Page 32

CHAPTER 32

brIAR

I stare into the guy’s ocean blue eyes like a deer caught in the headlights. I’m so close that I can pick out the darker blue flecks near his pupil and the blond sun streaks in his light brown hair.

“Move!” Dido shouts in my head.

I flail and almost fall the entire thirty feet back to the sand at her voice. Where? I scream back internally. The Knight is literally right in front of me. His hands are resting inches from mine as he intently scans the ocean for any intruders, like me.

At least we know the veil works because the dude has zero clue I’m here. If he did, I’m pretty sure I’d be super dead by now.

“Go back to your previous hand and footholds,” Dido urges me. “While the veil will hide you from sight, he is close enough to touch you. If that happens, the entire island will soon know you are here. You need to move before he does.”

The urgency in her voice spurs me into action. I carefully lower myself until I’m hanging on the rampart by just my fingers. I kick my legs out until I touch the last stone I was using to support my weight. When I’m sure I’m secure, I hesitantly reach one hand back down to the void I previously held onto.

I’m going to have to climb back out when I leave, aren’t I?

“You will, yes.” Dido’s voice has a hint of amusement to it. I’m glad one of us finds my predicament funny.

I don’t know how much time passes before the Knight finally wanders away, but it’s long enough that my arm and leg muscles are on fire from holding me up like this for what feels like an eternity.

When I hear rustling and retreating footsteps, I cautiously place my hands on the rough stone of the rampart. I pull myself up until I can just peek over. I breathe out a sigh of relief when the coast is clear. Pushing up until I can swing one leg over, I quickly hop over the wall and sink to the ground, soggy clothes squelching as I do.

While I know I need to get moving, I also need a second for my achy muscles to rest and the frantic beat of my heart to slow. It’d be all too easy to fall asleep here out of sheer exhaustion, so I make sure to keep my eyes open and scan my surroundings for the duration of my short rest.

When I no longer hear the fast thrum of my heart in my ears, drowning out most other sounds, I stuff my wet socks in my pocket and shove my feet into my sneakers barefoot. I don’t bother tying them because I’ll be taking them off as soon as I’m ready to leave.

Unbuckling the dry bag, I fish out my phone and turn the brightness down as far as it can go. I stand up and wince at the water dripping from me. I ring out my shirt, shorts, and hair the best I can. Hopefully no one will notice the slight water trail I’m still leaving behind.

Once I’m as dry as I’m going to get, I take a ton of pictures of the area around the rampart. Cautiously, I wander down the wall as far as I can until I spot a Knight, snapping photos the whole way. I repeat the process for the other side before deciding to venture further into the city.

I don’t know where exactly the mages will want to portal in, so I need to take as many pictures as I can. It doesn’t hurt to look at what the Knights are up to either. That way we won’t have to go in blind.

My shoes make hardly any noise on the cobblestone streets as I creep through the outskirts of the city. This far out from the city center, I’m mostly surrounded by lush trees, orchards, and the occasional squat building. My head is on a swivel as I check for anyone around me, but I don’t run into any Knights.

It’s almost like a ghost town out here. The only sound that interrupts the still and silent night is the crashing ocean waves. Pausing every couple hundred feet to snap a picture, I start letting my guard down as I see no one. I enjoy my meandering walk as I admire the stone residential buildings, the towering castle I can see in the distance, and the neatly laid-out streets as I walk.

As I’m passing from what were probably houses back in Dido’s time into what looks like warehouses and shops, I’m startled by raised voices from somewhere ahead of me. I almost drop my phone as I jump in surprise. My hand flies up to my chest, like it can stop the sudden pounding of my heart.

Shaking my head at myself because I never should’ve gotten so comfortable, I slowly creep toward the voices, not bothering to take many pictures of the shopping district as I go. I’m rounding the corner of a short sandstone building, trying to find whoever is talking, when I almost crash into a group of Knights.

In my haste not to bump into them, I stumble backward into a hard wall. Stones dig into my back, and I have to bite my cheek to keep from yelping in surprise. The trio of Knights round the corner as I try to flatten myself even further into the wall so I don’t accidentally touch one of them.

“I’m so fucking jealous of Louis,” a stocky, brown-haired man grumbles. “I can’t believe he gets to leave this shithole with the artifacts while we’re stuck here with a pissy Ryker.”

Well, I guess that answers what the boxes they’re loading up are full of. They’re stealing artifacts from the hidden city. I’m guessing they’re selling them to the highest bidder to fund their operation.

Dido growls in my mind. “I will take great pleasure in dismembering each and every Knight with our bare hands. They are destroying my home to provide funds for destroying my people.”

I’m so sorry, I whisper internally. We’ll get them back, I promise. If they’re being sold at auction, we can bid on them and then return them back here. After we take care of the Knights, of course.

She sighs in dismay but doesn’t say anything further.

“He’s been in a piss-poor mood since his nephew mysteriously died after they had to blow up the facility because of a shifter plague. I’m not sure I buy that mini-Ryker conveniently kicked the bucket after they had to destroy one of the most important labs. I bet ’lil Ryker was responsible for the outbreak, and the old man killed him in a fit of anger,” the tall, lanky Knight theorizes with a smile.

Wait, what?

Ryker is telling everyone they blew up the facility?

What a lying shit taco.

My mates absolutely kicked ass when they broke into the facility, rescued everyone, killed a bunch of Knights, and destroyed the whole thing.

I can’t believe he’s hiding what happened from all of his Knights and claiming it was intentional. I guess it would make him look pretty weak if the Knights knew that mangy shifters and mages managed to infiltrate his state-of-the-art lab, but still.

A grin curves my lips knowing Ryker has been pissed off since his facility was destroyed, though. I live for messing with his plans.

“Shut up, man. You know Ryker has ears everywhere. If he hears you, he’ll crucify you on the seawall and leave you there to die slowly like he did to Davis.” The baby-faced blond Knight shudders in revulsion, not that I blame him. That’s a pretty gruesome way to go.

The tall one rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything as the three of them continue walking past me, none of them realizing I’m even here.

Well, the good news is that we rattled Ryker. I bet he’d be downright ecstatic if he had figured out how to extend the curse, so we should still have time to stop him.

The bad news is that he’s probably itching for a fight and a chance to put us in our place. That’ll make it harder to take him out, but I didn’t expect anything about the coming battle to be easy.

After waiting a beat to make sure no one else is coming, I quickly take a picture and then round the corner. I zigzag my way through long since abandoned shops until the cobblestone road gives way to a grassy area.

I huddle beside a building as I look over the vast open space. It must’ve been beautiful once upon a time, but now, the green grass is trampled, the fruit trees are drooping, and the fountain is cracked and drained. Knights are milling around the space with black crates scattered everywhere.

Some of the boxes are open with guns, artillery, and more military equipment spilling out. I’ve never seen so many guns in my entire life, which isn’t even counting the multitude strapped to two hundred or so Knights wandering around.

Welp, there goes my hope that the island was mostly deserted. They have Knights stationed all around the massive wall, loading up at the docks, on the ships, roaming the city, and a bunch of them here. Based on how many they have crawling all over this one small area, I’d guess there are at least five hundred to a thousand of them on the island.

Fantastic.

Shaking my head, I pull out my phone and carefully walk to stand in front of the building to get a photo of this green space. I only take one because I don’t know how well the veil hides things that aren’t me, like a phone. The Knights would definitely know something’s up if a phone is just casually floating around.

“Two weeks?” a familiar voice shouts in disbelief. “That’s unacceptable! You have already had weeks to figure it out. And what have you done in that time? Nothing!”

“I’m s-s-sorry, sir. We’re working as fast as we can,” a trembling voice, which I’m pretty sure belongs to Clark from the lab, timidly responds.

My muscles lock up in remembered fear when Ryker turns toward me, the scar slashing across his face looking silvery in the moonlight. He shoves a hand through his hair before roughly yanking something out of his belt.

When I see that it’s his gun, I’m moving before I even know what I’m doing. The rage that has been simmering inside me from how he killed Jake like he meant nothing and was prepared to do the same to Annabel burns into a full-blown inferno. I’m ready to march through all of these Knights and rip out Ryker’s throat.

But my muscles seize up before I can take more than a few steps. I struggle against the invisible force holding me captive, but I’m unable to move even an inch.

“Now is not the time, child.” Dido’s voice sounds both sympathetic and exasperated with me.

If I leave him alive, he’ll continue to hurt more people. He would hurt my mates, my family, and everyone I care about without a second thought. Why shouldn’t I kill him? I grit out in my mind.

“I am not against killing him, but now is not the time. What is your plan after you kill him and the Knights are alerted to your presence?”

I glare at her. I’ll figure it out.

“That is not good enough. Is the satisfaction of killing Ryker now worth forfeiting the chance to break the curse and keep the Knights from coming after those you care about? Is Ryker’s death really more important than keeping your people and your loved ones safe?” Dido’s tone is dripping with disappointment, and she finally breaks through to me.

I’d hang my head if I could move, because Dido’s right. Whatever satisfaction I get from killing Ryker right now isn’t worth getting myself killed or allowing the curse to continue.

You’re right , I whisper reluctantly. Sorry.

“Do not apologize, child. I cannot tell you how many times emotion ruled my actions instead of reason. But I want you to learn from my many, many mistakes, not repeat them.” Dido releases control of my body, and I slump.

I startle upright at a loud bang echoing across the green space. Hunting for the source of the sound, I see Ryker standing over Clark, who has red blooming across the front of his white shirt. His eyes are wide and sightless as he goes completely limp on the grass.

“Anyone else want to tell me that it will take two more weeks to complete this one, simple project of expanding the curse?” When the remaining scientists frantically shake their heads, Ryker’s mouth twists up in a cruel grin. “Now I expect it to be done by end of day Friday. Otherwise, I’ll need to get a new team of scientists. Understand?”

The scientists nervously nod again. Without glancing back, Ryker turns on his heel and marches across the green, straight toward me. I shrink back against the wall as he continues on his mission, stopping only a few feet away from me.

He bends down to rummage in one of the crates for something. I try to stealthily scoot around the wall to get more space from the dude who just killed someone in front of hundreds of witnesses.

I’m almost to the corner when my shirt snags on a loose stone. It makes a horrible scraping sound as I drag the brick with me. I freeze in a panic as Ryker snaps his head up and looks directly at me. When he squints like he can just make out my form, my heart leaps into my throat in fear.

While everything in me wants to run, I’m worried I’ll make too much noise, so I stay exactly where I am. Ryker abandons the crate he was inspecting and walks over to the wall, scanning it critically. I hold my breath as he moves closer and closer to me.

Right when he’s about to walk into me, a hare leaps out from one of the windows and sprints across the green, startling quite a few Knights. Ryker blows out a breath and mutters, “Damn rabbits.” He shakes his head and goes back to rooting through the crate.

Once his back is turned, I quickly free my shirt and tiptoe the last few feet until I’m back around the corner. I breathe out a small sigh of relief and send up a thank-you to the bunny for saving my ass. Shaking my head at how close I just came to Ryker finding me, I carefully walk back the way I came.

Using one of the further-out streets, I slowly circle the entire island. Thanks to my multiple brushes with being discovered and brutally murdered by the Knights, I’m hypervigilant as I creep around. It takes me another couple hours to cautiously move through the entirety of the city, snapping photos as I go.

While I’m able to get a lot of pictures of the outer ring of buildings, I don’t take the chance of getting close to the interior green space again. I also avoid what looks like the central castle and surrounding administrative buildings. All of those structures are heavily guarded by Knights, although no one seems to be inside them.

I have to assume that’s where the curse is and why it’s so closely watched. That’ll be the first place I check when we return to take back Dido’s city. Although, I haven’t actually entered any of the buildings, so for all I know, the curse could be housed in a random warehouse. Here’s hoping that’s not the case, because that’ll take ages to find.

My steps are dragging when I finally make it back to the part of the wall I scaled to get up here. Luckily, there’s no Knight waiting here like there was when I arrived, but no part of me wants to climb thirty feet down and swim an hour back. I can barely keep my eyes open, my skin is itchy from the dried salt, and my heels are blistered from the wet fabric of my sneakers rubbing on them for so long.

But I have to. Staying up here with the Knights isn’t an option.

Blowing out a harsh breath, I slip off my shoes, tie them together, and hang them around my neck. I shove my phone in the dry bag and loop that around my neck as well. Then I plant my hands on the rampart and vault over, trusting Dido to get me down safely.