Page 24 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom (Faeted Seasons #2)

Drayden

“Are you sure this is the place?” Kaia asked, looking down the row of townhomes lining the street.

Despite every other door having some sort of personalization—a custom knocker, a welcome mat, a wreath, a potted plant—this entry had nothing.

In any other circumstance, I would have assumed this place to be uninhabited.

“Positive,” I grunted, lifting my hand to the door. I knocked twice.

Lucian gave me the address, and considering I left him under Cadoc’s care, I was fairly certain he wouldn’t lie to me. Not when one word from my lips could mean the difference between remaining alive and experiencing a very slow death.

Inside, footsteps shuffled toward the door. Unhurried and yet agitated all the same.

Three different locks disengaged. Kaia and I shared a wary glance.

Most witches were reclusive, yes, but they were also arrogant in the belief that nothing could end them. After all, only one species carried the magic of gods and demons. For this one to have so many safety measures in place was odd.

Especially if she was as powerful as both Lucian and Corvo alluded to.

The door slid back an inch.

It was that exact moment that something in me, long since buried, slowly cracked an eye open.

There were a handful of moments in my life I would never forget, even if I wished I could.

The very second in time the familiar bond snapped into place with Vyrexis.

The feeling of the wind above and below me as we flew into battle together.

The first day I saw my beloved ... and the way my world stopped at the sound of her very last breath.

I never, and I truly mean never , expected that moment—standing at the doorstep of an unmarked home in the Arcane District of Seattle—to be another one that would be locked into my memory forever.

And yet, as a pair of blood-red eyes regarded me warily through the crack in the door, my entire world shifted.

“What do you want, Kingsguard?” Her voice was low. Not quite deep, but sultry. An unmistakable raspy quality that roused a part of me I’d long considered dead.

I gritted my teeth, fingers curling into a fist at my side.

“We need a portal.”

“Find someone else,” she muttered, moving to close the door.

Kaia moved faster than any being truly should and slipped her boot between the door and the frame, preventing it from closing.

“There’s no time for us to find someone else. The fae king, his mate, and the prince have been taken into one of the hell realms. We need your assistance creating a portal and we need it now .”

A pregnant pause filled the silence.

“Which realm?”

“The twin realms,” Kaia answered. “Evorsus, specifically.”

The crimson-eyed woman narrowed her gaze, opening the door a fraction further to reveal a shock of dark hair.

“What makes you think I have the power to open such a portal? I’m nothing more than a simple witch.”

“We have a reliable source,” Kaia said, twisting her words expertly. I might have been impressed with how Kaia was handling her had I not been rendered immobile.

“Hmm. The same reliable source that gave you my address?” Kaia didn’t answer, but apparently her nonreaction was more than enough. “So, you have the leprechaun, then. Few know where I live, and few know the depths of my powers. Combined, the list is rather short.”

Kaia exhaled stiffly. “Yes. Lucian is our source.”

Amelia widened her eyes playfully, humming in amusement. “ Lucian , is it? That was the name he gave you? That’s simply ... delightful. He so rarely gives out that name. Even more rare is the likelihood of him giving out his name, my abilities, and my address, all to the same person.”

“He wasn’t as forthcoming as you might believe. He had ... incentive.”

“Ah, I see. Still suffering in the dungeons now, I’m assuming?

” When she didn’t get a response from either of us, she tutted, but it was lacking sincerity.

“Poor dear. Always hard to control, that one. But it would seem you could be his Achilles heel, Commander. Must be quite the crush he has on you for him to give away so much information, ‘incentive’ or not.”

“So it would seem. And now you know that we know you can open the portal, Amelia, so let’s get on with it.”

The sound of her sigh brushed over my skin, and I tensed. It was new and familiar all at once.

She stepped back and opened the door, giving the first full view of her. At five foot nothing with long black hair, she was pretty, but not the most remarkable beauty I’d ever seen ... and yet she was. The idea of it warred within me.

“Fine, I’ll make your portal, but I expect payment first.”

She didn’t look at me. Not for a second.

My brows furrowed in confusion. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this feeling was mistaken, but that isn’t how it worked.

“There is more where this came from. Name your price,” Kaia said, unloosing a pouch from her waist that was filled to the brim with gold coins.

The witch, a woman with rounded ears and sun-kissed skin, laughed quietly. The hairs on my nape stood straight. A chill crawled down my spine.

“I don’t take coin,” the witch said, seemingly annoyed. “And I suspect your leprechaun captive told you as much, but you think you can offer it still. You’re asking for a portal into the Fold. No amount of gold is worth the magical backlash of something like that if it were to go awry.”

Kaia hid her frustration well, but I’d known her long enough to tell what the pucker between her brows meant. “We didn’t ask for one into the Fold. We asked for?—”

“You don’t know what you are asking for,” she said, cutting in sharply. “Eversus and Evorsus are overlapping realms that run on different timelines. If I were to open a portal into one of them, who’s to say it would open now, or six months from now, on the other side?”

Kaia had no answer, and I couldn’t speak.

“Have your attention, now, don’t I? I can do what you ask, but I can’t manipulate space and time in the twin hells.

I don’t know where the portal would appear.

There is no map of either realm, and they could be stuck in one or the other for months, or even years.

So yes, Commander, you’re asking for a portal into the Fold.

It’s a convergence of the ley lines, and it’s the only location that exists in both realms at the same place and time.

Regardless of which realm they are in, they can access it .

.. assuming they have a means to find the Fold, of course.

” She lifted a sharp, sculpted eyebrow and Kaia scowled.

“They have a guide that can lead them.”

Amelia snorted. “Must be one hell of a guide.” Her lips curled up on one side in a Cheshire smile. “So, as I said, you want a portal through the ley lines, which is going to cost me, therefore it’s going to cost you. I won’t make it without my payment upfront.”

“If not coin, then what is it you want?”

Amelia’s lips curled into a sinister smile. In the long silence, I heard the music playing in the background. Nothing I was familiar with, but the emotion was heard with every word sung. Love. Desire. I wanted nothing to do with either.

“A favor to be paid later, for a favor now.”

Kaia stilled. “I?—”

“Not from you,” the witch said. For the first time since she’d opened the door, that crimson gaze slid over Kaia and onto me. There was a weight there that a lesser man would crumble under. “From you .”

Those were the first words my second-chance mate spoke to me.

And if I had my way, they’d be the last.

“No.”

Her expression didn’t change. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve said she was unsurprised by my response. With a slight shrug, she adjusted her grip on the door and took a step.

“If that’s the case, then good day to you?—”

“Wait!” Kaia pushed her way forward, into the foyer, but there was no way I would cross that threshold. The witch’s lips curled downward in displeasure. “There must be something else we can pay with? Anything. Please.”

Silence spread, thick and uncomfortable. Amelia folded her arms over her small chest and cocked a hip. “I suppose I could ask for something else,” she murmured. “But I’ll expect payment from you both.”

“It’s just one portal,” I started to argue. Crimson irises flicked to me, unreadable in their depths.

“And the price just went up.” She raised her brows, challenging me, but I bit my tongue.

“It’s one portal I have to keep open for an undetermined length of time.

Portal intra-realm are easy. I could get you there with a snap of my fingers.

But realm to realm?” She shook her head.

“It must be stable and have an energy source that won’t burn out after a few moments.

I refuse to use my own life force, which means I need you to get me something, along with my payment.

You can view it as payment from you both or simply supplying the materials.

I don’t care, but I won’t do the portal without it. ”

Fucking witches. I pressed my lips together. Kaia looked at me and sighed, then glanced back at Amelia.

“What is it you need?”

There was a sadistic gleam in her eye when she answered. “Dragon scales.”

Kaia choked. “Dragon? How in the nine realms do you expect us to get?—”

“I’ll do it.”

Kaia turned to me, her mouth slightly gaping. “ No, you won’t.”

“Then you won’t have your portal.” Amelia shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”

“I said, I’ll do it,” I repeated in a harsher tone. Amelia narrowed her eyes.

“Drayden.” Kaia grabbed my bicep and dragged me away from the porch. “You can’t be serious. Last time you saw Vyrexis, he nearly killed you.”

“It’s been over thirty years. Maybe he’s cooled off.”

She made another choking noise and sliced her hand through the air in the universal symbol of ‘enough’. “Unlikely. What are you going to do if he hurts you again?”

“Try not to let him.”

She slapped my arm. “This isn’t funny.”

“I wasn’t laughing,” I said in all seriousness. “I’d rather take my chances with Vyrexis than write her a blank check in the form of a favor. Right now, she’s our only option. We have to get Vareck.”

Kaia sighed, holding my gaze while she silently weighed everything happening. She knew I was right. Duty and loyalty were paramount in our positions. We had no other choice.

Amelia cleared her throat and said, “I don’t have all day. Either you accept the price, or you don’t. I won’t offer a third alternative.”

“I’ll get your dragon scales,” I said to her.

“Twelve of them,” she replied, lifting her chin a fraction.

I nodded once and looked at Kaia.

She didn’t like it, but she didn’t have to.

Nearly forty years ago my familiar abandoned me.

We both felt the moment the bond was extinguished with her death, leaving a thread only attached to us.

Forever severed. The loss of my beloved was more than either of us could bear.

He blamed me, which was fine. We were in agreement in that regard.

When I tracked Vyrexis years later, he made it clear I wasn’t to return; not without her.

She was dead, and he wouldn’t forgive me for it. There was nothing I could do. I hadn’t forgiven myself either. Getting those fucking scales wasn’t going to be easy, but something told me it was still the better choice.

I listened to my gut when it came to things like this.

“As for the other means of payment,” Amelia continued, “I need you to find a compass, but not just any compass. The one I want doesn’t point north. It leads you to what you most desire, but you mustn’t use it. The magic it holds works only once.”

Kaia cursed under her breath. “How am I supposed to find that?”

Amelia lifted a shoulder in a partial shrug. “No idea. That’s not my problem. You want a portal to the Fold—that’s my price. Take it or leave it.”

“How do I know if it has been used or not?”

“If this glass has cracked, the magic has faded.”

Kaia pressed her lips together, not liking this one bit. “Fine. We’ll be back.”

Amelia saluted her in a mocking goodbye. “I’ll be here. Do send my love to Lucian when you see him.”

I stopped on the bottom step of her porch.

Fire threatened to surface.

That thieving leprechaun was a thorn in my side for many reasons. Now this? They were familiar with each other. What I didn’t know was how well he knew her, or in what capacity.

And for reasons I absolutely hated, jealousy began to surface.

If Vyrexis so much as suspected a bond had formed—against my will or not—he’d burn me alive in seconds.

It mattered not.

There were no second chances for me.