Page 71 of Ascendant King

“Don’t—please, don’t hurt them.” A pale slither of yellow tattoo sped toward us, but Cade raised his hand, and his black ink flew off his palm, creating a wall.

The yellow magic sputtered out, and the mage screamed, clutching at her arm.

The wolves that I had directed with me fanned out, quickly searching the room. They shook their heads, calling out that, despite the number of mages and wolves present, no one in here was dangerous.

The mage collapsed down onto her knees, the crack loud. The only sound was her soft sobs and the gasping breaths of the dying consorts.

“What’s going on?” One of the wolves from Dos Lunas had her hand over her mouth, wincing away from the smell and the sight.

“This is what Thorn does. On a much faster timescale.” I walked through the consorts, observing the skeletal faces, their eyes following me as I moved between the cots.

I returned to Cade. He was crouched in front of the fallen mage, saying her name over and over, trying to get a response.

“Olivia. Olivia, can you hear me?”

Lily was standing back, talking to the mages we had brought with us. She stepped forward. “Cade, we’re going to attempt the same magic that you and Rhys performed on us, separating these mages from House Bartlett.”

Cade stood, nodding. He was blinking rapidly, his brows pulled together.

“I’m going to go with Miles. We need to find Leon.” When he looked at me, there was something sharp and fierce in his face. He might’ve been angry at Leon before, felt betrayed by the man he had considered a second father. But witnessing what Leon had done to his house set something alight within him. His expression was furious.

“We’ll find him.” I gestured to the mages’ consorts. “Stay here. Guard your mages. Everyone else, I want you to split into groups of four and search the house.”

It took a couple of minutes, but then teams sped through the house, three on the ground floor, three taking the stairs to the second level. Isaac stepped toward Cade.

“Cade, be careful. If Leon has the magic from these mages, then he’s more powerful than any living mage.” Isaac didn’t need to say that if Leon was that powerful, it was likely his sanity was cracking.

“I know exactly what it is to absorb more magic than you can take.” Cade’s words were flat, and he strode out of the room. I followed behind him.

I could hear the wolves upstairs, searching each room, checking for any sign of mages that hadn’t been drained of all of their magic. Coral and Theo had left before it got this bad, and they’d said Leon wasn’t using all of the magic himself. Like the House Morrison mages, House Bartlett mages were getting more powerful by absorbing the magic of others.

“We should check upstairs. Your old room, probably your father’s rooms.” I looked up the stairs, glancing back only when Cade didn’t answer.

Cade’s face was shadowed as he stared down at the ground, his hands fisted at his sides. Then I realized it wasn’t darkness.Magic surrounded his body, tattooed lines dripping from his hands like deep shadow.

“Leon did this,” Cade spat.

“We’ll get him.” I had finally faced Benji, gotten my own revenge. Cade would get his, as long as I had the ability to give it to him.

“You know, seeing them, being back in this place, I realized something.” Cade looked up at me, and I expected to see the black of his magic covering his eyes, but instead, they glowed blue. They were two sapphires in the light, gorgeous and perfect.

“What?” I managed.

“The only time this place has felt like home since my parents died was when you were here to protect me.” Cade stopped, shutting his lips so tightly the skin went pale around the edges. He exhaled, forcing himself to speak. “You made it feel like home because you made me safe here. When everyone else ran, scared of shadows, frightened of what I was becoming, you stayed with me. You had the most reason to run, and you stayed.”

I gaped at him, blinking quickly, unsure what to say.

“When we were on the run, all those weeks, you were the only thing that kept me going. You.” Cade shook his head. “The past is the past. But if I look at what you did… You protected me, Miles. I look at Olivia’s consort, all of them. I’m not upset that you aren’t one of them.”

I tried to translate that, twist Cade’s words around to make sense, but before I could, he did it himself.

“I’m glad you’re here with me.” Cade straightened, the tattoos snapping back to his skin, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. He raised his chin and marched up the stairs, leaving me behind.

Shaking my head, I took the stairs two at a time to catch up with him. At the top, I could see the rooms that had already beensearched, the Los Santos wolves having overturned furniture, emptied out dressers.

Ignoring the chaos, Cade moved past the rooms currently being searched until he reached the one at the end of the hall, with its massive doors, the intricately carved wood moving as he approached. A flock of birds flew from one of the wooden trees. The waves on the shore crashed brutally as though a storm was coming in.

Cade threw open his door, and I darted forward, placing myself beside him so that whatever was inside, we could face it together.