Page 13 of Enchanted Shadows (The Enchanted Kingdom #6)

A pparently, I had been going too soft on them if they thought I would let sneaking out like this fly.

They knew they weren’t supposed to leave for the full ninety days.

Did they really think I was fool enough not to notice?

They just thought they’d get away with it?

Or did they not fear the ramifications of it?

Maybe I was the fool for assuming they were smarter than this.

I supposed I could be impressed with their plotting and be pissed at them. Efficient in my emotions.

They all seemed to understand the stigma they were fighting against in being the first team of women in Wylan. So why the hell would they risk it? For what? A night out on the town in Savaryn?

Never mind the fact that I once had the hell beat out of me by my general and spent the night in the mountain for something minor in our training: starting a fight.

Even though the prick had deserved it. I took ten lashes in the mountain for a fight and had to run even while my back healed.

I lived in fear during my own training, riding that fine line of standing up for myself but staying out of the mountain.

Meanwhile, these women were off going to parties.

Though I didn’t want them to fear me or experience what I had been forced to endure, I did want them to treat it seriously.

To understand the privilege they now had in being able to train in this safe manner.

Miles used his magic to rotate the wheels on a horseless wagon. It was powered by an Enchanted’s power. Not horses. And it could go as fast as our magic willed it, which was damn fast if we wanted.

I hopped on and we were flying toward Savaryn.

“Do you know where they are?” I asked as the wind flew by so fast it made my eyes water.

“I asked the men after Alvarez started talking. There are two parties tonight. Stirling’s and Whitman’s.”

I sighed out a string of curses.

“So I take it you know which one?”

Unfortunately, it was not Emric’s parents’ that the women went to. I’d wager a large amount of coin on it too. “They’re at the Stirling party. Wren used to date one of the Stirling boys. Or still is. Not sure.”

Miles scrunched up his nose. “We don’t like that.”

“No. We don’t.” The elder Stirlings were Theon Valanova loyalists. Bram Stirling was the grandson of a Theon loyalist. That alone didn’t damn him, if he wasn’t an entitled brat who had never been told no in his life. Never faced a consequence in his existence.

“Right.” Miles urged our chariot faster.

We pulled up and parked the wagon out of sight, behind a few trees.

“Plan?” Miles asked.

“See what they are up to first. Blend in.”

Miles tugged at his shirt. Black like mine. We weren’t exactly dressed for a party. Hopefully all parties were inebriated enough already that we could just stick to the walls and watch. Find the women. Get the hell out of there.

As soon as we neared the door to the Stirling mansion, we heard the thump of the deep bass.

This was not just a social drinking party it seemed.

I thought back to earlier in the day, the women dancing to a music that wasn’t there.

Was that not enough dancing for them, so they’d randomly decided to go dancing for the real thing?

No. If I wasn’t at the Stirling mansion, I would believe that. Hell, had we been at the Whitman residence I would be knocking back a whiskey before getting the women out of there. The fact that Bram Stirling was here meant that this was far more calculated. Personal.

Hormones were involved. After doing my best for forty-five days to keep all hormones out of this team, we’d finally sprung a leak in the most wretched of ways.

Miles and I stood against a wall. He handed me a drink, and I took it, just to look like we were being social. Neither of us would be drinking tonight.

“Look for Bram,” I told Miles. “I’m certain my sister is here either for him or because of him.”

Miles gave me a nod as we kept watching.

Sure enough, I found him on the dance floor in the main entertaining room. This room was a third of the size of the ballroom in the castle. Why an estate in Savaryn needed a ballroom like this was beyond me.

What was the point of these parties anyway? I’d never understood it. More harm and hurt came from the drunken ramifications than good. I supposed it was a status thing, though I wouldn’t know. I had never cared much for statuses. Nor feeling like hell after drinking too much.

Bram turned his dance partner around as their bodies ground against one another to the beat of the music, but I found that it wasn’t my sister that he was kissing.

Relief flooded my veins. Thank goodness his attention was elsewhere.

For close to a year, I had tried to tell my sister she deserved better.

But there were some things you just had to find out for yourself.

I felt eyes on me and instinctively looked up. To the brown eyes of Zara. Standing in a clump next to some Savaryn women and the rest of the team.

I squinted at her. Of all of them on the team, she knew better, dammit.

“Sorry,” she mouthed.

I glared.

And then before I could stop it, Wren released some of her pale green magic on a breeze which wrapped around Bram before smacking him in the back of the head.

He whipped around, finding the women on the balcony.

His magic had been the reason the volume in here was so loud, so he immediately turned it down. “Wren!” He gave her a smile that I didn’t much like. One steeped in condescension, like he was dealing with a child and not a woman. “Oh look, you brought your whole little team.”

“If things get ugly,” I told Miles as I took a sip of the shoddy beer, “don’t let me murder him. It will only rile the rest of the loyalists and the team doesn’t need that. None of us need that.”

“If you can’t, can I?” His eyes tracked Bram as he gestured for Wren and the girls to come down.

Thankfully she was smart enough not to use her power to go over the balcony to the floor where he was.

Because part of her team was not Enchanted, women like Jessina, Zara, and Elsie, she took the grand staircase down.

Miles and I moved in, still back far enough to blend in, but close enough to hear what was going on.

“How’s training, baby?” Bram asked my sister loudly. “Snuck out, huh? You’ve always been a rebel.”

What an interesting choice of words.

“How’s sleazing around behind my back?” Wren fired at him .

So they must have been back together then. For the third or fourth time. I forgot how many.

He reached for her, but she took a large step back. “I just missed you.”

“You missed me? That’s why your tongue was down Gretchen’s throat?”

The woman in question was at least smart enough to vanish.

“Wren. Don’t be a prude. Come on. You were going to be gone for months at a time.”

“Bram, I never want to see you again in my life.”

Music to my damn ears. Looking at the rage and hurt on my sister’s face, the fists she had clenched at her sides, I wished this wasn’t a lesson she had to learn on her own. That it hadn’t had to come to this. That she hadn’t had to see it with her own eyes.

“We aren’t done. We never are.”

“We are now,” Wren urged.

“And does your big brother know you’re here right now?”

Wren didn’t say anything. Just glared.

Bram’s eyes went wide before he gestured with a hand. “So you thought you’d leave to come spy on me, bring the girls with you?”

“We’re a team. They wouldn’t let me come without them,” Wren explained.

Bram tipped his head back and laughed. The prick laughed. “That’s cute. Hey, Novak. You hear that? Gone a month and they think they’re trained.”

Zara and Molly moved in; Molly grabbed Wren’s arm and pulled her back. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. You saw all you needed to.”

Novak moved in and stopped Molly, two others completing the four-pointed diamond around the women. “Nah. Stay. Have some fun. Let’s see how trained you are.”

“I already trained Wren in the art of s?—”

He never got to finish that statement. Zara moved fast, throwing her entire weight behind the punch and driving up toward his nose.

A cracking noise was heard just before blood began gushing everywhere. It was violent and bloody. I didn’t know what it said about me that I was damn proud of it.

“Uhh,” Bram yelled. “She broke my damn nose!”

“You deserved it,” was Zara’s simple answer.

“Make them pay,” Bram said to Novak and the others. “And someone get me something for my nose!”

“Time for some fun?” Miles asked me quietly, already in motion.

I gave him a nod. But before we could get there, a thick cord of turquoise magic formed around each of the men’s four necks, squeezing just enough to make them breathe hard and stall.

Novak and one of the others tried to use their Enchantment to protect themselves, firing at the women, assuming Wren’s magic was responsible. But the green was lighter, bluer. Molly’s. Molly, who had been becoming stronger with her Enchantment, if the speed and quick thinking were any indication.

Vivian easily tossed their attempts back at them with her own power, a lull in the action for only a moment as everyone sized one another up.

Until Fern dipped her fingers into her drink and fired the alcohol into Novak’s eyes. He immediately cried out. His eyes had to burn like hell itself.

I bit back a laugh. It was singlehandedly one of the funniest damn things I had ever seen.

Vivian used her magic to wrap around the other two, sliding them together.

Without us, the women had effectively handled things. I had told them they could stand up for themselves, and that they did.

Miles flanked me as I stepped between Bram and where Zara still stood. I noted Zara had placed herself between him and Wren, ready to protect her. Ready to land some damn punches, it seemed.

Someone had gotten Bram a rag, which he now held to his nose. He had just stepped toward Zara when I slid between them, my back brushing against Zara’s front.