Page 8

Lach

Consciousness proved I wasn’t dead, but it made me wish I was.

My muscles protested as I sat up and tried to open my eyes, which seemed to be glued shut. I winced as I wiped crusted blood from my lashes. That explained the soreness. My shirt was torn down the middle to reveal singed skin and seeping wounds. Bain had fought dirty, summoning a binding spell that allowed him to use his fire magic against me. The rest was a bit hazy, like how I’d wound up in a fairly comfortable bed and not a shallow grave.

That was the danger of confronting an enemy in another court. They had the home field advantage, and clearly, Bain had been prepared for my arrival. Whatever curse he’d used against me must have lingered in my blood, because my head was fuzzy and I wasn’t healing. More reasons to hate him.

I’d failed my first attempt to swing my legs over the side of the bed when the door creaked open and answered one of my questions.

“You look like shit,” Roark announced a bit too cheerfully.

I flipped him off—or tried to. My finger was broken, and I was seeing double. A smile tugged at my lips, but I winced. Even that hurt. “How?”

“Your sister called me. Did you think she was going to let you go after Bain alone?”

His words dashed any relief I’d felt at seeing him. I should have known my penumbra would intervene when he found out I’d headed to London. “So, your phone does work.”

He ignored the accusation.

“Eat this.” Something hard and cold smacked against my chest. I fumbled, barely catching the blood apple. “You are going to need your strength.”

The ominous bent of his words jogged something loose in my brain. I took a bite, forcing myself to swallow. An instant warmth spread through me, easing, if not erasing, some of my pain and clearing my head enough for me to make out my surroundings.

The Avalon. Roark had brought me to the Avalon.

I shot to my feet, my left ankle barking in protest. Also broken. I stumbled a step. “Have you lost your mind? The Hunt—”

“Aren’t going to be a problem.” Roark caught me by the arm and nudged me toward a chair. My penumbra—my shadow—had been my friend and advisor since birth. Even if I had left the throne in the hands of my sister, our bond remained.

“If they show up here, all of you could get caught in the crossfire.”

“Except we’re not idiots, unlike some people who go after their enemies without backup,” he said with a pointed look. “Ciara’s been spoon-feeding you yarrow to keep your magic hidden. We didn’t want the Hunt to be able to trace you here. Not before we were ready for them.”

That’s why I hadn’t healed. Not due to Bain, but my own family drugging me.

“And we’re ready now?”

“More or less.” He shrugged like we weren’t discussing my imminent death at the hands of an execution squad. “I convinced her to stop dosing you so we could catch you up.”

“Thanks,” I said, not quite sure that I meant it.

“I’m glad to see you. Your family, however, wants to kill you.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, and I winced at the smarting pain. He shoved me down with a smile and looked pointedly at the apple. “I would take whatever help I can get.”

I groaned, collapsing into the seat and dutifully taking another bite. “What the hell happened?”

“You really don’t remember?” He leaned against the wall, crossing his tattooed forearms, and glared across the room at me. “You walked into the Infernal Court and picked a fight with Bain.”

Oh yeah. That .

“Without anyone to back you up,” he added.

“You mentioned that.”

“Because you’re a moron.”

“Sounds like me,” I said flatly.

“Bain beat the shit out of you. You’ve been out for days.”

“Days?” I repeated. I’d lost days .

“Ciara said to let you heal on your own.”

“Why would she say that?”

“Because we have enough to deal with. We didn’t need to worry about you, too.” Roark chewed on his lip ring—a sure sign that he was frustrated enough to agree with her.

“Why am I alive?” That’s what didn’t make sense. Bain was within his rights to kill me or turn me over to the Wild Hunt. I’d picked the fight. I had breached his court. I had killed his penumbra.

I shouldn’t be breathing.

“Good question.” He tilted his head, waiting for me to supply a reason. But I only shrugged. “I showed up, and he told me to get you out of his sight. I practically had to scrape you off the floor.”

“Hopefully you got all the important bits.” I deposited the core next to a full bowl of apples before taking another.

Roark waved his hand, and the core disappeared. “You mean hopefully I got all the brain cells. You can’t stand to lose any more.”

He had good reason to be pissed at me, and since I couldn’t do shit until the blood apple sped up my natural healing abilities, I took it.

But when I failed to challenge him, Roark’s voice softened with disappointment. “You attacked another court. What were you thinking?”

That’s the problem: I wasn’t thinking. I couldn ’ t think. Even now, I was biding time until I was healed enough to continue my search for Cate. My eyes lifted to his. I wasn’t used to sharing my thoughts out loud with him, but he seemed to understand the implied question.

“Bain doesn’t have Cate,” he said softly.

I tensed hearing her name, a new pain flooding through me. “So he claims.”

“Do you believe him?” Roark asked.

He wasn’t angry that I’d attacked another court. He was pissed that I’d left him out of it. If I said no, if I asked him to go back to London, he would. It was a small comfort that after everything, the bond between us was still unbreakable.

But that didn’t change facts. “Things are a bit fuzzy,” I admitted, “but he seemed genuinely surprised when I showed up. I don’t think he has her.”

“So, who does?” Roark asked.

That was the question. I stared past him like I might find the answers if I only looked harder.

“We’ll find her.”

I tried to nod.

“What—”

The door to my room swung open, cutting him off. Ciara stormed inside, pointing a shaky finger at me. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Apparently, that was the question of the hour.

“He wasn’t,” Fiona answered for me, appearing at our sister’s side.

I held up my hands in surrender, relieved that my fingers were already fully healed thanks to the apple. But Ciara continued her rampage. “I have spent the last few days trying to convince every creature in New Orleans to help you, overtasking the city’s magic on a spell we aren’t sure will even hold, and then you go and pull something like this!”

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest, lifting a brow.

“Go ahead,” I grumbled.

But she glared at me. “Saying I told you so gets us nowhere. Now, if you could learn from one of your mistakes, that would be helpful.”

“Let’s not get ambitious,” Roark said, a half smile playing on his lips as he watched them attack.

I gripped the chair and hauled myself to my feet.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ciara demanded.

“Back to the Infernal Court. I’d rather deal with Bain.”

Ciara drew a sharp breath, her face mottling red with rage. “If you so much as—”

“Whoa.” Roark grabbed her by the shoulders. “He’s not going anywhere.”

He sent a sharp look in my direction. Roark would stop me. He was probably the only one who could.

“I’m not going through all the trouble of putting a bona fides ward on this city for you to get yourself killed,” she snapped.

Nope. Roark was clearly right that she planned to do that herself.

“A ward?” I asked. Someone had to steer this conversation in a different direction. “What good will that do?”

Despite her fury, a smug smile lit up her face. “A bona fides ward ,” she repeated, “and for starters, it will keep the Wild Hunt out of New Orleans.”

“Really? You came up with that?” I looked at Roark for confirmation.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Ciara said in a wounded voice.

I quickly shook my head before she exploded again. “I’m not. I had no idea that was possible.”

Her smile faltered. “A familiar gave me the idea. I’ve been meeting with the covens for days, trying to convince them to help us. The spell draws off magic from all three parishes and projects out like a shield to the city limits. At least it’s supposed to. We’re still getting it stabilized.”

“What kind of magic does it use?” I asked. It was a good idea, but relying on the covens for help was delicate business, and judging by Ciara’s deepening frown, it wasn’t going smoothly.

“Several to make it hard to unravel,” Roark told me. “It’s tied to the location as well as a loyalty oath, blood, and some other stuff.”

“And they’re actually cooperating?” I was impressed. Ciara might not believe she could handle taking my place, but clearly, she could.

She grimaced. “They’re already complaining that it’s draining the city’s magic, and we’ve only shielded to this side of the river. Every creature in New Orleans that isn’t of our bloodline has until midnight to take the oath. After that, it should stay up.”

“And if they don’t take the oath?” I asked. As a rule, we kept track of every creature that entered the city, but some occasionally slipped past us.

“They’ll find themselves very uncomfortable,” Ciara said, scrunching her nose. “The magic will mark them as dissidents physically. They’ll want to leave town.”

“Or they’ll come crawling to us,” Roark added with a smug grin.

“Let’s hope so.” Ciara’s sigh carried a weight I understood. No wonder she was in such a bad mood. Doing business with the city’s covens was difficult on a good day and rarely required the three groups to work together. “I’m supposed to meet with the covens in a few hours to hunt down anyone who’s holding out on us.”

Probably a fair few.

“And before that, we need to have a family meeting of our own,” Fiona suggested. “Someone should call Shaw at the hospital.”

“Hospital?”

“He’s with Channing,” Ciara explained. “I figured Cate would kill us if anything happened to her brother, so I made him keep watch. That way, when she gets back…”

A knot tightened in my throat. I managed a nod of thanks but couldn’t bring myself to speak.

“Bain doesn’t have her,” Roark told them in a low voice.

Ciara stared at him for a minute before her eyes flashed to me. “That doesn’t make sense. Where is she?”

“Maybe she just left town,” Fiona said.

Anger gripped me, but it was Ciara who snapped, “You don’t know her.”

“And Channing called me,” I reminded them. “He said someone took her.”

“He didn’t say who it was?”

I swallowed. “I assumed.” I should have nipped to her brother the moment he called, should have forced the information out of him before this could happen. “Has he told us anything?”

Ciara glanced at Roark.

“What?” I asked.

She took a deep breath. “He’s in a coma. There was a lot of internal damage. Garcia isn’t sure he’ll walk again.”

Only half of what she said filtered through. “You’re telling me that no one has talked to Channing?”

“Try to keep up. He’s in a coma,” Fiona said.

“Did you even try to wake him?”

Ciara glared at me. “We’ve had our hands full. Do you know how hard it is to track down every creature in this city?”

“And we thought Bain had her,” Fiona reminded me.

“So now we know that he doesn’t.” I got up, testing my ankle for a second before I strode to my closet for clothes. One fucking blood apple, and I was healed. They could have given it to me days ago if they were going to stifle my magic’s natural ability to heal. I slipped out of the torn shirt, pausing to scrub away the clotted remnants of the fight, before I reached for another. “Channing knows who has her. We need him awake.”

Roark picked up another blood apple from the bowl, reading my mind.

“That’s not going to be enough,” Ciara told him. “He’s paralyzed. He needs something stronger than that.”

Finally, we agreed on something. It was likely to be the last thing we agreed on, though. “You’re right.” I turned to Roark, the shadow magic of my city ebbing toward me. “Call Baptiste.”