Page 54 of Ascendant King

“She tore herself away from the house like Larissa did. It costs something, as the magic that you’ve pledged disappears. She might appear that she has endless stores of it”—Cade gestured to the hallway—“but I think that this excess spendingis actually just a way of not feeling the pain and the ache of the missing house. Losing House Bartlett hurts.”

He stopped speaking, and I frowned at him. He’d never said anything after we fled House Bartlett, but I would believe that it had hurt him. The weeks afterward, he’d been a wreck, a shell of himself. How much of that had been due to pain as well as the depression he’d admitted to?

Outside, the wolves were getting restless, and I gestured them in. Nia came first and I pulled her aside.

“Petrona is here. Siobhan said they left because they didn’t agree with what Leon was doing, but I want mages watching them at all times.” I raised my eyebrows significantly, and Nia nodded immediately, moving through the crowd to find Jay and Isaac.

As Siobhan helped everyone find a room, I caught sight of Oak turning away, something on his face wincing as though in pain. He raised a hand to his cheek, and a chunk of wood came off in his hand.

With wide eyes, he looked around, checking if anyone had seen him. I carefully looked away before our eyes met. When I looked back, he was gone.

Narrowing my eyes, I searched the crowd of wolves and mages for him.

“What is it?” Cade asked. He squeezed my fingers, and I startled. We were still holding hands.

For a second, I tensed, unsure if I should release him, but he squeezed again.

“Oak,” I said. “Something happened to him. I want to find out where he went.”

Cade’s head swung back and forth, frowning when he realized the dryad was missing. He closed his eyes, and I could see his eyeballs moving under his eyelids.

When he opened his eyes, he said, “This way.”

Before we got too far from the mull of wolves and mages, I grabbed Gabe’s arm. He blinked, then looked down at where Cade still held my hand. Cade immediately released me, and I couldn’t help but glare at Gabe.

Gabe held up two hands, and luckily, Cade was looking away.

“I’m going to check something out with Cade. I’ll be back soon. If any of the other packs ask where I am, direct them to Nia.” Nia would be able to scare whoever was making trouble into silence.

“Sure, uh, have fun ‘checking something out.’” Gabe blushed and held up his hands again. “I didn’t see anything, boss.”

Then he was gone, moving back into the crowd and grabbing hold of Heather’s arm and whispering in her ear.

“They think we’re going to have sex,” Cade said flatly. But it lacked the bite of aggression I’d come to associate with his words recently.

When I looked at him, his lips pursed almost in amusement.

“Maybe they think you’re into outdoor sex,” I said. “The woods give you wood.”

Cade rolled his eyes. “That’s the best you can come up with? This way.”

Despite the endless rooms of the upstairs, the downstairs was more normal-looking: an entryway with a living room and a large dining room, the kitchen in the back. Cade moved through the house, following something invisible only he could see, until he found the back door and opened it, stepping out onto the porch. We were so close to the wall of trees that I could nearly touch them from where we stood.

“I can feel he’s nearby.” Cade frowned, closing his eyes and tilting his head, wincing and making a face.

I stepped off the porch, walking closer to the wall. “Cade.”

He opened his eyes, and I pointed to two of the trees. From afar, they looked as though their trunks touched each other, butwhen I got closer, I could see that they grew with one slightly in front of the other, providing a narrow gap for someone to squeeze through.

One of the trunks was streaked with a sticky, all-too-familiar, sap-like substance.

“The poison.” Cade pulled back before he touched it.

I was squinting, trying to figure out how to get us through the narrow gap without touching it, but then Cade raised a hand, and Basil flowed off his fingers, sliding through. There was a sharp crack, a shattering of wood, and then the gap was bigger, a smoking hole that was large enough for us to pass through.

Absolute amateurs,Basil hissed.The answer is always simple.

“We should move quickly. They’ll know something is wrong.” I pushed through the gap and shifted into wolf form, sniffing the ground, searching for any sign of Oak.