Page 2 of Crown Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #3)

Adeline

I stare down at this beautiful beast of a man, trying to make sense of his garbled speech.

“Yoo-king-bu-ful…” he says, grinning up at me before he passes out.

My fury fades far too fast, an anger that, only moments ago, had churned within me.

I was prepared to burn this place to ash if it meant I could retrieve the precious artifact stolen from the Triarchy as quickly as possible.

Now, I’m more perplexed than mad. Life has taught me hard lessons about liars, and this bear shifter appeared more confused than guilty when I burst through the door demanding to know where the artifact is.

I spent the last ten minutes searching all of the chicken coops at the back of the building for where he might have hidden it. I’ve got grass in my hair and dirt stuck under my fingernails, and the damn birds wouldn’t stop pecking me…

Now I cast a questioning glance at the Crone. “What did he say?”

She gives me a shrug. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have hit him so hard.”

I huff at her, my rage resurfacing. “You told me he wouldn’t go down easily.”

She clears her throat. “Yes, well, your magic is stronger than ever, Adeline.”

Biting my lip, I bend over the bear shifter to examine him more closely.

I tell myself not to feel sorry for him.

Until I retrieve the artifact, I’m stuck here, helping the Crone and the Mother when I should be back home, through the portal to the witch’s world, helping my queen prepare for the birth of her first child.

Even so…

I brush the dark strands of unruly hair from the bear shifter’s rugged face, my fingertips grazing his shadowed jaw. His neck is thick, his chest broad, his biceps straining at his shirt sleeves, even though he isn’t flexing them.

A tattoo with a tribal pattern extends down his right arm, but notably, he isn’t wearing a House ring like the Crone and the Mother do, allying them with the House of Spirit and Sapphire.

I take in his strong eyebrows. Tan skin. The little crease in his brow that remains visible even though he’s at rest. Well, I suppose unconscious isn’t exactly at rest .

But it’s his lips that draw my focus for longest.

Lips far more enticing than I thought possible, begging me to come closer?—

“A puzzle, isn’t he?”

I jolt, so engrossed in my contemplation of the bear shifter that the Crone snuck up on me, bending to me before I know it.

A puzzle he certainly is.

I want to ask why he’s out here, living at the edge of the desert when I would have pictured a man like him working directly with Odin. Certainly in some capacity requiring muscle, because this shifter has plenty of those.

I shake myself hard. “What are we going to do now?”

The Crone clicks her tongue, studying the bear for a long moment. “I don’t think Bron’s waking up any time soon.”

Bron . It’s a good name for a bear, I suppose.

My shoulders slump. I really did hit him hard.

My powers are a consequence of desperate choices I made more than five years ago. At the time, I thought I’d retain these powers only temporarily, but not so.

I now control a dizzying mix of elemental magic, from sunlight, frost, and fire to astral projection, which allows me to project myself into another place and appear as if I’m really there. I even have power over shadows.

When the new queen rose to power, I thought the magic I’d acquired would vanish. It was a shock when it didn’t.

It also means I have to move carefully while I’m here on Earth. Years ago, the Crone and the Mother negotiated with Odin and Lady Gabriella—their House leaders—for me and my queen to visit from time to time, but we must keep our presence quiet. Any fuss will result in swift retribution.

I grimace at how close I came to making a fuss here.

“You’re going to have to take Bron back to our haven,” the Crone says.

I blink at her. Outsiders are never welcome in the Triarchy’s haven. As I know very well.

“But that’s?—”

“Dangerous?” She arches her eyebrows at me. “You’ve demonstrated it really isn’t.” Brushing down her pants, she rises back to her full height. “Tie him up. Use your power over air to float him back. The Mother will want to question him.”

“What about you?”

She clicks her tongue, a near-regretful sound. “I need to watch over these unconscious supernaturals.” She taps her thigh as she glides away from me. “Maybe if I conjure an illusion so they don’t wake with a fright… Mustn’t cause a fuss and all that.”

“But—”

At that moment, the chicken that darted inside when I burst through the door hops up onto Bron’s chest and quickly settles into the crook of his left arm. She’s a dark amber color with a plume of black feathers in her tail.

She proceeds to cluck sharply at me, as if she thinks I intend to do him harm.

Which I did. And maybe I still do.

Regardless, my first step must be to tie his hands and ankles together and she’s in the way of me moving his left arm.

I consider using my power of levitation to lift her off him, but I’m concerned it will scare her too much.

Can chickens die of shock?

The last thing I want is a dead bird on my hands, so I try waving my hands at her. “Go on. Shoo.”

“I believe that chicken’s name is Bessy,” the Crone calls from the other side of the room.

“They have names?”

She gestures at the embossed sign above the bar that declares the bar’s name.

Oh. Okay.

But now I’m even more perplexed. “Are you sure Bron’s the one who took?—”

The Crone’s eyes are suddenly closed, her power of illusion shimmering around her. She’s whispering spells so seamlessly to her previous speech that I wonder if she stopped in the middle to tell me the chicken’s name. Either way, it’s clear she’s back to her spells now.

No doubt creating whatever illusion she’s contrived to keep these supernaturals calm when they wake and somehow encourage them to leave in an orderly fashion.

There’s no interrupting her now.

I sigh into the near silence, broken only by her muttering and the softly clucking bird.

I should have known that responding to the Crone’s urgent message, asking for help here in this world, would only embroil me in her machinations.

While the Crone can create immense illusions, the Mother weaves a tapestry with threads of fate. Every supernatural here on Earth has a thread in the Mother’s tapestry, from which she identifies where their fate can be changed one way or another.

After the battle that came to be known as the Great Sacrifice, when too many supernaturals lost their lives, the Crone and the Mother vowed to prevent any such bloodshed from ever happening again.

I don’t know the magical nature of the artifact that was stolen, only that it’s in the form of a crown. And, while the Crone was at great pains to tell me it has no royal value, the magic contained within it has the ability to upset the balance she and the Mother have worked hard to maintain.

They need it recovered. And quickly. Before it can be used for malicious purposes. It seems they’ve decided I’m the one for the job.

Shaking my head, I reach toward Bessy again, wondering how I’m going to displace her when she seems extremely content nesting on Bron’s arm.

As soon as I’m within an inch of making contact, she swivels her head faster than I can blink and pecks my hand.

Ouch.

I stare at her, my eyes wide.

She’s oddly terrifying.

Is there such a thing as a chicken shifter here on Earth?

Because this bird has some serious personality…

Huffing, I rise back to my feet and plant my hands on my hips.

“Right,” I snap at her, my power over fire sizzling around my hands. “Unless you want to become a delicious roast, you’re going to move.”

I don’t intend to go through with it, but the heat has the effect I wanted.

With a disgruntled ruffle of her feathers, Bessy finally hops off Bron’s arm and stalks away, clucking indignantly as she goes.

Okay, then.

Calming my mind, I draw on my power over organic matter, utilizing the only plant in the room, a ball-shaped cactus with strange, white petals jutting out all over it, to create a long vine, which I wrap around Bron’s wrists, drawing his hands together.

I then attach the vine to his ankles, trussing him up so he won’t be able to take a step. Using my magic, I merge the ends of the vine together so there isn’t even a knot for him to undo.

The vines may look fragile, but they’re unbreakable. If he tries to use his claws to cut through them, he’ll get a nasty shock because I’ve even embedded a little frost power into the vine. Not enough to make him lose a finger to frostbite, but enough to make him think twice about it.

Drawing on my power over air, I use it to lift him upward, keeping him horizontal to the ground.

Then I pick my way around unconscious supernaturals, trying not to step on any fingers, arms, or legs.

I pass the Crone along the way, but she doesn’t look up.

I’m surprised when her voice reaches me before I can step outside. “Remember, Adeline, he has more to fear from you than you do from him.”

I suppose that’s true.

After all, my magic is why I avoid coming to Earth and why my queen stays away, too. We don’t want to ruffle any feathers…

I clear my throat when another chicken flutters across my path and Bessy launches herself through the open door before it closes behind me.

Rounding the building, I discover more birds free-ranging there and annoyingly, it’s the side where the Crone’s magical passageway begins.

Hoping none of them follow me, I hurry toward the concealed tunnel, holding my breath when my approach triggers it to open and become visible. Once I enter it, it will become invisible from the outside again.

Entering the tunnel, I’m surrounded by soft light and glimmering walls and, thankfully, no chickens.

The entrance closes behind me, and I continue onward at a brisk pace, floating Bron in front of me.

It feels better to be making progress, even if it’s just putting one foot in front of the other.

I’m grateful for the tunnel. It’s only because of this temporary passage that my journey back to the haven will take a mere ten minutes instead of whole days.

Even so, the passageway will let out a solid five-minute walk from the front of the haven. The haven’s magic is in a state of turmoil because of the missing crown and the Crone didn’t want to risk that the passageway would be distorted.

It means I’ll have a blistering walk once we exit the tunnel, but, hell, it’s been ages since I used my frost power to its fullest extent.

Ten minutes later, I prepare to step out into the heat once more, my boots crunching on sand.

No sooner does the passageway disappear behind me than Bron stirs.

Oh, no, you don’t.

Quickly, I prepare to knock him out again, but he moves faster than I can anticipate.

In an instant, he roars awake, his body shifting mid-air.

A full shift.

Into a bear so big, I’m cast into shadow as he twists, breaking through my levitation magic, snapping my vines like they’re mere twigs, and planting his feet on the ground before he rears up in front of me.

My whole body goes into shock.

I’m staring up into the face of a bear with such bloodthirsty eyes, such sharp teeth, and such fucking scary claws that I can’t even scream, let alone draw breath.

The Crone was wrong. So wrong.

He doesn’t have more to fear from me than I do from him.

I’m frozen, too terrified to move, as he lowers his snarling snout to my face and growls a single word that shocks me to my core.

“ Mate. ”