Page 7 of Crown Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #3)

Bron

M aking peace with Adeline is damn hard.

Not because I lied about my intentions, but because it’s taking all my willpower not to wrap her up in the hug my bear wants to give her.

What really irks me is that this ferocious witch is triggering all of my protective instincts.

Since when do you like to snuggle? I ask my bear as Adeline leads me back through the castle toward the garden where the Tree of Lost Things awaits.

Mate , he says, as if that answers my question.

I just don’t understand how that’s possible. My mate was for life. A second chance is impossible. Even if I allow myself to entertain the unlikely possibility that I deserve a second chance—which I don’t—Adeline clearly doesn’t feel the same way.

I have no idea how a witch chooses her mate or if she would form a bond like my bear would…

I shake my head, which Adeline doesn’t miss.

“Hmm?” she asks.

I think quickly. “The stolen object. You keep calling it an artifact . Why is it so important?”

“Every object on the Tree of Lost Things is important,” she replies. “But this one has the power to upset the balance of fate.”

“How?”

“Because it can make true what is false.”

My forehead crinkles. “What does that mean?”

“Well… Take this flower.” She points to a trailing vine with roses on it that meanders over the doorframe we’re passing through.

We’ve reached the glass atrium and I shrink, making myself as small as possible so I don’t touch any of the foliage.

“That rose is white,” she says, continuing onward as she speaks, drawing aside the plants like she did earlier. “But say you wanted the rose to be red, which it isn’t. Well, with the crown?—”

“The crown?”

“The artifact is in the form of a crown—” She hurriedly points at a prickly-looking plant whose leaves are like sharp spokes. “Don’t touch that. It will sting.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” I grumble. “You were saying about the crown?”

She nods. “With the crown, the rose will be red.”

I ponder this for a moment. Maybe I’m not the sharpest claw in the den, but… “Isn’t that simply transformation magic?”

“No.” She stops so abruptly, I run into the back of her. My arms fly up to steady her, but she deftly retains her balance and I force my wayward limbs back to my sides.

No snuggling! I snap at my bear, suspecting he deliberately chose to blunt my reflexes so I would bump into her.

He’s sheepishly quiet.

But now the shadows in Adeline’s eyes give me pause.

“Not transformation magic,” she says, tipping her head back to look up at me. “With the crown’s magic, it would be as if the rose had always been red. Nobody would even remember it was ever white. Because… with the crown’s magic… it never was white.”

I can only stare back at her, my eyes wide. “Make true what’s false.”

“It’s extremely dangerous magic. The Crone has a theory that the artifact was fashioned into a crown because it could be worn on the head of its controller, making true their thoughts.” She shudders. “The consequences could be devastating.”

Make true what’s false.

My heart is suddenly pounding in my chest, an uncomfortable beat. “Can it give life back to someone who has died?”

Adeline’s lips press into a line, but it isn’t a hard line. Not forbidding. It’s haunted, like her eyes. “It could undo any pain. Even bring back a lost mate.”

Her response tells me she must know my history. I guess the Crone wouldn’t let her step near me without warning her about my bear.

It makes sense now why the witches thought I stole the crown.

When my mate died and my bear lost his mind, he went rabid. I went rabid.

The Triarchy was brought in to deal with me. Their former Maiden was still with them at that time. They could have ended me and saved themselves a lot of trouble, but for some reason unfathomable to me, they chose to keep me alive.

They forced my bear to retreat and enabled me to take control again.

But I never really trusted myself afterward.

It’s why I chose to stay at the edge of the Sahara. I knew the Triarchy had a home here. Somewhere within the vast desert. So if my bear ever went on a rampage again, they’d be close by to shut him down.

After a little while, I thought I was even making myself useful to them.

When travelers stopped at my bar, I’d send them east or west and strongly discourage them from traveling north into the desert itself.

“ Go around ,” I’d tell them. “ Don’t risk death by dehydration ,” I’d add, although in my mind, I always meant ‘death by witches.’

The only time I failed was about five years ago when a raven shifter stopped in at the bar and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t dissuade him from journeying north instead of going around.

I wonder if he was the mercenary whose clothing—and no doubt skeletal remains—rest in the Triarchy’s dungeon.

But now this artifact… this crown… can change everything.

It could bring back my mate and make the world as if she’d never died.

“Make happy what is un happy,” Adeline murmurs. “Heal what can’t heal.”

A soft sigh leaves her lips as she turns away and we proceed in silence, me tiptoeing between plants while she takes care to move them out of the way for me.

When we reach the garden and I let myself breathe again, I catch the flicker of a smile around her mouth.

“What?” I ask cautiously.

“Uh… I didn’t have the heart to tell you…” She gives me an apologetic grimace. “Only the plants on this side of the atrium are poisonous. You didn’t need to worry about the others.”

Oh.

“What about that prickly one?”

“Well… It’s prickly. It stings. But not… in a poisonous way.”

And yet she spent so much of her time and attention carefully pulling all of the plants out of my way, as though… she cared that I felt safe.

She cares , my bear offers.

A wonky grin grows on my lips.

Adeline’s eyes widen, a surprised expression that intensifies when I shrug casually and say, “Well, I’ll tuck that away for future reference, then.”

I take a deep breath of fresh air, pulling her lovely scent into my heart.

When did she start growing on me?

Mate , my bear says smugly.

Fuck off , I growl back at him.

Although the possibility that Adeline could be my mate… Now that I know about the crown’s power…

I can’t stop the turmoil boiling within me as I follow Adeline to the majestic weeping willow, where I pause a few steps away from it, wary of the magic shrouding it.

“We need to go carefully,” she says, her hands raised to the fronds. “The tree is cloaked in protective spells. A few years ago, I was given access to it, but I’m not sure how it will react to you. It’s already upset about the lost crown. You need to stay close to me when we go inside.”

She reaches back for my arms, guiding them around her from behind, pressing her back to my chest and pulling my arms across her stomach.

“Here,” she says. “Move with me? Let’s try it.”

Move with her? Hell. Whatever turmoil I was feeling moments ago vanishes. My senses are suddenly in a spin for entirely different reasons. It’s taking all my willpower to control my body’s responses to her nearness because I’d love nothing more than to move with her .

She takes a step and somehow, my legs move in sync with hers, slow paces while she reaches forward, turns her outstretched palm to the side, and slips her fingers between the curtain the fronds form.

A moment later, she draws me inward.

The protective magic scratches across my body, anything but soft, and I’m glad she’s facing away from me, because I’m certain I lose my tough act when I scrunch my eyes closed.

A moment later, we step into a large cavern, both high and wide, formed by the tree’s fronds. Entering it is as surprising as stepping through the crumbling wall in the desert and discovering the witch’s hidden oasis on the other side.

The branches spreading overhead glow with cerulean-blue light. So does the tree’s trunk on the far side of the cavern, softly lighting the whole space.

Perhaps even more startling than my new surroundings is the way Adeline continues to press her arms across mine, keeping me where I am, plastered against her back.

Maybe the magic within this place needs us to stick closely together.

Well, I’m not about to move away for as long as she wants me here.

“The Tree of Lost Things has five caverns like this one,” Adeline says. “Each one is separated by fronds that form caves within the foliage. The previous Maiden created this place. She planted the seed that grew into this tree and nurtured it for years and years…”

I consider how long it would take for a tree like this to grow, but I’m not terribly surprised because witches can live for up to five hundred years. Adeline herself could be hundreds of years old.

She gives herself a little shake but still doesn’t step out of my arms, even though I hold her lightly. “She was a far better Maiden than I ever was.”

My forehead creases. “Adeline?”

She’s quiet for a moment. “I was once the Maiden in the Triarchy. That was before my own mother betrayed?—”

Her voice chokes and she’s suddenly stiff in my arms.

I don’t know the Triarchy’s history. I didn’t know the position of the Maiden was previously held by another witch—or rather, held by Adeline.

I only met the Triarchy when they were first called in to deal with me.

I met their Maiden at that time. Five years ago, that Maiden left them, and they haven’t had a Maiden since.

No wonder Adeline snapped so sharply at me when I nearly called her their new Maiden. I must have inadvertently gouged at old wounds. The very thing I didn’t want to do.

“Hey,” I murmur softly against Adeline’s ear. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.” Then I add, “Unless you want to.”

She turns her head, her cheek pressing to my jaw for the briefest moment, the smallest press of her face to mine before she slips out of my arms.

I let her go.

I could no sooner cage her than I could hold a butterfly in my big paws.

She keeps her face turned away from me as she points at a spot on the tree’s trunk where a knobby section of wood juts out.

“This is where the crown rested,” she says, her voice more ragged than I was expecting.

“Yesterday, the tree’s boughs started shrieking.

The Crone and the Mother raced out to find out what was wrong, but they couldn’t get past the protective spells, so they called me in to help.

I found the crown gone and your ring sitting on this ledge in its place. ”

I sidle up to the empty knob, but a glance at Adeline allows me to catch the sparkle of tears on her cheeks before she quickly turns her face away again.

Damn .

But if she doesn’t want me to see her tears, then I’m not going to comment on them. I just wish I could make her feel better.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I reply quietly. “I’ve never seen this tree before.”

Adeline casts glances around the cavern, keeping her face turned away as she considers one side and then the other. “The Mother said we should start here.”

“The scene of the crime,” I mutter.

“She’s a mistress of fate, so I thought something would happen once you approached this spot, but…”

Again, Adeline glances around, as if she’s waiting for something to happen.

I fold my arms across my chest, tapping my finger on my arm, waiting.

Waiting…

Adeline’s shoulders slump. “Maybe we should?—”

At that moment, the ground shifts beneath my feet. Beneath hers too, judging by the way she suddenly lurches toward me.

My eyes fly wide a second before the earth gives way completely and we’re tumbling, both of us, into darkness.