for someone to come in and lop off your head.

The antechamber was all cheap, removable furniture and standard earth-tone walls. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought I’d just entered my friendly, neighborhood dentist’s office. The only thing remarkable was the security center opposite the heavy door. I noticed the steel-reinforced walls, bullet-proof, enchanted, glass, and computer terminal showing cameras watching everyone and everything that could possibly pose a threat.

At the moment, one of the guards – decked out in a black suit with the inverted pyramid insignia of the Venetian Cabal stitched over his left breast – watched the monitors for the front entrance of Caesars. The cops were still busy talking to the driver, the surprised passengers of the decoy SUV, and trading insults with the biker gang. The cameras were zooming in on and cataloguing faces, running them against facial recognition, and saving them in the cabal’s database. If there were any undercover cops in the group, their cover had just been blown.

A light pressure on the inside of my elbow steered me past the security center toward another heavy door. This door was made of heavy wood, and probably metal underneath. It gave the appearance that you were about to enter a place of power . . . literally.

Whatever whammy Ser Fredrick’s Fae mojo gave me, it was making me more sensitive to magic. This door was enchanted. I didn’t know how I knew that, but my gut screamed at me not to touch it. Lilith walked right on up to it and pushed it open with ease.

I fought back the grin on my face. It never ceased to amaze me that she was a badass. She nodded to the pair of guards in the booth, and closed the door behind us.

“We’ll make sure you get proper access to everything later today. You’ll get a physical ID card that will grant you access into any of the human areas, along with most of the secure cabal spaces; but places like the inner sanctum require a magical identification. We have a mage on staff who can add you to the list of authorized personnel. I’ll insist on it.” From the way she phrased it, this wasn’t someplace that everyone had access to.

She pulled herself a little closer to me as we walked into a large, open space. She was awfully cuddly, and after the surprise hug in the parking garage, I was beginning to wonder if something was up. My experiences over the last few months had left me a tad paranoid.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught motion. Lilith was absentmindedly winding her hair around her finger. That brought me back to a hospital room a lifetime ago. I’d just killed Chloe, and Lilith knew Aveena was going to charge me with murder under the covenants. She’d been playing with her hair just like that.

“She’s nervous,” I pulled out the information I’d stored away for later.

“It’s going to be okay,” the words came to me, and I meant them. This wasn’t like with Aden and not knowing what to say about Xander. I really meant that everything was going to be fine.

She looked up at me, her emerald eyes dazzling, and our eyes locked for a second. Slowly I lowered my face to hers and our lips met. It was soft and tender. Our tongues stayed in our mouths. It was just a quick peck, but I felt the wind knocked out of me. I pulled back first, afraid of the feelings rampaging in my gut. Our eyes met again, and she smiled a brilliant, gorgeous smile. It made me a little week in the knees, but my cock was hard enough I could use it as a third leg if necessary.

The kiss was so sweet and innocent, I didn’t even think about my raging hard on until Dani coughed uncomfortably behind us. We were blocking the way. The whole interaction took less than ten second.

“Everything is going to be fine,” I was talking more to myself than Lilith now. “I’m a people person,” I felt confident, and a little cocky. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Dani shouldered me aside. “Did you really just say that?” she walked deeper into the massive room muttering under her breath.

If I had a bird’s eye view of the space, it was probably some geometric shape, but all I saw were angled walls and doors leading off to gods knew where. The room met my expectations. In the air around me, I could feel the power of a cabal feared across the globe and possessing enough resources to own entire countries.

Think roman baths without the baths. The walls were comprised of expensive tiles, the floor marble, veins of gold and silver spread through it like it was a living organism. I felt like I’d ruin the resale value of the place just by walking through.

“This one’s my favorite,” Dani stopped between thick Greek columns that were interspaced around the room.

Lilith and I went to join her, and the sight brought me to a sudden halt. It was a battlefield, vividly described in a tiled mosaic; the greens depicting a wild field were intense, and contrasted with the vibrant reds of the vanquished. Creatures of all sorts lay dead around a small rise where a fierce looking woman on the back of a white, winged horse stood victorious.

“I’ll tell you about the mural another time,” Lilith’s hand on my elbow pulled me away from the