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“I’m completely fucking confused.” Chayton rubs at his temples. “Can someone please explain to me fully what the hell is going on.”

Tech steps forward. “Michaela and Markis were once a powerhouse couple. They spent the entirety of their relationship looking for a fey key.”

“And what are fey keys?” Zyion asks.

“Me,” Liz says. “Apparently, back when fey still roamed the land, they had a thing for humans. They were dropping their fey jiz in lots of humans, causing an up rise in human-fey offspring.”

“Exactly,” Tech agrees. “The fey queen wasn’t happy about this. Her species was dying. So she placed a veil between the fey and this world. Cutting them off from the humans they loved. However, some of the offspring were left behind. They were called fey keys because left in their blood was the power of the fey.”

“And with that power,” I fill in the last of the gaps with what I know. “Markis wants to control all of us.”

The room is silent for a moment. We got a very short glimpse of that control tonight.

“That’s what you were about to tell me before he showed up?”

I look away before answering Chayton. “Yes. Michaela was once helping him search for the key, but realized she didn’t want to go along with his plans anymore. She was the reason he was captured. She ran here to us because her father released him, and she knew where a fey key was.”

A lot of the things she said play back in my head. The night at the campsite, I asked her why she didn’t use the fey key to get pregnant. She’d said, “Because my heart wouldn’t let me.” She loved Liz. It showed in everything she did.

When I asked her earlier on why she wouldn’t just leave when we were torturing her, she’d told me, “Because she means the world to me, and I will do everything I can to protect her.” I thought she was talking about Marley, but all this time, she was here to protect Liz, not Marley, not even herself.

“I…fucking… hate you.”My hurtful words to her play back in my head. What did I do?

“There is still a missing piece.” Chayton says. “If he needs Elizabeth’s blood, then why did Michaela fake bite and kill her?”

“I can answer that,” Tech volunteers. “It’s her gift.”

Immediately, a memory flashes through my head.

“What’s a conduit?”

“A very rare ability giving to vampires. So rare that most don’t even know it exists. It is the power to absorb, mimic, and sense others’ abilities. And masters of this rare gift can even take powers from one being and give them to another.”

“He can’t wield the power of the fey,” I say as it dawns on me. “Which is why he needed her all along.”

“Yes,” Tech confirms. “Zani is a conduit. Only she can sense the fey power. And only she can take the power and gift it to her mate.”

And here I was thinking she was a sifter, but she was much more.

“What now?” Alarick asks. “She got him to walk away tonight without killing us, but what’s going to happen when he finds out she doesn’t have the power of the fey key? Don’t forget, she never bit Luna.”

“She said she was just buying us time,” Liz says. “She told me to tell you I need to get far away from here. She said that Torak would let us know if and when it’s safe to come back.”

“Torak?” I ask. “How would Torak know?”

“Because I’m the only one that has a connection with her.” Torak and Marley steps into the infirmary. Marley goes over to Liz and hugs her.

“That was difficult for her,” she whispers. “Her emotions were so heavy.”

Something else dawns on me. The way Marley was reacting, although warranted, was over the top.

“She was feeding you her emotions?” I ask Marley.

She nods. It’s then I remember her actions when I said all that stuff to Michaela.

Fuck.

“You hurt her, brother n law.” Marley looks down at her hands as she speaks. Even now her voice seems fraught with emotion. “I know you were only speaking out of hurt for what you thought she did. But your words really cut her.”