Page 30

Chapter thirty

A Fire That Consumes

W e strolled right out of Hellscape, locked the door behind us, and shadowstepped right back into that orange apartment in the Court of Wanderers before anyone dared to say a word. When they finally did, it was Rook of all people, and it wasn’t exactly the most elegant choice.

“Shit.”

“We have to stop her,” I was speaking before I could properly think about what I was saying. “If she opens Hellscape up to the mortal plane, if she finds a way to make those rifts bigger, if more creatures attempt to escape like the minotaur… how do we stop her?”

Rook grimaced, rubbing the back of his neck. Cass looked to Lark. Lark was staring at the wall behind me, jaw set.

“Lark,” I said his name gently and he came too, blinking as his dark eyes found mine.

“What she’s doing shouldn’t be possible,” Lark said then, thinking aloud as he strolled into the living room behind us and we turned to watch. “She’s hundreds of years old and she’s never shown even a hint of such power before. The mind control, that’s a part of her family’s legacy, and I can understand keeping that hidden but this. This is something else entirely. It’s not just dark magic. It’s ancient magic. That kind of power was lost millennia ago with the Fae that put up the Divide in the first place, and it took scores of them. How is she able to pierce it alone? How—”

He stopped, his eyes widening suddenly in realization.

“What is it?” Cass asked, stepping forward.

“Do you remember what Taurus told us about father’s curse? That it was like his power had been funneled out of him.”

Cass’ brow creased for a moment as she tried to remember but then they raised as she parted her lips in understanding.

“You don’t mean—” she started but Lark didn’t let her finish.

“All of that power had to go somewhere. Why wouldn’t she funnel it into herself?”

“Is it even possible?”

“There are relics from the age of Altair and Andromeda, amulets instilled with dark magic to curse highly powerful Fae, to steal their magic away from them. Maybe they could be tinkered with to allow the use of that magic held inside. Maybe she found them. They were rumored to be hidden in her own court anyway. Maybe her family has even held them in their archives for centuries. Who knows? The point is, Cass, who else would be powerful enough to curse our father, the King of the Court of Blood and Bone?”

“We thought it was Alban but, if she had the amulet or if he helped her…” Cass whispered, thinking. “We need to tell father.”

Lark was already nodding.

“My thoughts exactly,” he agreed.

“Tell him what, exactly?” Rook chimed in at that. “We think we might know who’s cursing him and even what she’s doing with all of that extra power but we can’t prove it?”

“The gorgon is the proof,” Lark said. “Lycurgus.”

He and Rook exchanged a glance.

“It’s been a while since I attempted a prison break,” Rook mused. “It’s about time for another.”

“Get permission this time,” Lark warned, his gaze narrowing as he spoke to Rook before turning to Cass. “Talk to father. Tell him what’s at stake. Get him to agree to an extraction mission to free the gorgon.”

“You’re not coming?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

“I’m supposed to be dead, remember?”

She nodded.

“Father isn’t easy to convince,” she grumbled. “It might take time.”

“However long you need,” Lark replied. “Take Rook for protection.”

“Protection?”

“Ariadne slipped into the Bone Court well enough to steal one of the most powerful living Fae’s magic, leave him nearly dead, and escape undetected. I wouldn’t put it past her to do even worse to you if she found out you were asking questions. Take Rook. I’ll stay here.”

“Lark, someone could recognize you here,” Rook spoke up in sullen warning.

“I’ll stay in the apartment,” Lark replied and, when it was clear that no one believed him, he heaved a sigh and made his vow. “I promise.”

“Good enough for me,” Cass said with a shrug and then looped her arm with Rook’s. They disappeared in an instant, leaving me blinking after where they had been just moments before.

“I’ll never get used to that,” I said and Lark chuckled.

“I’m going to shower,” he told me. “Need to wash this darkness off me.”

I nodded and did my best to look at anything but him as he disappeared into the bedroom, off toward the bathroom inside.

This group had come up with a plan and executed it so quickly that I hadn’t had time to consider all the potential fallout and consequences of said actions. Cass was convincing her father to allow us to snatch the gorgon for proof of Ariadne’s schemes. Rook was to be her guard while she spoke very dangerous words in a very precarious place. I wondered if he would pin her to his side like he did to me every time Lark commanded him to guard me and couldn’t help but laugh at how I thought Cass might react to that.

But that left Lark and I alone in this apartment, an apartment we couldn’t leave, or he couldn’t leave, so that he wouldn’t be recognized. And, since I had no desire to get him caught again, I wouldn’t leave either. Because I knew that if I needed him, if I got into some sort of trouble that I couldn’t fight my way out of, he would come just like he always did. And they would catch us.

I wouldn’t do that to him. I had watched him die once already. I had no desire to see it again.

So that meant that we were trapped here, together, for as long as it took Cass to convince their father to let us sneak into enemy territory and retrieve the one creature who could verify what we suspected my mother to have done, to be capable of. I was stuck in an apartment, alone, with a man who had, just hours ago, told me he believed we were soul mates.

“Do you miss your uncle?” Lark spoke so suddenly that I nearly jumped out of my skin where I stood in the kitchen, making myself a pot of tea. He gave me a sheepish, apologetic grin. “Sorry.”

“Uh, I—” I stuttered as I watched him tug the black t-shirt down from where it had ridden up below his chest. I got the briefest glimpse of hard, toned abdomen before it was gone and I raised my gaze to his face to find him smirking at me and my loss of words. “Sorry, what was the question?”

He snorted, shaking his head so that his wet hair fluffed up a bit.

“Do you miss your uncle?” he repeated. “I know I promised Rook I wouldn’t leave the apartment but no one would look for me in the mortal realm so, if you wanted, we could go for a visit.”

“No,” I answered, quickly. “We shouldn’t take unnecessary risks.”

“Family is not unnecessary.”

He was behind me now, so close that I could feel the warmth radiating off of him, smell the clean scent of his crisp cotton shirt. He reached over me to get a mug from the cabinet above my head and I ducked to the side and out of the way before any accidental contact could occur.

“No, they’re not,” I agreed with his previous statement, nodding as I poured the hot water into my own mug and then his when he held it out. “But we just promised yours we would stay put so that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a grin.

I just rolled my eyes, despite the flush creeping up my cheeks, and dropped two tea bags into our piping hot mugs. He watched me, that intense gaze returning. So I cleared my throat and turned away, heading out of the kitchen and toward the living room where I settled onto the couch and set my tea on the end table beside it. He followed but gave me the space I seemed to need, sitting in the armchair across from me instead of the couch beside me.

“So,” I said, dipping my tea bag in and out of the water to avoid looking at him, “are you going to tell me how you survived your own execution?”

“It was Cass’ idea,” he told me, leaning back casually, not a trace of that smirk on his lips as he recalled the tale. He looked so saddened by the reminder that I almost regretted asking. “She convinced my father of a way to save my life and his reputation. There was another man locked up beside me. About the same height, same build. Cass has always been better at glamour than the rest of us. She made him look like me, or passably so, and, for anyone who might know me too well to buy the impersonation, we used the hood.”

“Another man died in your place?” I asked, the horror of it like a punch to the gut.

I could tell that Lark was displeased about it as well from the way he clenched his jaw at the question.

“He would have died anyway,” he said. “Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.”

I frowned and took a sip of my tea because I didn’t know what to say.

“You asked me a question,” he told me then and I looked up to find him watching me again. “Do I get to ask you one in return?”

I nodded, sitting up straighter and waiting to hear what he would ask.

“Tell me about your training at the Bone Court,” he said.

“That wasn’t a question,” I chided.

“Humor me,” he replied with a grin.

“When your father found out what I could do, he made me practice on soldiers, common Fae without the power to truly protect themselves from my invasion of their souls. Then he made me try to break Ursa. It took me five days but I managed a chink in her armor and that really pissed her off so she spent all her time after that training me in the more traditional ways of the Bone Court.”

My eyes flicked to his and his jaw clenched again.

“She cut you,” he said.

“Yes,” I answered even though it wasn’t a question.

His fists were tight at his sides.

“She hurt nothing she couldn’t heal,” I assured him.

“But you were in pain,” he told me.

“You cannot spare me from pain, Lark.”

“I can try,” he growled.

I watched him for a moment, so caught off guard by his fierce protectiveness. Was this what it meant to be soul bonded? Was this a natural reaction to the connection between us, that we would defend it until our dying breath, that we would tear apart the world itself just to keep each other from getting hurt?

I rose to my feet, slowly, letting the blanket I had pulled over my lap fall to the floor. He watched, eyes darkening as he looked at me from head to toe.

“Come here,” I said.

He rose as well and hesitated. He wanted to approach. I could feel it. But he held himself back and I knew why.

I know you don’t trust me yet.

He wouldn’t make a move, not a single move, until I did.

“Touch me,” I told him and his eyes flared a brilliant silver as desire surged through him so strong that I felt it through our bond without even trying.

I had to steady myself as he reached out, letting one finger trail slowly from my shoulder down to my wrist.

“I’m here,” I whispered, gripping his hand as it dropped to my own. “I’m whole.”

He looked away from me, down to where our hands were clasped together, and took a deep breath.

“Why do I feel like I’m always a moment away from losing you?” he asked, his voice just as low.

“I think,” I started and then paused, considering my words. “I think we’ve lost each other enough to last a lifetime.”

His eyes flicked to mine, craving me, devouring me. And I could feel every part of that ache in my very bones. I closed my eyes and let his desire consume me, the raging wind of his want swirling all around me, encompassing me in a warmth that was utterly, unapologetically his. I prepared myself to give into him, to surrender myself to all the barely restrained sexual tension between us, and I could tell that he sensed my surrender. He moved forward, leaning toward me as he wrapped an arm around my waist and I burned at his touch.

“Ren,” he whispered my name like a prayer and I ignited.

But suddenly I could sense another presence in the room. Shadows I hadn’t realized had formed faded away to reveal a familiar older woman standing a few feet away, her eyebrow arched and her wild hair swinging.

“Neglecting our training, are we?” Gemini Morningstar scolded with a click of her tongue as her nephew let out an agonized groan.