Page 3 of Crave Me

“He hasn’t gone inside yet, but he says the magic he’s been tracking leads to this location.” Kaspian pulled up an old Dublin pub on the screen. “We still have several of our men in Ireland. I say we call a few in and end this game of cat and mouse.”

I nodded. “Cheers to that.” I was so beyond fed up with this mess. “Call Klas. He’s eager to prove his worth. But call in Nolan, too. If they can’t capture the being alive, they have permission to kill it.”

Given how elusive this thing had been, I would not be surprised if this situation ended with the latter.

Regardless, removing this entity would be a weight off my shoulders.

I’d promised to handle it months ago, and, well, that hadn’t happened. Something Volker and Elias had absolutely reminded me of on more than one occasion. Both monarchs had felt the entity’s arrival and subsequent magical disturbances, and I’d volunteered my House for the task. It’d been an appropriate move, as I had all the resources required to track and remove the illegal being.

Except it kept escaping.

And no one could even tell me what it looked like. Female. Male. Vampire. Witch. God. Nothing. Because the few who had set eyes on it had referred to it as a shadowy figment.

Fucking useless border patrol. They hadn’t beenmyHouse members, but ones who were part of Spirit and Sapphire. Odin and Lady Gabriella had waved it all off like the failure hadn’t mattered.

“Whatever it is, it escaped,” Lady Gabriella had said, her voice holding a note of disinterest. “But surely you have the resources to find it, right? That’s the whole purpose of your House, is it not?”

The words had served as a taunt. A way to pique my interest and provide a challenge, all the while not taking responsibility for the initial fuckup.

“Oh, and be sure to keep Sky Serpell up to date,” she’d added, referring to one of the high-ranking members of Spirit and Sapphire. “We’ll await your report once you finish detaining the entity.”

Political games.

Something that had only worsened over the years, despite the peaceful ambience all the Houses played at.

The Great Sacrifice twenty-four years ago had really only ended a physical war. The mental one had continued, every leader on the board moving pieces and parts to strengthen their territories and increase their power.

I loathed it all.

Alas, I was quite skilled at chess. So I kept playing. And winning, too.

However, had such a border failure occurred in my territory, it absolutely would have been dealt with swiftly. Gold and Garnet did not allow trespassers.

Although, apparently this infamous entity had decided to vacation on my former shores in Dublin.

I would need to have a conversation with Kieran and Sabrina, the new monarchs of Death and Diamond, about increasing security along their perimeters. Well, technically, Sabrina was the monarch and Kieran was her consort. But they were both very much in charge.

“Consider it done,” Kaspian said, his phone in his hand as he carried out my orders regarding Klas and Nolan. “I’ll tell Slater to hold until they arrive.” He started toward the door, his focus on his screen. “I’ll let you know when I learn more.”

“I’ll be here,” I admitted, unable to hide my disappointment. I would much rather be Slater right now, in the field, tracking down a magical essence. And I probably would be if I didn’t have this mountain of requests to sort through.

Fucking Kieran and his new House, I thought as I picked up the papers Kaspian had knocked onto the floor.

It wasn’t technically Kieran’s fault, or even his new mate’s. I’d voted in favor of the House creation, mostly to clear an old debt. Or that was the excuse I’d provided.

What I would never admit to anyone other than Kaspian and the two fae in this room was that I’d recognized the difficulty of maintaining all of our island and land territories.

Gold and Garnet owned all of former-day Scandinavia, including Iceland—the home of our capital and my current home—along with the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was too much land when the majority of my people wanted to take bounty-hunting jobs around the world. I didn’t want to stifle their desires by forcing half of them to remain home and guard our borders.

So giving up the isles would be beneficial in the long term.

But for now, it sucked.

I picked up my mug of coffee and went back to work, losing my mind to the menial requests before me.

These were the types of things I wanted to delegate, but Larus was right. My people needed to hear from me personally.

And while, in the past, an email might have been easy to spoof, the way magic worked to power technology in our world today made my participation mandatory. They would be able to feel the energy lingering in the message, which served as my personal signature—a signature no one else could replicate.