Page 74

Ivy

T he orbs no longer went out with the creature walking behind us. Every so often, I had to look back to ensure he was still there, but he walked like a very, very huge man at the back of our group.

And I wasn’t given any space. I had Elias on one side of me, with Adrian on the other. My prince looked even worse now after the exertion from running, and it only made me more worried for him.

Are you okay? I asked, taking his hand.

I wasn’t trying to pry, but his blocks were becoming sloppy, and that worried me, too.

This was someone who had managed to figure out how to block me from his thoughts only two days after being mated.

It had taken me weeks to figure out how to hide certain things from my mates.

Adrian brought our joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to the top of mine. I’m okay. Tired.

As he dropped our hands, I glanced at the others. We’d been walking for so long now, and I couldn’t remember the forest being so…endless.

Please don’t lie to me, I said, turning my attention back to Adrian. Please tell me if you want to rest, because we can.

My mate shook his head. We need to stop Dante. We don’t have much time .

Pressure coiled tightly around my chest, pressing down on my lungs. It pained me, knowing that he was sacrificing himself for this. For a way to stop his brother.

I know you want him to talk to you, Rowan said, but he might just close up more. He glanced over his shoulder at me, his own worry for his best friend clear.

I’m just…sad for him , I replied. But I don’t want to push him.

I released a shaky breath and pulled away from the bonds. I kept them open, though, just in case. There was no way I was going to lose my connection to them again.

But I did glance over my shoulder at the shifter. “Do you have any idea where we are, exactly?” I asked, hoping that maybe he recognised this land.

Damon hadn’t, though he admitted that he’d never spent much time in shifter lands. Only where he’d been allowed to roam before he became king.

But maybe the other shifter knew.

“We are deep in the old lands of dragon,” he said, voice a low rumble. “We call this the Spirit Forest.”

I spared Damon a quick glance. The demon king looked intrigued, and he turned to the creature from where he walked on Elias’s other side. “Why spirit?” he asked.

“Because these wisps are those who got lost in the woods,” the beast replied, “and they cannot pass on.”

And here I was, thinking they were some sort of glowing mushroom or something .

Damon, though, snorted. “They are not spirits. I can sense the dead, as it is my domain to oversee, and these are not the dead.” He did, though, pause, and we all stopped walking as he approached the side of the road.

“I would not leave this path. You might not believe they are the dead, but those who have entered the woods do not return,” the creature growled.

“Damon,” I said, gaining his attention. “Maybe don’t test whatever he knows.”

The demon king smirked and straightened. “Worried about me, wife? And here I thought you might be wanting to get rid of me.”

There was something about the way he said wife and the possessiveness behind the word made my heart flutter. It even had my stomach tightening in a way it certainly shouldn’t.

I grunted, turning away from him. “You’re still the only one who can shadow jump us all out of here,” I reminded him.

“Ah.” Maybe it was just me, but it sounded like he was disappointed in my answer. Damon didn’t have those kinds of feelings, or at least, that’s what he claimed. “I fear he may be half right, anyway. Those are souls, but not of the dead.”

Shaking my head, I sighed. “I don’t even want to know.”

The demon chuckled, but walked back to our group, we started our long walk once more. “Are you sure, my Queen?” His voice was teasing, but it was clear there was something he wanted me to know.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Because I doubt you’re going to let it go. Why is it important to know that there are souls in there?”

Damon chuckled again. “Because I believe those are the souls of creatures who didn’t make it out of the war.” Beside me, Adrian tensed, and even Elias cut him a sharp look.

“Why do you assume that?” Maeve asked from the front of the group. Her accent gave away how frustrated she was. I’d noticed how it bled through thicker more when she was stressed or wasn’t paying attention.

“Souls have ages,” he replied flippantly. “As do we. But that’s not what’s important. It’s that a witch must be the one to capture souls. Ancestral witches sometimes have this power. But whoever is doing this would have to be a soul witch.”

“A soul witch?” I’d never heard of someone with that power. And based on the confusion that came through the bonds, neither had anyone else—including Rowan and Adrian. “You’re making it up, aren’t you?”

“Why would I?” The marks that bound us warmed unexpectedly, and I shot him a dark look.

The snake around my thigh shifted, the movement like a soft vibration.

Damon met my stare, smirking proudly. “Soul witches were…well, I would say outcast, but that isn’t quite it.

It is theorised they brought about the mages, but there is no proof. ”

“How can that be theorised if no one knows soul witches exist?” Adrian muttered beside me.

Good point , I replied quietly, sharing a look with him.

“Do you have a point?” Rowan asked. “Because so far, I’m not hearing one.”

Damon sighed like we were the annoying ones, and he wasn’t being totally vague at all.

“I’m just saying, we now know how Asael was able to come to us.

A soul witch had to do it. I thought maybe Pandora had been able to, but that never sat right with me.

She didn’t have the power to keep his soul tethered to that place, just in case you found it.

” He stalked towards the edge of the forest again, though made no move to cross the boundary between road and trees.

“And if souls are still going missing, then we can assume a soul witch has lived long enough to keep doing it. I mean, she could have reproduced and birthed more daughters to carry on her work.”

I shuddered. “Is this some sort of bedtime story you tell demon children? To keep them in line?” If so, it reminded me a little too much of Hansel and Gretel.

“Not at all, wife. Just a warning that we may want to escape this forest before she finds us.” I shot him a look as the amusement left his red eyes.

We passed beneath an opening of branches and were finally greeted with the sky. Black clouds covered what would have once been stars and the moon, giving us no sign of where we were—and what time it could have been.

“I know how to read stars, not this,” the shifter said. He’d been so quiet walking behind us and during Damon’s ramblings about soul witches, that I’d almost forgotten he was there.

But we all stopped beneath the gap in the branches. “Fantastic. I’m guessing you would have been able to tell how far in we are, right?” I asked, glancing at him.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hawk said. He was always quiet, so hearing the deep purr of his voice sent shivers down my spine. My magic tingled as he pushed his way towards me from the front of our group. “I can fit through that.”

I swallowed hard. Right. The wings. But anxiety twisted through me, coiling around my stomach. “You would have to be quick. If anyone saw you…”

He lowered his head, dark eyes finding mine. Something shifted in the depths, but he took a step back and let his wings unfurl.

I’d made fun of them the first time I saw them, only because he’d gotten on my nerves.

But up close, they were amazing. The feathers were black, though under certain lights, they shined like there was another colour hidden in the mix.

At first, I thought it might be a deep blue, but it looked almost purple in colour.

Hawk spread his wings, groaning as he did. “We need to see if we’re going in the wrong direction,” he grunted, meeting my stare. “Don’t you want to know if we are close?”

I pressed my lips together, even though he was right. We needed to know where we were in the forest.

“Okay,” I murmured. “But if you see danger, come back down immediately.”

Hawk once again gave me that look, the one I couldn’t read. “You sound like you care, Princess.”

I sighed. “You might not want to complete the bond, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care,” I muttered. His nostrils flared, and he reared back. “Be safe.”

Adrian squeezed my hand as Hawk lifted into the air. The tension thickened as he flew into the opening, my heart skipping a beat as fear washed through me.

When Hawk breached the canopy of branches and leaves, he almost disappeared from sight. My breath caught in my throat, fear almost pushing me to do something , but a moment later, he dove back into the protection of the forest, dropping to the ground behind us.

Hawk clenched his jaw as he stalked towards the front of the group. “We’re close enough to whatever used to be the village. There are only ruins there, but I think it’s close to what you mentioned.” He didn’t look at me, but it was clear there was something else he needed to say.

“What?” I asked, dropping Adrian’s hand. “What did you see?”

He shook his head. “I think he’s already there.”

We ran the rest of the way to the village.

Shifted, I could run faster. And I took to the front of our group, Maeve at my side, to scope out whether the creatures in the village really were Dante’s men or Old World monsters.

With each mile we ran, my heart pounded louder, threatening to beat out of my chest.

We couldn’t be too late. We shouldn’t.

But Dante had an advantage. Some way he managed to find the crown—and the skull.

I cursed myself for being so slow. For letting my own personal shit get in the way of this. We could have been here sooner if it weren’t for me.

This is not your fault, Maeve said as she kept pace beside me. You weren’t given all the information. And that is on our Goddess .

The last thing I wanted was to blame Nyx, but surely, she would have known he was searching for the skull. Surely, she would have figured that out, or at least warned me before it was too late.

If Asael was right, then if Dante got his hands on it, he could use it to steal my power and become King of Nyx’s Domain.

And destroy everything in the process , I reminded myself.

Fuck. Dammit . I pushed my wolf harder, faster, to get to the edge of the forest quicker.

The others weren’t too far behind, but Elias had to help Adrian. He was too drained to run himself, despite his claims that he could keep up.

The unknown shifter remained two steps behind Maeve and me, his scent telling me he was close. This time, the ground didn’t rumble with each step he took .

He’d claimed no one lived on the other side of the forest, that it acted like a barrier, and the rat-zombie things, as well as other infected creatures like them, roamed the lands north of the forest freely, and the forest helped keep them away from those like him.

When firelight flooded the road, we slowed. There were fewer glowing orbs this close to the edge of the woods, and the trees were thinning out, their trunks growing further apart, the branches above us revealing more of the dark sky. Maeve slowed to a stop first, and my wolf followed.

As easy as it was to run as the wolf, I still wound up panting when I shifted back. Yeah, human shaped me was not built for that kind of thing. Even with help from my bonds.

Maeve handed me a water pouch from her belt without a word, and I guzzled it down, letting the chilled water spill down my throat. When I pulled the bottle from my lips, he was there, coming to a stop and rising onto his back legs.

Together, we crept to the edge of the forest, trying to keep to the trees as much as possible without actually entering them.

Damon’s warning replayed in my mind, and although I couldn’t tell if he was actually telling the truth or not, I still didn’t want to risk it.

The idea of a soul witch haunting the forest made my skin crawl.

Old buildings made of stone came into view. There were walls, destroyed doorways—the remnants of what might have been a village many years ago, now reclaimed by nature.

In my dreams, the fields were open, but the landscape now was overgrown. Walls were covered in foliage, vines with pretty blue flowers creeping up them. The grass was thick, making it impossible to see a path .

And through the trees, I noticed them .

Wolves and bears larger than they should have been.

Males, mostly, from the different Fae courts, mages, too.

A couple of vampires. There were a few demons amongst them, which I knew would piss off Damon.

He was so sure of the demons’ loyalty that I wasn’t sure he would take well to the few dressed like Phoenix agents walking through the thick grass.

There were others, too. Females, mostly Fae, I realised. I couldn’t sense any witches, which for some reason made me sigh in relief. And I realised maybe one or two female demons. But otherwise, most of the traitor army were male. The shifters, I couldn’t tell.

That said a lot about who Dante manipulated into joining him.

I don’t see Dante, Maeve said, her shoulders tense as she scented the air. I don’t sense him at all.

He’s probably found a way to hide himself, I replied. Sable could never see him in her visions, and neither could Nyx .

It was unsettling, how he managed to do it. How he could hide from the literal Goddess. But he’d done it. And he was definitely hiding now.

There are at least three dozen creatures. Mostly Fae and shifters, but I sense at least a handful of the other species mingled in there . She glanced at me, her eyes now red. If we can sense them, there is a chance they can sense us .

A small part of me hoped the forest protected us. Or maybe the dozens of charms we had woven into our gear protected us more than we realised. Because none of them looked our way.

Do you recognise which building is the cottage from your dreams? Maeve asked carefully .

I scanned the area, looking for the cottage, trying to see if anything sparked familiarity in my mind—or with my magic.

Dante could be using my magic right now to seek out the cottage. It had gotten him past the barriers protecting the Old World. How else could he be wielding it? Using it against me right now?

The pressure in my chest grew, the need to find it increasing.

But I couldn’t recognise any of the buildings, any part of the ruins, as the cottage from my dream.