Sinner (Starlight Book 3) Read online

  SINNER

  STARLIGHT, Book 3

  D.N. HOXA

  Copyright © 2017 by D.N. Hoxa

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  1

  The rain knocking on the window of my hotel room only worsened my bad mood. In fact, ever since I actually killed a Council member by suffocating him with water, I hadn’t been able to be able to relax in its presence anymore. Instead, whenever I needed some time off, I touched the sun-shaped necklace resting on my chest. The beautiful jewelry looked completely harmless, but it was anything but. It was Illyon, the White Book of Wisdom, the source of all supernatural power on Earth and beyond.

  A book that claimed I was soulless—nothing but a vessel.

  I wished I could bring myself to talk to someone about it. Anyone. Aaron. But I hadn’t seen him in the past two days since he left for the Base with his father’s body. Even if he were here, I doubted I would be able to utter the words. They hurt too much. But if I kept them to myself for the rest of eternity, who knows? Maybe they’d become part of me and the pain wouldn’t bother me. Much.

  A knock on the door before it opened. I felt Arturo before I saw him. He looked freshly showered and shaved.

  “I’m ready,” he said with a nod.

  I took the jacket from my bed without another glance his way and walked out the door. He followed.

  I couldn't wait to get to Kyle. He called at six a.m. and told me he had something interesting to show me. It had been two days already, and I had run out of patience the second Aaron left. I had to stay behind.

  “Something occurred to me last night,” Arturo said when we hopped into a cab. “Kai was gone for a week last year in November, too. I remember it because it was strange. She never left the Castle before.”

  A shiver ran down my body at the mentioning of the person I had considered the only friend in my glorious years of being a murderer. So many thoughts crossed my mind for a second, but none of them clicked.

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough.” No point in trying to figure it out now.

  I had put all of my hope on Kyle, my human computer genius/hacker. If there was someone who could dig in information without being noticed and figure out exactly what the victims were doing before they got killed, it was him.

  “You know what else is strange to me? Seeing you like this,” Arturo said, a sad smile on his face.

  “Tell me about it,” I mumbled. I wasn’t used to seeing myself like that, neither.

  “You should relax a little. Maybe we can have lunch after this meeting. Together. My treat.”

  “Not hungry.” Wasn’t trying to be rude, just really wasn’t hungry. And I definitely didn’t want to have lunch with Arturo because I still didn’t completely trust him. And, considering our history, I felt awkward being in his company.

  “What about dinner?”

  “Dinner?” I raised a brow at him in question.

  “Yes, dinner. A date.” Oh, shit. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so stressed out.

  “Why do you want to have a dinner date with me?” I asked because I couldn’t find a good enough reason.

  “You know why.” Arturo looked away from me.

  I crossed my arms in front of my chest and ignored the cab driver who was staring at us from the rearview mirror. “I really don’t.”

  “You don’t?” I almost rolled my eyes. “Well, because it has been a while since I saw you and—”

  I wanted to laugh again. The guy only wanted to get laid! I didn’t let him finish.

  “Look, Arturo, whatever happened between us before I left the Council is history. I thought you had that clear from day one. You and I had what we had, but nothing like that is going to happen again. Ever.” I held his eyes to tell him just how serious I was and to see realization sink in.

  “What? No! I don’t want to sleep with you, Star,” he said, and I smiled because he was a damn good actor, no doubt about that.

  “You don’t?” My raised brows told him I wasn’t buying it.

  “Well, I do, of course I do, but that’s not why I want to take you out. I just want to talk to you. It’s been a while since we talked and I…I missed you.” I stared at him for a couple of seconds in confusion.

  “Why do you miss talking to me?” My brows were narrowed because he’d lost me. I really had no idea why he would want to talk to me if we weren’t in bed while doing it. And if we were to be totally honest, there hadn’t been that much talking between us.

  “Because,” he said and laughed dryly. “Why do you think I’ve been with you through all this time?”

  “’Cuz people like sex?” Wasn’t that obvious?

  He shook his head again. “I like sex, too, but I like you, bella. The only reason I even had the relationship I had with you was because I liked you from the very beginning.”

  Holy hell. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Shit. All this time I was so sure that what we had was strictly physical. If I’d known that he was forming attachments, I would’ve cut it off long ago.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I really, really didn’t need this.

  “Listen, Arturo, I’m sorry that you—” I started to say but he didn’t let me.

  “I know you don’t feel as strongly for me,” he said. “And I’m not asking you to. I’m just asking you to give me a chance to try and maybe even change your mind,” he finished, touching my cheek with his fingertips.

  I moved away immediately. All I could think about was Aaron. His face was painted with permanent ink in my mind. All of a sudden, everything Arturo had done in the past two days came back to me. He’d kept bringing coffee to my room, he kept asking me how I felt or if I needed anything, he kept pushing me to eat—so much attention that at some point, I thought he’d made a permanent residence out of my doorstep. But I just thought he was doing that because he wanted my help.

  “I’m sorry, Arturo. I had no idea how you felt, but I’m going to be honest and tell you that I don’t feel the same way. Never have, and I probably never will.” Ouch. That sucked to say—imagine how badly it sucked to actually hear it. But everybody deserved to know if a person didn’t return their feelings. And I was really trying to switch sides here.

  “I know you don’t,” Arturo said with a determined nod. “I just want you to let me prove all I feel about you. Just…let’s go for dinner tonight. As friends—not a date. I really just want to talk to you.”

  I almost felt sorry for him—and then I remembered who he was—a Nephil, one of the strongest I’d ever met, and he knew exactly how to get away with most anything he wanted. I wasn’t going to fall into such an obvious trap.

  “Sorry, Arturo. It’s not going to happen,” I said and sighed in relief when I saw that we’d arrived.

  “In that case, I will break the door of your hotel room and bring food with me. It’s essentially the same thing,” Arturo said after we walked out of the cab a block away from Kyle’s place. “But really. I promise
, we’ll just be two friends enjoying a nice meal. You really need it, you know.”

  I knew I needed a nice meal. I also needed to get out of my room. I just didn’t want to. And when I didn’t bother to reply anymore, Arturo nodded. “I’ll take that as a yes.” I just smiled sadly. What else was I going to do, fight him?

  When we reached Kyle’s building apartment, I stopped Arturo by his arm.

  “I need to go in there alone,” I said, and after a second of confusion, realization registered in his face. “It’s nothing personal.” And it really wasn’t.

  I didn’t wait for Arturo’s reply. He’d be fine waiting for me down there. I took the stairs two at a time and knocked on Kyle’s white door, mad with impatience. “It’s me!”

  A second later, the many locks of the door turned and Kyle appeared in front of me. He left me to lock up this time. Probably because I was on my own.

  “At least a hundred supernatural freaks get together on the thirteenth of November, every year. And I’m talking decades,” Kyle started before I even entered his room. He dropped on his swivel chair and turned to me with a bunch of files in his hands. The room was exactly like it had been last time. I pushed dirty clothes away again and sat on his bed, all ears.

  “They’ve met in Dakota for the past three years, and each time at the same hotel.” He handed me a file with the info on the hotel he was talking about. “The event is registered as the SKO Conference. They book their biggest conference room and the staff isn’t allowed even at the entrance doors.”

  “A hundred?” I asked to double check.

  “At least. I was able to gather some footage from last year’s meeting. The years before are all deleted. I think the dead sups were there last year, but I’m not sure.”

  My heart picked up the beating as I stepped in front of the monitor in the middle of Kyle’s table, and he prepared the video.

  “We can’t see the inside but we have a perfect view of the entrance. This is the best I could find.” He started to press play on his keyboard but thought better of it. He searched the pile of papers next to the monitor and handed me another list. “Names of all the people who attended. They’re probably fake, but that’s why I got the footage.”

  “Play it.” I looked at the list in my hands for only a second. They were definitely not real names. No one in their right minds would name their children or themselves Cactus Cow.

  So Kyle played the video.

  The screen showed a hallway with a staircase on one side and wide, double doors on the other. An almost hidden door that said Staff Only was behind the stairs, but other than that, there was nothing there. I was a second away from complaining about wasting time, staring at an empty hallway when people started to arrive.

  A group of four came in first. They had identical black raincoats on and were walking with their heads down.

  “Can you zoom in on their faces?” I asked Kyle and without a word, he did. They were definitely sups. You could always tell by the way they held their shoulders in a very superior way—a lot different from most humans. Two men and two women. I didn’t recognize any of them.

  Kyle stood up and offered me his chair. I took it, never once looking away from the screen.

  Minutes later, bigger groups arrived. I zoomed in on all of their faces but recognized only a few. All of them were Council sups. I even saw the warlock who was right under Seriel—the witch that was Samayan’s right hand. They all walked fast and disappeared inside the door of the conference room without so much as a whisper to another. I was dying to see inside.

  It didn’t take long for the victims to arrive, too. Fairies. Two women and a man. It was hard to recognize them without all the blood I'd seen in the pictures, but I was a hundred percent sure it was them. Kyle was right. Soon enough, every victim I’d seen the pictures of appeared, walked fast with their heads down, and then disappeared inside.

  “What was the name of the conference?” I asked Kyle who was standing behind me, elbows resting on the back of his chair.

  “The SKO. I researched everywhere, but I couldn’t find the meaning of it. Does it ring a bell?” he asked and I flinched.

  “I don’t know. It sounds familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it,” I said, squeezing my brain to try and remember where I had seen those initials before, because I was sure I had.

  And then I froze.

  The screen showed a man descending the stairs much slower than the others. He was the only one who didn’t seem to be in a hurry, like he couldn’t care less about what was happening behind those double doors. He kept his head down, but I'd have known his figure anywhere.

  Samuel Belmont. Uncle Sam. The man who’d betrayed me and my family.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” I thought out loud and leaned in closer to the screen as if that was going to enable to me to see better. It was definitely Uncle Sam. My fingers were curled in fists and my feet itched to get up right then and go to him.

  “You know him?” Kyle asked, surprised. I just nodded.

  “Holy shit! He’s like my hero, man! Do you know that he was the one who broke down the entire system of Jeremiah Wesley? And that guy had the most complicated system I’ve ever come across,” Kyle said, jumping in place from excitement.

  “Did you know that I killed Mr. Wesley?”

  Kyle’s excitement was cut off immediately. I froze the picture and analyzed it. He looked just like an ordinary guy going about his business. When I found Illyon in New Mexico, I was almost glad that I wouldn’t need to see the man. He’d betrayed me, yes, but I didn’t want to kill him. And what if he left me no other choice?

  Now, it looked like I was going to have to pay him a visit, anyway.

  “He was a sonovabitch, anyway,” Kyle finally said with a shrug, and it took me a second to remember who he was talking about.

  Jeremiah Wesley—the owner of one of the largest technology companies in the world and a part Unseelie fey. He was a very powerful and a well protected man. What I didn’t know when I killed him a year ago was that he was actually helping the good guys. A shiver ran down my body. I'd cut out more than a few financial resources for the Red Rebel.

  “Here’s something interesting,” Kyle said and pushed the chair—with me still in it—to the side and took one of his keyboards in his hands. Seconds later, the screen next to Sam’s frozen picture started to show the same video we’d just watched.

  “We already saw this,” I said.

  “Just hold on,” he said and started to play the video in slow motion. I waited, looking at the sups I'd already seen enter the conference room of the hotel. Then the picture froze. “There.” Kyle pointed at the half-hidden door across from the conference room, but I couldn’t see anything.

  “What?” I moved my chair closer to the screen.

  Kyle zoomed in and then did something else on the keyboard that made the picture brighter. Finally, I could make out a face peeking from the barely opened door.

  “Now…” Kyle said and pressed play again. The video continued in slow motion. Whoever was behind the door, he was definitely spying on the sups. He stood there, unmoving for at least ten minutes, his eyes analyzing every single detail.

  Then, the door opened a tiny bit more. The person dropped on his knees and threw something on the floor, straight inside the conference room. It looked like a small white rock, but I couldn’t see it clearly.

  “I can’t figure what it is. I’ve zoomed in, but it flies too fast and the video quality is shit,” Kyle said.

  But then my breath caught in my throat.

  The person slowly stood up and stared ahead for a second. But it wasn’t a he.

  Kai had the same green cape on that she did the night I first met her. She then turned around, closed the door, and didn’t come back.

  “Fucking hell…” I breathed, blinking fast to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. It was Kai. I knew her face, even from a distance. The picture of th
e footage was crap, but it was her. She was spying on the sups, so she must’ve been the one who told the Council about who was there. But what the hell were the sups doing in that room?

  I was too nervous to sit so I started to pace around the room. Something wasn’t adding up. If Kai was spying and giving names to the Council, then why weren’t they all dead? Why was Sam still alive?

  Why were only a few of them selected as targets?

  “I got something else,” Kyle said, bringing me back to the present. “I’ve managed to contact a hotel staff member. She asked for a shitload of money, but she was able to tell me something you might find interesting.”

  “Which is?” I couldn’t make him speak fast enough.

  “The person who always sits at the head of room is someone you will probably know as Amber Hawk.”

  “Amber Hawk?” What the hell? “How the hell do you know? How would she know?”

  “Because I don’t know any other supernatural freak with snow white hair cut short and a tear-shaped blood red tattoo on her cheek. Do you?” he asked me, raising his brows.

  “Shit.” My eyes squeezed shut tightly. Amber was one of Karina’s witches, and Karina was the Council member with long, snow-white hair, gleaming red eyes, pale skin and black painted lips. She was a strong witch—almost as strong as Seriel. Her looks alone could send you running. I found it hard to believe that Amber, one of Karina’s favorites, could go behind her back unnoticed. Karina’s group was a bunch of witches, all female, who did scary rituals and sacrificed animals and stuff. I never took them seriously. But the few times I met Amber, she had seemed like a quiet woman with eyes sharp like a hawk’s, hence the name.

  “There are also others that sit beside her. Two more men,” Kyle said, interrupting my thoughts again.