Chapter 45
Chapter Forty-Five
Boden
My eyelids flutter, heavy and sluggish, as consciousness slowly comes back to me. What happened? My head throbs, a dull, relentless ache making my thoughts fuzzy and disjointed. The air is thick with the smell of damp concrete, oil, and something metallic. A car crash. We were T-boned. Cal!
Sprout, where are you? I blink to clear my vision, but the dim light blurs everything. Slowly, shapes form—the rough, industrial walls of a large, open space, metal beams crisscrossing the ceiling above, stacks of crates and machinery scattered haphazardly. A warehouse.
The soft steady breaths I’d recognize anywhere rhythmically flow from the warm body pressed to my back.
Cal. We’re sprawled awkwardly on a cold concrete floor.
I try to move, but my hands and legs are bound tightly, the ropes biting into my skin.
I struggle against the restraints, the knots too tight, the material likely enchanted, the effort only serving to scrape my skin raw.
I could try to open my wings, maybe get enough leeway to break out of the restraints, but I’m too close to Cal. I could hurt them.
“Sprout, you with me?” I whisper.
They stir at my voice but offer no response.
Though every instinct screams at me to fight, I force myself to stay calm.
I blink before looking around the room. About fifteen feet away from me in the middle of the space, another body is slumped on the ground, auburn curls spilled wildly across the concrete.
Solis. She looks awful, her body much more broken and bloody than mine.
My mind races with questions; uncertainty gnaws at me. Who has taken us? Why? Kidnap two royal heirs for money or power or favors? Will there be a ransom? We had training for these exact types of occasions, but I need Cal to wake up.
Forcing my body into a sitting position, I hear faint echoing footsteps approaching from beyond the crates.
Each footstep sends a spike of adrenaline through my body.
A tall figure steps into the dim light. I tense my muscles, ready for him to approach, but he stops in front of Solis.
He just stands there, watching her, silent and still. He better not fucking touch her.
The silence stretches on, thick with tension, until the man finally moves. He rears back his leg and lands a swift hard kick to Vladlena’s ribs. That motherfucker! She retches and coughs, curling in on herself and cracking open a black and swollen eye.
“What the fuck!” I yell, alerting him to my consciousness and giving up the only advantage I had.
I can’t fucking help it. There’s no honor in hitting someone when they’re down, especially someone as inept as Vladlena Solis, even unrestrained.
“Leave her alone! Come fight me like a man.” I curl my lip in disgust.
He barely offers me a glance before turning back to a slowly stirring Vladlena and speaking in Russian. His voice is low and menacing—a serrated knife cutting through the quiet.
“Nyet.” Vladlena grimaces. “Don’t you ‘darling’ me.”
“Welcome back, it’s been a while.” The man tilts his head, smiling down at her.
“No shit, asshole,” Vladlena spits out, her lips tinted red with blood. “That was on purpose.”
They know each other?
“Is that any way to speak to your loving dyadya?” He crouches down in front of her, coming into the light. I don’t recognize him, his hair is dark and face plain, with no defining features. He gently pushes Vladlena’s curls out of her face in a way that seems both loving and sinister.
“Idi na hui’,” she growls, and he chuckles, standing back to his full height. Solis struggles to push herself to her knees with her hands bound behind her back. “You are not my uncle. We are not family.”
Uncle? No, it can’t be. No one has heard from Adrik’s brother in half a century. And this man, while magica, is not commanding enough to be a Solis.
“Some obligations run deeper than blood, my milaya.” The man looks down his crooked nose at Vladlena almost tenderly.
“I’m not your darling, and we are not family.” She struggles against her enchanted bindings. She meets my eyes, hers widening. “What are you doing with them? They don’t need to be here for…whatever this is.”
“Oh, I think they do.” He smirks. “Imagine our great fortune when I went to catch a little sunfish and ended up with not one heir to the Throne of Light but two and a little fae prince as an extra dividend.” The man gestures in our direction. Cal shifts behind me, waking with a quiet pained moan.
“You knew?” Vladlena gasps. “You knew what I was this whole fucking time?”
“Cal,” I whisper. “Sprout, you with me?” They whimper in response.
“Of course I knew.” The man’s gravely voice echoes through the warehouse. “About you and Dmitri.”
“You keep his name out of your mouth!” Vladlena growls, her anger a palpable thing hanging heavy in this stale industrial place.
“Bo? What’s going on?” Cal knocks into me, twisting their body while fighting against the enchanted ropes.
“I’m not sure, but it has to do with Solis,” I whisper, shifting so Cal has a line of sight to Vladlena.
“What the fuck?” Cal whispers.
The man hums, circling a kneeling Vladlena. “I promised your uncle I’d keep his little insurance policy safe and sound.” He pats her head.
“Yeah, well fuck my uncle, the Dark Suns, and the whole lot of you.” She curls her lips. “That’s who you are, isn’t it?”
If this is the Dark Suns, we’re screwed. They’ve been fractured since the end of the war two decades ago. But there have been rumors of a growing resurgence. The man rears back his arm and slaps Vladlena across the face, knocking her hard to the concrete.
“Keep your hands off her!” Cal screams, wrestling with their bindings.
“If you hurt her, I’ll fucking kill you.
” They snarl like a caged animal. Cal’s not one to react so viciously to something.
They’re usually so poised and calm—even during our training for hostage situations, when we didn’t know what was real or simulation.
“Keep your head, Cal,” I say. Okay, I have to think—how do I get us out of this?
Vladlena spits blood onto the concrete and glances toward us out of the corner of her eye. “It’s okay, Cal, I’m fine. It’s going to be okay.” Her whole body shakes with fear or anger, maybe both. “Turns out I have some unfinished business.”
“What have they been teaching you at that posh overpriced school of yours?” the man who may or may not be her uncle taunts.
“Lies, I’m sure. What, that the Son Prophecy was fulfilled by these fuckers?
” He points his thumb in our direction. It seems Vladlena has indeed been playing us this whole time.
How she got through Nik’s ability to sense a lie, I don’t know.
She lied about how her brother died, she lied about her involvement with Adrik’s supporters, she lied about not knowing her family.
And now, because of her, Cal’s in danger.
The man walks over to us, his boots slapping the hard ground. I shift my body so I’m blocking Cal from his reach.
“So this is the heir to the Throne of Light now, hmmm…” He grabs my hair, yanking my head back. “You don’t look like anything special.”
“Sergey, let him the fuck go,” Vladlena the traitor says, her tone almost…bored? “They have nothing to do with this.”
“And yet they’ll help accomplish our goals so much quicker,” Sergey responds, as another five magicae, all rough around the edges, slink out from behind the crates.
There are six of them and two of us, both bound in enchanted restraints.
And then of course there’s Vladlena, who won’t be much help.
This isn’t anything we can’t handle. I look toward Cal and give a slight nod. It’s about time to fight.
Sergey snarls as he grips my hair tighter. I know he’s going to land a punch. I brace myself, ready to absorb the hit. Maybe I could kick out his legs, take him down. But I have to be smart about this.
“If a threat to their safety assures your participation, I can’t pass up the opportunity to use that,” he says, as he jerks his hand back, his fist turning to stone.
Fuck, a gargoyle; this is going to hurt.
I watch as if in slow motion as he launches forward, his petrified fist connecting with my jaw.