Page 3
Story: When Storms Collide
It was their secret. The only thing they had kept only to themselves.
Would that knowledge have stopped Donika from killing Annelise? Knowing her father would die, too? She shook her head to clear her thoughts. There was no use thinking on it now. The past was in the past, and Annelise was determined to keep it buried.
“You made good time,” Zion remarked, a smile in his eyes as he pulled away from her only enough to meet her gaze.
“How is she?” Annelise asked, breathless.
A smile turned up the corner of Zion’s mouth before he answered. “Strong. Like her mother.”
Annelise shook her head, worry still fresh in her gut. “What does Donika want with her?”
“You know what she wants.” He sighed, running a hand across his shorn black hair.
Annelise favored this look on him—it suited him. When they had married, he had grown his hair out into boundless curls that he wore tied at the nape of his neck.
The shorn haircut made him appear younger.
“The Kotova grimoire willneverchoose her. Never. It would rather go undiscovered for centuries before it chose someone with a black heart.”
“I tried to warn her,” he replied. “You know her biggest weakness—family. She feels slighted by you still. She is a Kotova by blood, but she thinks the bloodline never claimed her.Younever claimed her.”
Donika would never forgive her for leaving their family to come to The Stone Palace for Osiris. It hadn’t mattered that it wasn’t her choice—that she was summoned. That she hadn’twantedto leave.
The result of those events was Diana, and Donika hated her from the very moment she saw her. Donika was driven by the jealousy that consumed her, and she saw it as a betrayal. That Annelise left because she and Zion weren’t good enough. That wasn’t the case at all. She had written to Donika. Thought of her each and every day. But The Stone Palace was no place for a child, and she tried to restrict her visits to when she had training for the academy.
She didn’t want her spending more time here than necessary. She had wanted to protect her. By the time she had fallen pregnant with Osiris’s child, they had hastily sealed their marriage to make things official before anyone else knew. She and Zion hadn’t been romantically involved for years at that point, but that didn’t matter to Donika.
Before Osiris found out her true nature—that she was a Stormshade and had hidden it from him—she stood to be crowned queen of Istmere.
“Has she found it yet?” Annelise asked, biting her lip.
Zion shook his head. “No, she hasn’t. She sent her soldiers to the mortal realm in search of it, but she found nothing. It hides from her still. I believe it is fiercely loyal to Diana.”
This brought a smile to Annelise’s lips. She had known the grimoire would choose Diana when she had sent it to search for a new ward. The grimoire was quite picky due to its sentient nature, and she knew that Diana would care for it well, as she had all these years.
“How long has it been?” she asked, meeting Zion’s gaze once more.
“Almost a month. We have time yet, before she tires of her playthings,” he replied.
“Playthings?” Annelise asked.
She was under the impression it was only Diana who had been captured.
“She has taken her friend captive as well. A Shade. Fowler… Tess Fowler,” Zion replied.
Annelise nodded to herself. “I know the family. Only a month… that’s more than I had hoped for. But then again, after all this time, Donika would want to savor it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she kept Diana imprisoned foryears. If my instincts are correct, we have time to infiltrate the castle staff and formulate a plan. Who do we have on our side to aid us?” she asked.
“Surprisingly, the boy who was sent to retrieve her from the mortal realm and his friend. He has done a poor job of hiding his true feelings, and I’m sure Donika suspects where his loyalties truly lie. The boy has been playing the part to try to remain out of her crosshairs, though I’m not sure how much longer that will work.”
“Hardly much of a boy,” Annelise mused with a short laugh, remembering that Nikolai had to be at least twenty-two by this point.
She hated the idea that he had feelings for Diana. He had double crossed the resistance, and Isaac wasfuriouswith him. He was the reason Diana was in this mess in the first place.
No.
Annelise shook her head. Not Nikolai’s fault… no.
That blame fell on her.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3 (Reading here)
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128