Page 26

Stairway to Heaven

Felix

Vasile and Matei took us to an extensive structure shaped like a house built with gargoyles in mind.

They said it was a ‘visitor’ nest, and though the term made my eyebrow raise, I liked that it was at the end of their main street by itself.

A defensible location is important when you don’t trust your surroundings; that’s something I learned early in my life thanks to my father’s constant trials and training.

He was fond of sending Fitz and me deep into the wilds of Bloodstone, where he housed criminals and the most broken students who were sent to the ‘school’.

I say that lightly, of course, because the only thing his reform school did well was create more minions for his never-ending army of spies and assassins.

Well, that and corpses, I suppose.

Figuring out the best place to build a place to rest and operate from, was one thing Fitz and I learned quickly.

Otherwise, no one got to sleep during these little jaunts, because the goddamn psychos running around that jungle would attack relentlessly.

The Khan island jungle is teeming with fucked up preds who have been abandoned to live it and kill others to entertain the Raj and his court.

My twin and I were never caught, never failed, and definitely never gave him a reason to exile us to that wasteland for good.

“What’s wrong?” Dolly whispers to me as the two hosts show the others around the domicile. “You’re very tense suddenly.”

I press my lips together, then shake my head. “Memories, Princess. Nothing for now—but perhaps when we’re back at the school. Okay?”

She nods, her eyes sympathetic as she murmurs, “Sometimes I have these flashes of shit Bruno or Lucille did when something… bumps them? I guess that’s being triggered, but I see memories and I have to sort of fight out of it. Is it like that?”

Nodding, I take her hand and lace our fingers together. “Yes, like that. But you never mention them to us, which I feel is important.”

“If I mentioned every damn thing those fuckers did to me in eighteen years, we’d be sitting around drunk as skunks for months, Felix.

” I blink and she shrugs. “They weren’t always home, but when they were, it sucked a lot.

I have to deal with it as it comes, and work through my feelings like a big bunny.

That doesn’t always require someone else present; it just needs me to admit what happened. It’s the first step.”

I suck in an annoyed breath, looking at her critically. “I’m going to murder that gargoyle if he doesn’t quit letting you read psychology books. It’s not healthy.”

“ Au contraire, mon ami !? 1 ” Rennie comes over to us, his expression amused. “It is obviously quite healthy, and the evidence is in front of you. You should try it sometime. Or perhaps you can do a… what do your loud friends call it, petite ? A ‘stitch-n-bitch’… yes, that’s it!”

Expression horrified, I blink at them both. “A… what? Fuck, no . I don’t even know what it is and I’m not doing it.”

Dolly chuckles, squeezing my palm as she leans into me. “We all bring things we’re working on—sewing, knitting, crochet for Rufus, and we drink wine while we bitch about our trauma. It’s very cathartic—even Fitzy’s come to one.”

My head turns slowly to look at my hyper twin as he’s doing his best to drive the gargoyles insane with questions about the high ceilings, dinnertime, and everything under the sun.

When we lived on the island, doing shit like that would have been tantamount to asking to be assigned to the female ambush section.

Yet here Fitz is embracing every damn thing our mate likes, from yoga to dancing to gossip pred sessions with her besties.

It’s hard not to realize that going ‘all in’ with her has made his life better in every conceivable way.

He does whatever the fuck he wants now—no chemicals needed, and no fucks given.

I might be a little jealous.

“Uh, we’ll see about that… later,” I say, fumbling with the words as I force myself to get it together. “I think we need to save your people from Fitz before there’s some sort of incident.”

Our mate pouts for a moment, then lets go of me to kiss my cheek. “Okay, Sir.” That said, she skips to my twin to see what he’s going on about without looking back.

Renard laughs, giving me a knowing look as he heads back over to detach my twin. “If you say so, Raj.”

Aubrey rumbles a low laugh and I glare at him.

The dragon makes a ‘tsk,’ sound as he crosses his arms over his chest. “It makes your life richer to allow new things to take root and strangle the poisonous vines of our past, Felix. Rennie taught me that once I let him in, and though I was not always successful until the lunchable arrived, I am finding it very soothing now.”

“I love her, you giant busybody, and she knows it. We mated. I’m not holding shit back,” I retort. “You haven’t mated her yet, and neither of you winged assholes has given up all your bad shit. How am I any different?”

He arches a brow. “Because you have claimed the spot as the leader—or you believe you have. That means you have stricter parameters than us.”

A low growl echoes in my chest, but the lizard doesn’t even blink. I sigh, rolling my eyes to the ceiling before I say, “Fine. You might have a point. But now sure as fuck isn’t the time.”

“It isn’t? You’ve been having small ‘moments’ since we decided to travel here. Perhaps my mate’s forced reconciliation is bringing your scars to light. Think on it.” Aubrey claps his hand on my shoulder, then walks away to join the others.

Fucking smart ass dragon…

“Alright, that’s enough!” I call as Fitz bounces in place in front of the emissary. “Gentlemen, we need to get cleaned up and make ourselves ready for your elders. Thank you for obliging my brother for so long.”

The relieved look on Vasile’s face makes me want to snort, but I just wait for him and the guard to take their leave. Once they do, I look at my family curiously as they snicker amongst themselves.

“What the hell is so funny?”

Dolly winks at me. “We were hoping to make them actively not want to come knocking when we’re not supposed to meet with people. Fitz thought if he was a big enough pain in the ass, he could keep lookie-loos from spying on us when we think we’re alone.”

I’ll be damned—he was actually trying to do something smart, and it worked.

Each of us took turns washing the grime of the hike off, while the rest stayed downstairs in the living area.

The ‘nest’ has an extremely high ceiling with exposed beams I’d guess are strong enough to perch on over an open ground floor.

Our bathroom and the large, comfy piles of blankets and pillows that function as the bed area are loft spaces on either side of the vaulted room.

There’s a small kitchenette on one side of the large space, along with another giant ‘nest’ in the middle, and a desk and chair towards the front.

There are even high stools at an island similar to home where we can gather or eat.

It’s not fucking bad for a ‘guest’ house for visitors that Ren makes it sound like they rarely admit.

I look over at the princess as she curls up on a pillow with her long, wet locks spilling over the linens. “Who’s going to tell me what the damn test was when we came in? That has to be settled before we go out there amongst people we don’t know.”

Renard is lounging in the big blanket fort comfortably—not surprising given his bedrooms in the past—but he sits up at my question.

He rakes his hand through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before he blows out a breath.

“ Mais oui , we should. I must apologize for my reticence about it as well. I had reasons for keeping it quiet and also reasons for not telling you, which you might not understand. I know that.”

Fitz moves to criss-cross his legs, bending over them to put his elbows on the ground in a pretty impressive display of flexibility. “Alright, Perching Poet, lay it on us. We can’t decide if you’re busted until you spill it. So let’s hear it.”

My lips twitch, but I nod in agreement. “I agree. I can’t make a judgment until I know the facts.”

The gargoyle grabs a pillow and wraps his arms around it, his discomfort obvious.

“After our conversation about ma petite , I began putting a lot of pieces together in my mind. Memories, flashes of the past, things I hadn’t thought about in so long that I was surprised I remembered at all.

Adding them up, it occurred to me that we had always lived near some sort of magical group before the Treaty.

In fact, the reason I could fall in love with my amour passé was because her ‘tizzy’ of fair folk were settled mere miles from our nests. ”

Dolly frowns, rolling to her side as she looks up at him. “So? What significance does that have?”

“A lot, mon amour . I had to lie awake thinking most of the night, but I also remembered that before the Treaty, many mythical groups had strong relationships with magic users—griffins were friendly with mages and witches, gargoyles with the Fae, chimera with djinn, dragons with wizards, unicorns with pixies, and so on. That all changed, obviously, but why were the rest of the preds and shifters so distant while the powerful mythicals were not?”

Chess snaps his fingers, grinning broadly. “Because something ties them together! Right?”

Ren nods, his expression serious. “ Oui , Chester. Perhaps the origins of those species are tied to both shifters and magicals? It made me remember the plant charts in the Charles vault and how they used genetic engineering to make Fae plants grow here, then cashed in. And of course, my imagination went wild, but… perhaps the mythicals have always resulted from inter-species breeding.”

“Holy shit, man.” The possibilities whirl through my mind and I look up to the loft where the dragon hasn’t come back from his shower yet.

“That would make sense, but… what does it have to do with the bridge? And why the fuck would the mythicals stay here rather than follow the others into the Veil?”

He shrugs. “That, I do not know. Perhaps the mysterious Society offered them something they could not refuse? Maybe the magicals had alienated them? I wasn’t quite old enough to be told the entire truth before I was exiled, as you’ve seen, nor was Flames.

However, my deceit on the bridge was my way of testing my theory. ”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you testing on animals is wrong ?” Dolly grumbles at the gargoyle. “Especially fluffy, white bunnies who love you?”

The flush creeps up his neck, and Renard coughs.

“ Vraiment ? 2 , my mate. I feared that if I told you, and they could read it on any of your faces, we would violate their laws. But yes, I suspected that perhaps the way our clutch could hide from everyone, the amulets that allow our shifts without damaging our clothes… all the little things I grew up thinking were normal for gargoyles are normal because…”

“Because the Fae gave them those things,” I finish for him.

“That’s why you assumed that there would be some sort of alarm to let them know if they were entering their territory.

You think mythicals made deals with the shifters to fight alongside them and consorting with their old allies could get everyone killed.

Plus, I’d assume they weren’t sure if any slipped the hunts after the Treaty, so they’d leave those in place. ”

“ Oui .” He sighs as he shrugs. “Maybe there were rumblings about the tide turning before the Treaty. That could be why they were so against us dating or being in love. It may be what saved the mythical shifters from getting caught in the middle for a bit—they limited the interactions even before the shifters lost their minds.”

“Um…”

We all look at the princess as she bites her lip and raises her hand like she’s in one of our classes. I laugh, waving at her to stop it. “What, Princess? Why are you looking so unsure all of a sudden?”

“Well, I get that the stupid bug thing means I have Fae blood. And we think maybe Lucille went off-book to have me because she needed an heir…”

“Right.” Fitz leans over further, putting his palms over hers. “Go on.”

“It leaves a lot of questions, Fitzy.” Dolly sits up, mimicking his position as she looks at us.

“One, doesn’t that make me, like, illegal ?

Two, if so, does her pappy know and if he doesn’t, is that going to be a problem?

Three, is this why both sides seem to be after me?

Like, do they think I’m some mystical impossibility that can save the world? Four, can I opt out of that shit?”

Aubrey finally makes it downstairs, dropping to the ground with a thud as he pins her with a firm stare. “I could hear you all, you know. And to answer that torrent—probably, probably not, definitely, abso-fucking-lutely, maybe, and I’m afraid not.”

She sticks her tongue out, scrunching her features up brattily. “That was not helpful, big guy. If you’re right about all of it, then we have no other option than to fight this shit from the middle. Otherwise, one or both of the fucking zealots are going to kill me to prevent… something. Right?”

“I hate to say it, but I think we just figured out why everything in our world is so supremely fucked, and it’s not just rich people,” I drawl wryly. “It’s power-hungry wealthy eugenicists waging a species war in secret.”

And somehow, our mate is the key to everything.