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Chapter Twenty-Nine

Samara

Four days later, I was still feeling the rush of my encounter with the Seelie King. It wasn’t just that I had bargained with him—it was that I’d outsmarted him.

Or at least, I was fairly confident I had.

When I’d walked down the stairs after he’d left, I’d practically fallen into Draven’s arms as the adrenaline had worn off. My wicked prince had cooed praises at me for doing well while whispering promises of all the things he would do to me as soon as he had me alone.

Because in that moment, we had very much not been alone. Everyone had been hiding in the stairwell just out of Erendriel’s sight so they could listen in, and Rynn had taken notes.

We all agreed that the words spoken in the bargain would work with our plan.

I’d been very careful to only refer to Talis as “the crown” in my wording.

Erendriel had added stipulations so that it wasn’t simply the crown resting on my head but being in my possession—and that allowing my mates to hold on to it still counted as “in my possession,” as they were an extension of me in Fae eyes.

I’d conversed with Talis twice more since then—both times borrowing the body of the same serpent, who seemed to live in the vines growing up the Sovereign House.

The viper was grumpy each time, but it was getting easier to control his body.

I always thanked him, but I don’t think he cared.

I’d have to make sure he had a nice supply of mice or something when I made it back to the Sovereign House in person.

Each time I’d woken up, there had been a snake in my lap. Rynn was not happy about that.

I was also beginning to notice that I could sense any snakes in the area. My Fae magic definitely seemed to be stirring more. And I was fairly certain I could summon the serpents to me if I wanted, like if I just tugged on that thread which connected me to them, they would answer.

In addition to my new scaly friends, I’d also been able to do small things like coax some flowers on a cactus into blooming and stifle my footsteps like Draven so I could move about silently.

It was something I’d been practicing by sneaking up on Rynn and scaring the shit out of her.

I’d tried to do the same to Cali, but the bitch had stabbed me.

When I’d shrieked that it was just me, she’d snorted and said, “I know. Why do you think it’s just a flesh wound?

” And then she’d pulled the dagger out from between my ribs.

In fairness, she had missed my vital organs and I’d healed within minutes. Still, a bit of an overreaction, in my opinion.

Two days ago, Ary and Aniela had shown up looking beat to shit.

Apparently, all of the Moroi realm was crawling with rangers who reported only to Carmilla, and the Heirs hadn’t been sure if they’d make it to House Devereux, so they’d opted to come here instead.

It was actually a boon for us because part of our plan required blood—a lot of blood.

Once we’d told them what we’d been plotting, the two of them had been more than willing to open up a vein and donate to the cause. They’d given quite a bit and were currently passed out downstairs . . . in the same bed.

Something had clearly happened between the two, but I’d have to get the full story later.

We hadn’t heard anything from Vail during all this time, and I was trying very hard not to dwell on that fact.

Thanks to our mate bond, I could feel him, but it was definitely fainter the farther he went.

Our bond was stronger than it had been—it no longer felt like it was crumbling—but, clearly, distance had an impact.

Roth had found a couple of books that mentioned Fae mate bonds.

From what we could tell, the bonds formed in one of two ways.

Naturally, which only occurred when the people forming the bond were genuinely in love with each other and declared their devotion, or through spell castings.

It seemed the Fae had been fans of arranged political marriages, and mate bonds were used in those cases as well.

I hadn’t come across anything about them being possible to break like Erendriel had claimed, but the books hadn’t had a ton of information. It didn’t matter though, because I was keeping my mates, and I’d kill anyone who tried to take them from me—the Seelie King included.

To keep myself from going insane, I’d started limiting how often I checked the bond between me and Vail. Otherwise, I’d just obsess over it, and I was worried that I might tug on it or send some of my emotions barreling down the bond and distract Vail at the worst possible moment.

My imagination had run wild with Vail fighting against monsters or some of Carmilla’s rangers, only to miss a step because I’d practically screamed my growing panic through our mate bond.

So I’d diverted my obsessive mind into fine-tuning the transformation spell and going over the plan with everyone repeatedly.

Which apparently was starting to get on everyone’s nerves.

Kieran, of all people, had threatened to find a spell to seal my lips shut if I attempted to run through everything again, which had everyone grunting in agreement.

According to Talis, I had perfected the transformation spell.

Granted, I was pretty sure they’d been only half listening the last time we’d spoken.

I’d managed to bore an ancient Fae crown. Go me.

Logically, it made sense that Vail hadn’t sent any messages of his progress.

Strikers were our main form of communication, and they were trained to either follow specific routes or track people down.

The temple wasn’t on any normal routes, and while every House had strikers trained to find me, Vail couldn’t exactly stop by and ask to borrow one.

I knew all of this, yet it did nothing to keep me from freaking out.

Vail had been gone for five days now. He’d said it might take longer than that to return, but all I could think about were the worst-case scenarios.

We’d also been holed up in this temple for a week now, so everyone’s nerves were a little frayed.

Erendriel had promised to return when I needed him and gave me a coin to summon him.

I didn’t understand how he was moving around so quickly, because he definitely wasn’t in the temple during the day, and there wasn’t much around here.

Draven didn’t know how he did it either, only that he could go from one end of the continent to the other in the same day—the same hour, even.

Now that I knew about the mirrors, it didn’t seem so impossible, but it wasn’t like he was lugging an eight-foot mirror around with him.

There had been no sign of Serril or any other wraiths either, but it was still suspicious that Erendriel hadn’t left someone behind to keep an eye on us.

We’d been careful about setting up the rest of our plans—only working on the temple during the day and only after Draven did a thorough pass-through to make sure no wraiths had found a dark corner to lurk in. Everything was coming together—we just needed Vail to come back.

I needed Vail to come back.

“Have we accounted for?—”

“ Yes !” Roth, Alaric, and Rynn all said at once.

I stopped where I’d been pacing in the middle of the room and glared at the three of them. “You don’t even know what I was going to say,” I accused.

“You no doubt thought of yet another variation of how things could go wrong.” Alaric closed the book he’d been reading and selected a new one from the piles in front of him.

“Even though we’ve already come up with multiple contingency plans at this point.” Roth’s ropes snapped out to steal the book Alaric had chosen and tossed a different one to him.

“It’s impossible to plan for all scenarios—that way lies madness—and we’ve covered all the major ones,” Rynn added, not even looking up from the scroll her eyes were glued to.

“Sure, but what if?—”

“For the love of the moon, shut up!” Cali growled from where she’d been resting her eyes on her folded-up arms at the weapons table.

“Why don’t you go for a walk?” Kieran offered. “Maybe practice your magic a bit?”

“Don’t go far though.” Draven glanced up from the sword he’d been admiring. “And please don’t bring any more snakes inside. I don’t think I can listen to Rynn scream again.”

“Oh, don’t start,” Rynn sneered, finally looking away from the text she’d been absorbed in. “I’ve been listening to all of you make Samara scream for days now. My ears are bleeding, and I’m honestly worried for my best friend’s pussy at this point.”

“Yeah, exactly how much pounding can that thing take?” Cali twisted her head so she could stare at me—well, a certain part of me anyway.

“Oh, we haven’t just been playing with that perfect little pussy,” Kieran said cheerfully. “We’ve als?—”

“I’m going to go for a walk now!” I announced loudly and beat a hasty retreat. Rynn was already in a foul mood, and Kieran reciting the many ways I’d been fucked over the last four days would not make her any more pleasant to be around.

The clock was ticking on our plan, which meant time was also running out before Rynn had to return to the Alpha Pack.

I went up the stairs, passing through the ward, and then turned left to head towards the temple entrance.

My eyes flitted about the large, open chamber.

This was where we’d been sneakily laying all the glyphs the past few days.

The even larger room further in the temple would have been better, but that was also where the entrance to the secret level was, and the ceiling was broken in places.

We’d needed a room that was entirely contained, so this had been the only option.

The white marble that made up every inch of the room, from the ceilings to the floors and the columns that spiraled up between them, didn’t show even a hint of what we’d spent the last three days doing after Roth had perfected the spell.

Or at least, we were hoping that was what they’d done. We couldn’t exactly test it beforehand.