by Ciara Graves
“And I thought I told you to stay out of Otherworld.”
“I tried, but it seemed certain people had other plans.”
Macron’s relief at seeing me was gone in a blink, replaced by rage. “Which one did it? Which one dragged you into this mess?”
“I did,” Marlie admitted. “You said to find her, so I did.”
“Find her. Yes. But not bring her here. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Has Rudarius seen you yet? Tell me he hasn’t.”
“He has,” Draven answered for my brother. “He knows she’s here.”
Macron hung his head, looking much older than he had when he walked out on me. “This is wrong. All wrong. We have to get you away from here before it’s too late.”
“Too late?” Draven looked to Shane and Lark. “Rudarius’s forces. Where are they?”
“Closing in. We barely managed to stay ahead of them.”
“How did you get them out of the stronghold?”
Shane cringed at Draven’s question. “Let’s just say we left a trail of bodies in our wake. He has the mages chained up to some weird totem,” he went on in a rush. “And they’re not the only ones.”
“What do you mean?” I asked this time, glancing toward the woman.
“Seers, witches, anyone with magic. He’s using them to charge some sort of weapon.”
“Awesome. That’s just awesome.” Why couldn’t anything be simple?
Willow had made her way toward us. “This weapon. Do you know what it will do?’
“No, afraid we couldn’t stick around to find out.” Shane shuddered. “What we saw in those dungeons, I’ve never seen so many beings in pain. You two,” he said, his gaze flickering from me to Draven, “how did you live through that?”
I wanted to say I didn’t, not fully. The recent vision of my possible future plagued me, and a headache throbbed behind my eyes. I wasn’t sure how much crap I could take being dumped on us, but there were so many questions that needed to be answered.
“General Avo,” Queen Willow called, and the fae hurried to her side. “See every soldier is prepared for battle. Alert those outside the safety of the walls that they need to take shelter immediately. I want every battle station well-supplied. Ensure the watches are set. I do not want to be caught off-guard when the enemy arrives.”
Avo bowed and sprinted out of the hall.
“As for the rest of you,” Willow said, motioning to Karina, Raine, and Mina, “you will remain out of the way. Guards? See them to our guest chambers. Guarantee they do not leave.”
“You can’t hold us prisoner,” Raine shouted. “You have no right.”
“She may not,” the old fae woman said as she got to her feet with Shane’s help. “But I do. As the matriarch of this family, I give Queen Willow permission to place you both under house arrest.”
“Mother, you can’t,” Karina argued, and I blanched. My suspicions had been correct. This was Karina’s mother.
My grandmother.
“The night she was born, I told you both she would need special care and instead you went against my words and gave her up.”
“They stole her away from us.”
“One of these days, you will grow tired of lying,” the woman said sounding bored. “Or perhaps you no longer know the difference. You ordered them to disappear after you found out I checked on her. I checked on her as her own mother should have done. You two do not deserve to rule over any kingdom.”
“I am the queen. You have no authority over me, none,” Karina ranted.
Willow waved at the guards, and they dragged my mother from the hall, screaming.
Raine was taken out behind her, a look of shock on his face at what was happening.
Mina merely rolled her eyes and stomped out without any help from the guards.
Part of me was still trying to catch up to our current situation while the other was cheering at having them locked away, even if it was only for a little while.
“Now then, I think we all need to sit down together and have a nice chat,” Willow suggested. “Draven, is that correct?”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“I would like to know every detail you can tell us about Rudarius. We’ll take this conversation to a more comfortable venue. I’ll have a healer sent for, as well.”
Willow led the way out of the hall through a side door, King Briar at her side.
Draven and I exchanged a look, then did the only thing we could.
We followed. With the rest of our strange party bringing up the rear.
Rain pattered against the windows as the conversation finally came a stop.
For the last four hours, longer probably, Draven and I had told Willow and Briar everything we knew about Rudarius.
It started with Draven relating the details of what the vampire planned for his war, then going on to explain what he’d done to me. What he’d actually done to me.
Since Briar saw so much of my own past, they weren’t as shocked to hear the truth of Rudarius being my master.
I held my breath when Briar spoke of his visions, praying he would keep what he showed me to himself.
He did, but Draven’s anxiety grew as he sat by my side.
I knew I couldn’t hide the truth from him forever.
But Rudarius was only half the conversation.
The old fae, Helena, was indeed our grandmother and a seer.
She and Macron explained what they had seen during their years of captivity.
All this time, I assumed Macron was the first to find out I’d been captured.
How wrong I’d been.
Helena had searched for me when she learned my parents paid the guards to take me away. To make me disappear. They feared the reports about my magic being dark.
Helena had been right on my tail when Rudarius kidnapped me. Took her a year to realize he had me in his stronghold, but not being Queen of the Lower Kingdom, she couldn’t order the soldiers to rescue me.
No one listened to her cries for help. Karina convinced everyone she was merely a seer gone mad at the loss of her granddaughter. The only one who believed her was Macron. Before he was able to help her, however, she went after me herself and was captured. She had been in the same dungeon as me, listening to my screams as Rudarius attempted, again and again, to turn me.
She was there the day he broke me.
The day he tore out my wings.
I ground my teeth, too uneasy to sit any longer and stalked to the windows.
The storm had rolled in a while ago, the rain picking up to a full downpour. I heard shuffling behind me, then Macron’s reflection appeared next to mine.
“I can’t say enough how sorry I am for leaving you when I did,” he said quietly, hands clasped behind his back, brow furrowed with worry. “I understand if you cannot forgive me.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You saved me. My family only ever feared me. Maybe they were right to do so.” Images of that cursed vision hit me again, and I winced, pinching the bridge of my nose. Rudarius was not the only villain in this tale. The notion of killing Karina and Raine hadn’t lessened at all, and after seeing what I could do if I drank blood, it was tempting to do it again, so I could end them. I wanted them out of my life for good. “I’m not good, Macron,” I whispered, knowing if Draven wanted to, he’d be able to hear us. I had to be careful what I said.
“I know,” he replied, startling me. “I was never one to lie to you.”
I started to say he did, then clamped my lips shut. He hadn’t lied. The rings he gave me did come from my mother. He said I was powerful, and I was. “How did you get my rings?” I asked, curious. The way wasn’t important, but after learning all my parents did to try and forget about me, I had to know.
“After I learned where you were and made a plan to get you out, I went to your parents.” His tone deepened, and he shook with anger. “I begged for them to send their soldiers, but they refused. Told me to get out. And I left, but not after demanding your mo
ther hand over your birthright.”
At his words, I held up my left hand, fingers burned and irritated around the rings. “If they’re my birthright, why are they hurting me?”
“In the human world, you had no real connection to fae magic, not as you do here. The magic of your people is reacting negatively to the vampire within you.”
“Great, so I can’t keep using them here or what? They’ll kill me?” I meant it to be a joke, but when Macron said nothing, I groaned. “Seriously? How am I supposed to fight Rudarius then?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I wish I did. With the mage houses destroyed, I’m afraid a great wealth of knowledge is cut off from us.” His eyes met mine in our reflections, and a weight fell painfully on my shoulders. “You are the only one of your kind. There is so much we don’t know about you or what you’re capable of, and sadly with Rudarius bearing down on us, there’s no time to figure it all out.”
“We’re winging it? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“It’s what we have to do for now.”
In the couple of years I was with Macron, he always had a plan, a method to his madness. Mages, he told me once, were prepared for every situation. Turned out he was wrong about that little fact. How could any mage have prepared for what I was or what I would turn out to be? He squeezed my arm to reassure me we’d get through this mess, but all it did was remind me how screwed we all were.
He walked away, and I was content to be alone with my darkening thoughts when Draven’s arms slipped around my waist. Leaning back into the comfort of his body came so naturally to me, I shut my eyes and let him simply hold me.
“Sounds like he’s as lost as we are,” he whispered after a while.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“He’s right, though, we’ll get through this one way or another.”
“The collateral damage is going to be high.” There’d been so many dead on that field from both sides. How many of them fell at my hands?
“Whatever’s going on in your mind, you can tell me.”
“Not this.” I shut my eyes, willing the horrible images to leave me alone, but they stayed, as if trying to break me down.
I’d never missed my cottage in Madwich so much before. Or Lexi. I missed the simple criminals I chased after, getting paid, and going home at night. Now, I was in the middle of a war, while the deadliest vampire alive searched for me. Wanted me. Hunted me. I shivered, and Draven’s arms held me securely.
“No matter what happens,” I whispered absently.
Draven stiffened. “What did you see?”
I shook my head, trying to think of something, anything, to convince him he couldn’t know.
Willow and Macron were discussing plans of action back at the table. We should join them, and as I turned in Draven’s arms to tell him so, a sharp stabbing erupted behind my eyes.
I gasped, slamming my hand to my forehead to try and make it go away. When it struck again, my knees gave out, and Draven went down to the floor with me.
“Seneca? What’s wrong?”
“Gah!” I fell into his chest, unable to get the words out.
Seneca… come to me, Seneca…
“Rudarius,” I rasped. “He’s here.”
“What? That’s not possible,” Willow argued. “The watch would have alerted us.”
Seneca, you can’t run from me forever. You are mine. Come to me now. Do it.
My limbs jerked to follow his order, but Draven must’ve caught on to what was happening inside my messed-up head. He pinned me to his body, yelling for Shane to grab my legs and keep me there.
Rudarius’s orders turned into a chant that went on and on inside my head.
I screamed, fighting to get him out, and at the same time, my body struggled to get up and go to my master. Every inch of my skin burned as if on fire.
Amid the chaos, one clear thought struck me.
“Knock me out,” I yelled.
“What? No, you can fight him.” Draven dodged my fist when freed it and nearly clocked him in the jaw. “You’re strong. Fight him.”
“I can’t.” The stabbing coursed from my head to my heart. My back arched off the floor. I shrieked until I was hoarse.
Rudarius’s mad cackle resounded in my mind and the image of me fully turned, of giving into the evil growing inside me filled my vision.
“Do it.”
“Shit,” Draven growled right as his fist collided with my face.
Chapter 13
Draven
Tied up in a chair, Seneca growled. Even unconscious, she fought to answer Rudarius’s summons.
Knocking her out had not been part of my plan, but she’d given me no choice. Her head hung, though her lips twitched every few seconds while her wrists twisted, working to get free.
“If he is here, we can’t see him,” Avo reported as he entered the room, four soldiers behind him.
“No sign of any vampires approaching from any direction?” Willow asked.
“None, Queen.”
“He’s here,” I assured them all. “I can feel it.”
Rudarius used the cover of the storm to move his army in.
The watch might not be able to find him, but there was no doubt in my mind he was out there, waiting to make his move. After hearing Macron and Helena’s report on the totem Rudarius erected in the heart of his stronghold, whatever plans Rudarius had for Otherworld were nothing like what he told me. He’d kept me in the dark, as though he knew I would turn on him. I should’ve played the part better, but then where would I be? Where would Seneca be? She snarled again then her whole body stilled.
“Seneca?” I tapped her cheeks.
No response.
Then I tapped harder when there was no response. My fingers slipped to her neck. “Her pulse is faint, too faint.” I grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “Come on. Don’t do this to me. Wake up.”
Her sudden gasp made me jump and then I worked on untying her hands. “Draven, he’s coming,” she whispered, frantically pulling on the ropes. “We have to get out of here.”
“You mean he’s here with his army?” Willow corrected.
“No.” She got to her feet and sprinted to the window. “He’s here for something else. Something other than just your kingdom.”
“What do you—”
Willow’s words cut off when the earth shook.
We were thrown to the floor.
I expected to see fireballs falling from the sky again as Rudarius unleashed the full power of his rings and army against the High Kingdom’s defenses, but there was only lightning from the storm.
A second tremor made me reach for Seneca’s hand. I pulled her closer. If he was crazy enough to attack on his own, maybe now was our chance.
“He’s come for you,” Macron snapped. “You must go. Now.”
“No, I’m not leaving you here.”
“He’s going with you.” Willow exchanged a look with Briar, who nodded solemnly. “There is no time to argue.”
“He’ll just follow us through the Veil.”
“No, he won’t,” she said to me. “We have our ways to stop him. For a time, at least.”
“You’re going to seal off Otherworld? How?” Seneca asked in disbelief. “You’re not strong enough.”
“We are not, but all of us together can. Macron, can you make a portal or not?”
He rubbed his forehead roughly. “I can, but as one of the last free mages, I highly advise against sending me away.”
“Noted,” Willow replied with a wink. “Avo, I need you to gather the royals and bring them to the great hall. Avo, did you hear me?”
The man seemed to have gone in shock. Willow waved her hand in front of his face.
He pointed past her toward the window. “That light. What is that?”
We turned.
A glowing violet light pulsed along the horizon.
Every few minutes, it stretched up into the sky and grew larger.
Th
e hair on my arms rose as an electrical charge filled the air.
Seneca flinched, shaking out her left hand. When she did it a second time, she held it out before her, focused on her rings. When the violet light grew again, seeming to stretch toward us, the stones on her rings gave off a vibrant violet hue.
She gasped as sparks burned her fingers.
“We have to go,” Macron said, suddenly. “Quickly.”
“We’re staying.” Willow repeated her previous order to Avo who immediately left the room.
“What’s happening?” Seneca asked, wincing when the sparks crackled angrily, striking her hand. “Macron?”
“It’s the totem,” Helena answered for him.
He crouched on the floor, drawing symbols against the stones with his fingers. The room filled with his magic.
“Rudarius is using it to channel the fae rings,” Helena explained.
“We have to stop him.” The violet light pulsed on the heel of my words.
This time, the violet covered the palace.
The windows shattered and something heavy thudded to the floor nearby.
Seneca rolled away from me during the blast to avoid falling glass.
I stretched out my hand, searching for her when she screamed.
The sound cut off suddenly.
When I found my footing, I encountered a scene from a nightmare.
Rudarius stood near the far wall, rain splashing in around his feet. In his grasp was Seneca. He bared his fangs and ran them along her neck.
I snarled. “Let her go.”
“And why would I do that? She was mine before she was ever yours. Amusing, how you found her for me,” he said with a wicked sneer as he buried his face in Seneca’s red hair. “Even more amusing how much my taking her will hurt you.”
I took a step forward, but he clicked his tongue. A stake was in his hand, aimed at the tender flesh under Seneca’s chin.
The point broke the skin. Blood trickled down onto his hand. She bared her fangs, hissing, until he dug the point in deeper.
“Hush now, my pet.”
“I am not your pet,” she seethed.
