But Mab was the one who’d read me bedtime stories over televideo when the queen had no interest in children. She was the one who’d defended me no matter what I’d done to piss off our mother. My mother was the one who’d laughed at my jokes, and more than once she’d killed a perceived threat to me.
Had they done it out of love? Probably not. But it had felt like love to me at the time, and unwise as it was, I loved them in return. It was strange how family could be both the worst and the most essential part of your life.
But if they had murdered Scarlet...
If my mother and sister had killed the love of my life, they would no longer be my family in any sense of the word. I would turn my back and let them die.
As the door slid open with painful slowness, all along the line, the archers tensed. The werewolves themselves remained vigilant and calm.
Queen Titania stepped out first, and my jaw dropped at the sight of her. After a night with the incubus, the Queen of Spring looked healthier than I’d ever seen her, as if she’d been sucking life energy from the demon rather than the other way around.
She crooked a finger over her shoulder, and a moment later, Barney pulled Scarlet through the door.
Anger bloomed behind my temples as I scanned my soul mate, now bound and gagged. Scarlet wore a robe that matched my mothers, and her exposed skin had long angry red wounds that twisted up her legs like a python. Her hands were tied before her, and another thin strand of silver wrapped around the outside of those ropes. Obviously, my mother wasn’t taking any chances when it came to Scarlet escaping.
The skin ringing Scarlet’s eyes looked puffy and red, but otherwise her face showed no sign of injury. Her green eyes fixed on mine, and her eyelids widened as if she wanted to communicate something. My mother had obviously anticipated this, as a silver chain bound Scarlet’s gag on the outside. It wasn’t touching her skin, but my guess was that it was preventing Scarlet from changing into a wolf and biting through the gag.
My mother’s expression was unreadable when she wanted it to be, and right now, I couldn’t glean a single idea from it. “Macklin, you’re home.”
I forced myself to speak levelly, as she did. “I thought you said this wasn’t my home anymore.”
She shook her head. “I never said that.”
“You exiled me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I did not.”
“There were hundreds of witnesses, Mother.”
The queen shrugged. “Then bring one forward willing to contradict my word.”
Not a single fae guard in the clearing so much as shifted, even though many of them had been at the feast.
Ah, how devoted all these fae are to my mother.
The sardonic thought made me shake my head. These fae did not move a muscle… out of terror. Half of them would have conspired with my sister in her assassination plot if the alternative to Queen Titania wasn’t Mab herself. Not a single fae wanted Mab as the new Queen of Spring. It was probably why my mother kept her as the heir for so many centuries. Mab was the worse alternative waiting in the wings.
Beside me, Aaron raised his hand. “I definitely heard you banish him. Then you ordered everyone to hunt him.”
“So says you.” Titania waved a hand through the air. “Regardless of what did or didn’t happen before, I un-banish you, Macklin. You’re my son. Your place is here.”
For a moment I considered mentioning that my mother had recently declared that my place was in the Autumn court, but there was absolutely no point in engaging with her. Many believed that fae couldn’t lie, and sometimes I wondered if my mother had created that piece of lore just to get away with her brand of manipulation.
A whistle sliced through the air, and I shoved my hand into my pocket, wrapping my fingers around the metal charm sewn within. All along the line, the werewolves did the same.
“They’re attacking!” An archer called out. A bowstring twanged, and an arrow loosed, whistling through the air toward Lance’s heart.
My mother cried, “Halt!”
The arrow froze inches from Lance’s chest. We all stared at it, floating in midair.
“Everyone, move!” The call came from the tree line where Rick the union rep I’d met twenty minutes ago was stationed. When Darrel had contacted the Witch and Wizard Union, Rick had his own ideas about how we could save our Scarlet, prove Mab’s involvement, and banish the demon. We couldn’t see the ring of witches and wizards, but they were there, hiding all around us in the trees, giving us this opportunity to act.
Rick called out again, “The clock is counting down. Three minutes and thirty-nine seconds!”
In one sweeping glance, I took in the clearing where everyone except our line of werewolves turned into living statues. Queen Titania’s lips were frozen open, still yelling the word halt. Barney’s hand was half raised, his eyelids wide. One of the other archers had loosed his bow, the string pushing its arrow a quarter of an inch forward.
Next to the tree, two figures swung down, landing before the frozen Queen.
Nancy and Morte.
They landed in a crouch, both of their silver ponytails swinging. The necromancers darted between the queen and her guard, sprinting into the palace.
I sprang into action, right behind the other wolves. As a group, we raced for the dais. Darrel got there before me, and he immediately grabbed Scarlet and ran into the palace with Aaron, Lance, and the other werewolves behind him. I’d drawn them a map to the main portal, and they would all head straight there.
I didn’t follow. Instead, I crossed my arms and leaned against the great tree, waiting for the time to run out.
“One minute!” Rick yelled.
All around the clearing, mages dropped from trees and sprinted toward us, threading through the frozen fae. They crowded into the tree, their feet thundering across the wood floor as they too headed for the portal.
I counted down in my head.
Five, four, three...
A shudder rippled down the line of archers.
Two, one...
The arrow sped forward and thumped into the trunk of a tree. A second arrow followed it, flying between trunks and into the forest beyond. All around the clearing, the archers straightened from their crouched position, their eyes wide with shock.
“Are my brothers alive?” I asked.
Queen Titania rotated until she saw me standing behind her. Her brows lifted. “They are. Though, I don’t expect them to recover any time soon.” She lifted a shoulder. “It was worth having a night with the incubus, though, even if my guards will be out of commission for a few weeks.”
That was classic Queen Titania logic. Things were only a problem if they inconvenienced her.
Then the implication of her words penetrated.
“You knew?” I hadn’t considered this, but I wasn’t entirely surprised. If someone told me my mother was omniscient, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised, either.
“Not only did I know...” She held out her hands. “Mab confessed to everything within earshot of me. So, your little trick was for naught, though it was very impressive. Clearly, the werewolves have made some formidable allies during this crisis. I don’t suppose they’ll thank me for it. I’m sure the werewolves teamed up with the mages for this, which is a bit ill-advised, as the mages were complicit in the murders.”
“You don’t get to seek revenge on the mages, Mother.” I handed over Morte’s champion challenge.
As she read it, her placid expression cracked, and seething anger glinted from her eyes. As quickly as her fury came, Titania’s expression smoothed into an unreadable mask. “This proves nothing.”
“The Mage Union will gladly bring you further evidence. The only thing is...” I broke off and held up my hands, palms up.
“What?” the queen snapped.
“You’ll have to answer to them, as your sole heir caused the death of five of their members through fraud, unsafe working conditions, and with no intention of compensat
ing for services rendered.”
Queen Titania touched her chest and laughed. “They have no evidence, sweetheart.”
“Ah.” I nodded as it all clicked. “That’s why you scrubbed the crime scene and salted any trace of demonic energy. You knew Mab arranged the demon summoning, and you were cleaning up before the union found out that their mages died in your house.”
“I was protecting my kingdom.”
“Of course you were. Like always, you’re five steps ahead. Unfortunately, this time the Mage Union has an ace up their sleeve. The problem is, Mother, the mages can commune with their dead.”
She crumpled the paper in her fist. “You can tell your friends that I’m ready to move on from this crisis if they are. But if they seek revenge for their dead, we will retaliate tenfold.”
I nodded. “Don’t worry, Mother. I told them what you’d say. They agree to those terms as long as Mab is punished for her crimes within the Spring Court. I told them it would be your pleasure to do so.”
My mother smirked. “I won’t be providing proof of my actions, but you can assure them it will be done.”
“I already have.” I took a deep breath of the forest air. “So, if you were set to release Scarlet, why the big show? You were obviously going to try to get something out of the werewolves.”
“No, my son.” She stepped closer. “If I wanted something from the werewolves, I wouldn’t have gagged their alpha. I have no interest in the lands of the other alphas.”
“So, you wanted something from me?” I pushed away from the tree as annoyance and a strange bit of hurt pulsed through me. “Doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to figure out what. Give up. I am not marrying the Autumn Queen.”
A slow smile spread across Titania’s face. “I must be a little sluggish. What I was going to demand was that you move back home. What an opportunity lost.”
My heart squeezed, and some childish part of me wanted to believe that she actually cared if I was in her life. I was a fucking idiot. But there it was. I cared whether my mother loved me.
“You’re manipulating me,” I said.
She sighed. “Believe what you want. But I already delivered the news to the Autumn Queen. I’ll expect her assassins any day now, thanks to your little werewolf lover.”
“Even if I’d never met Scarlet, I wouldn’t want this life. You must know that.”
Her eyes filled with emotion, and her lip quivered for just a fraction of a second before she turned away. “So be it, Macklin.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lance
The moment Jane and I slipped through the door of the queen’s chambers, Nancy called over from the bed. “If you’re here to kill the princess, I suggest you turn around and walk the other way.”
We stopped just inside the door. We had all escaped through the portal in Titania’s house. On the forest lane at the other side of the portal, werewolves loaded into the cars and vans we’d left waiting. Since she’d come to, Scarlet had told us what happened between her, Mab, the four fae princes, and the queen. Then she had fallen asleep in Darrel’s arms, her wolf pulling her under to heal the remaining silver burns.
The scene in the queen’s rooms was just as Scarlet described it. The princess lay in the middle of the room in a pool of blood. Silver chains piled next to her hand. A large fae with long black hair slumped in the corner, his face ashen and chest heaving.
But now, salt rings and runes covered every inch of the floor. A chain of salt circles led from within the queen’s bedroom to Mab. Each of the rings overlapped their neighbor by an inch.
Morte and Mab moved quickly about the floor, painting with thick brushes. The younger necromancer glanced at his sister every few seconds, copying her effortless brush strokes as she recited instructions to put certain runes in specific locations.
Most of the runes encircled the princess and the salt ring around her, spanning out like the rays of the sun.
“Queen Titania must have figured out that she was dealing with an incubus,” Nancy said as she worked. “She helpfully caught him in a salt circle.”
“According to Scarlet, the queen knew all along,” I said. “She knew Mab arranged for the incubus to be raised, and she let it happen to flush out her enemies.”
“Sounds like the mother and the daughter are cut from the same cloth,” Nancy said.
Morte lifted his head and looked over. “Princess Mab seemed so nice.”
Emotion filled Nancy’s eyes. Her jaw clenched, and she shook her head before turning back to her work. The pair had as much motivation to kill the princess as I did.
“Queen Titania says that Mab will heal from this,” I said as my gaze fell to the princess. Though blood spread around her body, her skin was smooth. A deep purple bruise stretched across her neck. The queen was right. Princess Mab was going to survive having her throat torn out. “She tortured my mate for eight hours.”
“Oh, she did much more than that to your mate,” Nancy said. Reaching for her toolbelt, the mage pulled a short cylinder from a holster. With a flick of her wrist, the metal instrument grew to a stick five feet in length. Nancy uncorked a bottle and rubbed some liquid up the length of the stick.
“Is that holy water?” Jane asked, speaking up for the first time as she pressed into the wall beside me. She watched the necromancer intently, more interested than I’d ever seen her.
Nancy’s eyes softened. “That and a few other things.” Crossing along the sigils, Nancy stopped by the foot of the queen’s massive bed and stuck her long pole in the center of the salt circle. From there, she dragged the pole along the floor. In the center of where the salt circle met its neighbor, she interrupted the salt line. She did the same through each until she reached the ring around Mab. That one she left intact.
A rustling came from the bedroom, and then a flash of gray blew through the salt circles before colliding with an invisible force and falling back.
“Close the circle,” Nancy said.
Morte tossed salt on the area that Nancy had recently pulled her stick through. A giant figure rose. It had to be ten feet tall and built like a Roman god. I had seen Darrel’s detailed illustrations, but nothing had prepared me for the massive creature before me. Unlike the illustration, the incubus now possessed features—a strong nose and eyes that were pure black from one corner to the other. He dropped to all fours at the center of the circle, casting his gaze between Nancy, Morte, and Mab.
“No laws. No earthly masters,” the incubus hissed.
“A deal is a deal, demon.” Nancy pointed toward Mab. “I found your lawmaker and earthly master.” The necromancer threw a crudely formed bronze bracelet into the center of the circle.
“Is that from the spike?” I asked as I leaned in a little.
“It’s a spike broken off the gates of hell. The enemy of my enemy . . .” Nancy whispered as she crouched down.
The incubus laid his hand over the metal. Under the demon’s long fingers, the bracelet glowed a dull crimson. He pulled his hand away and locked gazes with Nancy. “The boy lives,” he hissed.
Nancy laid a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “He knows.”
Morte gulped. Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes. Clearing his throat, he whispered, “I release you, demon.”
One moment the massive demon huddled before us, and the next, only an empty circle remained. Nancy took out a couple bottles and splashed liquid throughout the room. Both she and Morte chanted for about five minutes, and then Nancy stepped into the salt ring.
The bracelet waited in the center, glowing red. She crouched and picked it up by its edge. Turning, she locked eyes with me. Holding up the bracelet, she said, “You can look through if you want.”
“What is it?” I asked, not wanting to get any closer to that thing.
She nodded to the bracelet. “This is what happens when a necromancer and a demon team up to bring pain down on someone who's wronged us. At the club, the demon told me that if I could bring
him his earthly master, he’d spare my brother. I can’t kill her, and I won’t let you. It goes against my beliefs. But I’m giving you this satisfaction. If you look through this circle, you’ll know exactly what Princess Mab see around her for the rest of her immortal life. The offer ends in ten seconds. Once I put this bracelet onto the princess’s wrist, it’s never coming off.”
After a steadying breath, I leaned in and peered through the bracelet. Through the circlet, I saw the room, but it was filled with people. They weren’t standing but floating. Their faces were gaunt and eyes dark holes. Hundreds of them reached for the sleeping princess, their hands clawing at her face and clothing.
I yanked back. “The fuck?”
“That’s why you never betray a necromancer… Or her baby brother,” Nancy said. “Especially if you’ve murdered hundreds of people over the centuries.”
Stepping away, she turned to Mab. Carefully, Nancy crouched and lifted the princess’s wrist. She slid the bracelet on and stood.
Mab moaned but didn’t wake.
Nancy swung an arm around Morte’s shoulder. “We’re done here. You want to walk out together?”
“You’re not going to wake her?” I asked.
The bruising on Mab’s neck had already faded to a pale gray.
“Nah.” Nancy pulled out a cigar, shoved it in her mouth and fiddled on her toolbelt for a lighter. After taking a few puffs, the necromancer flicked ash onto the queen’s floor. “Let her enjoy her last few minutes of peace. You think we’ll have to fight our way out?”
“Hopefully not,” I told her. “Scarlet said the queen knew you’d be coming to release the incubus.”
Nancy nodded toward the fae in the corner. “That guy clearly lost a good quantity of his lifeforce before the queen tired of the demon.”
“He and three other fae. The queen sacrificed others so she could sleep with it.”
“That is, unfortunately, not a new trick.” Nancy sucked on her cigar while pulling a few bottles from her belt. “I’ll be one minute, and then we can all walk out together.”
Filthy Fae: A Dirty Alphas Novel (Heartland Forest Book 2) Page 27
