Page 20

CHAPTER ELEVEN

R ig had been his son.

Right. She thought Rig had mentioned that. At the time, it really hadn’t fucking mattered. Because Web and mind control and holy shit what was going on.

Now? Now it really did matter.

Ava felt something shift inside her—not the Web this time, but something entirely her own. A surge of determination that cut through the fear and uncertainty like a hot knife through butter.

She was tired of cowering. Tired of apologizing. Tired of being everybody’s bitch for simply trying to survive in this nightmare she'd been thrust into.

“Your son was trying to control my mind—to force me into a contract that would have made me his slave.” She met Bayodan’s stare without flinching.

“I didn’t want to drop a train on his head.

Trust me. I’ve never killed anyone before, and I didn’t enjoy doing it.

But I had no choice but to defend myself. ”

The clearing fell silent. Even the rustling of leaves seemed to pause, as if the forest itself was holding its breath.

“From the moment I entered the Web, I've been manipulated, threatened, and used as a pawn in games I don't understand,” Ava continued, finding strength in voicing the facts aloud. “I didn't ask for any of this—not the Web taking me over, not to be stuck in the middle of some sick tug-of-war between two half-brother assholes, none of it. But I'm done apologizing for just doing what I need to survive to the next moment. So. I’m sorry he’s dead. And I’m sorry the situation put the two of us in a situation where I had to defend myself. But I’m not sorry I had to take the action I did. I’d do it again, if I needed to. ”

For a heartbeat, Bayodan's expression remained unreadable, those blood-red eyes boring into hers. Then, unexpectedly, his stern features softened into a smile. “Well said, Weaver,” he rumbled, his deep voice warmer than before. “Very well said indeed.”

Ava blinked, thrown by the sudden shift. “What?”

“I know exactly what my son was prone to doing to others in the Web,” Bayodan admitted, his tail swishing behind him in what seemed like…amusement? “Just as I know he was sent there for good reasons.”

“Sent?” Ava's confusion deepened. “By whom?”

“By me.” The fae lord's crimson eyes glinted with something that might have been pride—in her, not his son. “Rig's appetites had grown…problematic. What he attempted with you was merely his last in his long series of transgressions.”

Cruinn made a tinkling sound like crystal wind chimes. It might have been a sigh. “What my beloved means is that his son had long since exhausted all patience and long since earned whatever punishment you deemed fit to pay him.”

Bayodan inclined his horned head toward his glassy partner. “I could not very well sentence my own son to death. Even knowing he was alive, forever out of my reach, was a better fate than taking his life.”

Ava didn’t know if she should tell him how shit it was in the Web. He knew. They all did. “Well…sorry that plan didn’t work out for you.”

“It is quite all right. You, as you said, had no choice in the matter. My son made his own choices and suffered his own repercussions. Indeed, it seems you paid him a quick death—more than most would have been kind enough to do for him.” Bayodan’s smile widened.

He seemed shockingly and genuinely warm, for a creature who looked like what would happen if Satan and the lead singer of some metal band had a love child.

“By a human he believed was defenseless. A fitting end for a creature who believed himself superior to all those around him.”

Lysander’s hand remained at the small of Ava’s back. “You needn’t have tested her in such harsh a manner, Lord Bayodan.”

Bayodan shrugged idly. “I wished to see if she had the wherewithal to stand her ground and to face the repercussions of her actions without flinching.” His gaze returned to Ava.

“Many would have cowered or begged forgiveness. You did neither. I am glad for it.” He gestured to a cluster of mossy stones along one side of the clearing. “Come. Sit. We have much to discuss.”

Ava glanced at Lysander, who gave a small nod, though his expression remained guarded.

Cautiously, she approached the stone seats, taking one opposite Bayodan.

Cruinn settled their crystalline form onto another, light refracting through their glass body and casting prismatic patterns across the clearing.

Lysander remained standing, positioned slightly behind Ava like a sentinel.

“You are becoming something quite remarkable,” Bayodan said without preamble, his gaze tracking over the tattoo on her arm. “Though I hear not by choice.”

“Definitely not by choice.” Ava resisted the urge to cover the expanding pattern with her hand.

“The Web entity grows stronger within you. You do not understand why. Or what shape it takes.” Cruinn hummed thoughtfully.

Narrowing her eyes at them, she decided she was real sick of other people knowing more about her than she did. “How do you know that?”

“We are old, even by the standards of the fae,” Bayodan replied. “Old enough to remember when the exile fashioned the Web—the prison—but we know of the entity the Web was built upon, the one so cruelly contained, and the purpose it once served."

“Balance,” Cruinn continued. “The Web was woven to maintain the boundaries between worlds.”

“Until the exile corrupted it,” Bayodan added, a hint of ancient anger in his rumbling voice. “Bent it to his will, twisted its purpose into something darker.”

“I know. He built it to hold the Morrigan captive. But when he tried to use it on her, she pushed him inside and locked him there, instead.” She winced. He had it coming, in her opinion. But she also didn’t know how much the Morrigan deserved to be imprisoned either.

If she listened to Serrik, the answer was She deserves all the punishment in the world.

If she listened to the rest of the fae? The answer was far muddier, it seemed.

“What you must remember always, Weaver, is this”—Bayodan leaned forward—“Serrik built the structure you know as the Web. He may be its prisoner, but he also is its architect. He can pull its many strings from within its walls with ease. And now that the entity flows within you—you, too, are subject to his manipulations.”

“And as the Web’s influence over you grows stronger, so will Serrik’s control over you.” Cruinn finished. “If you do not find a way to sever him from its center.”

That hit her like a physical blow. The image that Book had shown of her ripping Serrik’s heart out from his chest with her bare hands came to mind. She needed to kill Serrik. But the question was how.

It was time for her to hear solutions. Not more reminders of her problem. “So how do I fucking fix this?”

Bayodan’s hooves shifted on the forest floor as he moved closer still. His voice lowered, as if he were worried someone might hear him. “Tell me, Ava Cole. If you had the chance to destroy Serrik—if you could kill him—would you?”

She had to. She had to. But deeper and more troubling still was what they’d just shared in their dreams. The intensity of what they’d just done last night. It had been because she’d wanted it.

But had it really been her, in the end?

Or was it the Web’s influence? Was it his influence, corrupting her mind? Making her want it?

She was a puppet on strings. His strings. Everyone’s strings. And all she wanted to do was cut them. “Yes. I—I think so.” She winced. “I have to try. I have no other choice. If I don’t, I become his weapon. Or Valroy’s.”

Bayodan and Cruinn glanced at each other, then back to her. Bayodan paused before speaking again. “Do you understand what you are truly becoming, Ava Cole?”

“I don’t. No one will tell me.” She shot a half-glare up at Lysander.

He cringed and took a step away from her.

“I just know I’m becoming the host body for a cosmic horror who is the glue between worlds.

Something about possibilities but after that, I don’t know.

And I don’t know why it’s continuing to spread, even though I’m here. ”

“It is because you are tapping into its power. You are wielding its influence every second you are here in Tir n’Aill.” Cruinn smiled sadly. “You do not even realize you are doing it.”

“Cruinn,” Lysander hissed. “Mind yourself, or do you wish to be shattered a second time?”

“What do you mean?” Ava furrowed her brow. “Tapping into it how? I know I used the Book but that’s—that’s just magic, right? That was me using Serrik’s power, not the Web’s—” She glanced up at Lysander. “What’s going on?”

“My mate has said more than they should have. This line of questioning must end here, for our mutual safety.” Bayodan grunted. “Forgive us.”

She wanted to scream. Wanted to absolutely tear her goddamn hair out. She was using the Web? How? Where? When? What was going on? “I swear to fuck ? —”

“Please, Ava…” Lysander seemed legitimately afraid. “Please, let it go. ”

Putting her head in her hands, she shut her eyes. What was she supposed to do?

“We wish to aid you in your path to freedom, Ava,” Bayodan quietly urged. “We asked him to bring you here so that we may discuss how we may be of assistance ridding you of the exile’s influence. Permanently. He can be removed from the equation. He can even be destroyed.”

Destroyed. “You know how to…how to kill Serrik.” She stared at Bayodan, not knowing how to even feel about that.

She’d known it was a possibility. Hell, she’d even put it on her to-do list. But it had been so impossible she hadn’t even started to wrap her head around what it actually meant to do it.

Lysander moved to stand beside her. “This is dangerous territory, Lord Bayodan. He is our enemy at this point in time, but to strike out against the exile without the king’s permission is treason. We do not know what it would do to her transformation.”