Page 37

CHAPTER 37

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“T ook you long enough,” Ryker comments in a bored voice once the door rises enough for us to see him. His face is twisted in his usual sneer, and his arms are crossed over his broad chest. Oh, and he’s surrounded by twenty-five heavily armed Knights with their guns trained on us.

Fantastic.

I resist the urge to groan. Everything about finding the curse screamed that we were walking into a trap, but I had hoped we would catch a break for once. Apparently not.

With the door fully up, I can now see all of the long, rectangular room. At the center is what looks like a giant stone tomb, complete with Phoenician inscriptions all around it. Aside from the tomb, there’s nothing in here that could be a cursed object, which has me worried.

Ryker, his Knights, and the council mage stand in a semicircle around the tomb at the opposite end of the room. Exuding smugness, Ryker looks like he’s one hundred percent sure he’s going to win this.

I refuse to let that happen.

When I don’t say anything in response, Ryker’s mouth turns down in a frown that pulls at the scar slashing across his face. “What? Nothing to say, mutt, after you so inconveniently refused to die? Imagine my surprise when I got reports that the thorn in my side I thought I killed was storming our island with a ragtag bunch of animals.”

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes at his uncreative taunting, I open my mouth to tell him no when I realize something. “How did you get in here?” The room is supposed to be only accessible with the blood and magic of one of Dido’s descendants. As far as I know, none of the Knights are related to Dido.

While they could’ve blown up the door and forced their way in, everything was exactly as it should be when we entered.

He flashes me a cruel smile. “Ah, an intelligent question from the cur for once.” This time I can’t help my exasperated eye roll. It would probably benefit the Knights to stop thinking all shifters are morons, not that I’m going to tell them that. “We portaled in. Magic doesn’t work in the hallway outside, but it works perfectly in here.”

“How were you able to do that?” Mages can only portal to somewhere they’ve seen before, which means the Knights have been here previously. If the curse is located here, they’ve probably been here many times.

Ryker sighs, like it’s a giant chore to explain anything to me. “We’ve had access to the tomb for a thousand years, thanks to one of your distant relatives, related to Dido but not the firstborn. She fell in love with one of my ancestors, who also happened to be a direct descendant of Aeneas. She, of course, didn’t know that.

“She told him all sorts of things he shouldn’t know, like the prophecy and the location of Dido’s tomb. That prophecy gave him the idea for the curse, so you can thank her for that. Once he gained her trust, he convinced her to show him and a mage the location of Dido’s tomb. When the three of them were there, she opened it for him.

“Before she could do anything about it, he knocked her out and the mage started implementing the curse. The only thing they were missing to allow it to work was the blood of one of Dido’s kin. He went to kill her to get the final ingredient, but she awoke right as he was about to. She managed to escape, but not before leaving her blood behind on the knife, which completed the curse. The mages we work with have retained the knowledge of how to get here.”

I stare at him mutely because that’s one hell of a wild story.

So, basically, this whole situation is because my long-ago relative fell for a walking red flag of a man—not that I blame her because I know firsthand how convincing Aeneas’s descendants, like Anson, are. The only reason I knew not to trust him was because of Dido. Since my relative wasn’t the firstborn, she didn’t get the super cool queen in her mind to tell her when boys are lying jerks.

I scrub both hands over my face. Ryker’s tale answered a lot of how the curse happens, but that still begs the question… “Where is the curse?”

Ryker gives me a giant smile that makes me swallow uncomfortably. Nothing that makes Ryker happy is good for us. “It’s inside the stone. When your distant relative escaped, she took with her the only way to open the tomb. Our curse has been locked in there for a thousand years. While expanding the curse will work from outside the tomb, it will be much easier if it’s open, which is why it is so very convenient that you decided to join us today. I suppose it is fortunate you aren’t dead after all. Don’t worry. I’ll rectify my oversight as soon as you fulfill your task.”

Sounds about right.

I have what they need to make expanding the curse easier, so they made it simple to get here. The only problem for them is that I have no idea how to open the tomb. It’s a problem for us, too, because I don’t know how I’ll destroy the curse if I can’t get to it.

My eyes widen as I remember what the letter said about the pyramidal crystal. I resist the urge to fist pump because I totally know how to unlock the tomb and get to the curse. Kind of. At least, I have the key to do it. I just have to figure out where it goes.

It would be great to be able to walk around the room to hunt for where I unlock it, but the Knights are blocking off half of the tomb. Here’s hoping what we need is on our side of it.

Not bothering to respond to Ryker, I take a few cautious steps toward the rectangular slab of stone.

“Where are you going?” Malachi hisses from behind me, making sure to keep his voice low.

When I turn around, giving my back to the Knights, I see Malachi’s face lined with worry. He’s probably concerned that I’m going to try to trade myself to the Knights like last time, but I learned my lesson. We have to work together to break the curse and get out of here safely. That’s the only option.

I mouth, “ To find out how to unlock the tomb.” Pulling the crystal out of my vest slightly, I show it to Malachi and the rest of my mates. Bastian’s brows shoot up to his hairline as he looks between the quartz and the tomb. Xander’s eyes light with understanding, and Saint’s face is filled with hope that we actually have a shot at succeeding.

Accessing the curse is only the first step, though. We also need to find a way to break it without dying and keep the Knights from reaching it, too.

But I’ll worry about that after I figure out how to even get to it.

Turning around, I take another step toward the tomb when a burst of magic slams into the shield I threw up as we were walking in and haven’t taken down yet. I stumble back from the impact and almost fall on my ass. Darting my eyes up, I see the mage grinning smugly, his hand glowing with the same sickly brown magic that powered the dome around the island and the containment spell at the facility.

The mage tsks at me. “Not so fast, mutt. You can hand over the key to unlock the tomb and stay right where you are.”

I narrow my eyes on the man who has clearly been working closely with the Knights for a while. “What is it you hope to get out of this? Because the Knights will go after mages next.”

He scoffs. “Unlike you animals,” he sneers at me, “mages are the superior species, better than shifters, fae, vampires, and everyone else out there. The world will be better off without shifters. We will have more magic, enough to share with the humans and increase our power dramatically. It’ll be a win-win for us.”

Ryker rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything. If the councilman were paying attention, he’d know that he’s just a tool for the Knights to get what they want. Once he’s no longer useful, they’ll kill him and go after mages next.

However, that’s not really my problem. He’ll find out what a dumbass he’s been eventually.

Ignoring the mage, I continue walking forward. He slings another spell at me. Without even having to think about it, my magic deflects the hit and sends it sailing back to the mage. He ducks, and his spell hits three Knights behind him. They convulse before falling to the ground.

“What the fuck was that?” Ryker growls at the mage.

The mage straightens and brushes dirt off his expensive black suit. “The McAlister boy sent an attack at us. It took out some of your men.”

I scoff.

Ryker’s brown eyes snap to mine. “What’s so funny, cur?”

Shrugging, I figure it doesn’t matter if they know I have magic now. Them not knowing won’t really give us any advantage at this point. “That wasn’t Saint’s magic. That was your pet councilman’s own spell that I reflected back at him.”

The mage glares at me. “She’s lying. She’s a wolf, so she can’t even see magic, much less deflect a spell.”

I let some of my magic trickle into my palm to form an ice-blue flame. “Oh, did I forget to mention, I have mage magic, too?” I can’t help my delighted grin as I watch the mage’s face turn a fascinating shade of purple as he looks between me and my magic.

“That’s… that’s not possible!” the mage screams at me. “We killed all of the hybrids a thousand years ago and have kept mages from mating outside our species. You’re lying!”

As much as I enjoy the mage’s outrage, I don’t want to sit here talking forever. Dismissing him, even as he continues yelling at me, I crouch in front of this side of the tomb. We’re severely outnumbered. While we have a chance against twenty-five Knights, Ryker, and the mage, there’s no guarantee all of us will make it out of this unscathed. I’m hoping something in the tomb will help me level the playing field. If not, at least I can destroy the curse and seal the tomb before they kill me. That’ll make it pretty hard to create a new one.

I can’t see any place where the crystal would go, but I run my hands over it just in case. When I get to the middle of the slab of stone, I feel a small indent, no bigger than the point of the pyramid top. Grinning to myself because I’m pretty sure I just found where to unlock it, I stand up to tell my mates what I found. Before I can fully straighten up, a hard body slams into me.