Chapter 4 I Warned You
I Warned You
Getting River into the Hub on the day of her storm had been a complicated process. Nikhail had been able to expedite it, both because of River’s last name—the Waterborn legacy held significant sway in the Republic of Balance—and his own influence.
Nikhail had pushed to get River into a room, refusing to allow her to be placed in a cell, where those with out-of-control magic usually ended up.
Had she been locked up, he was fairly certain she never would’ve seen the light of day again.
And gods help him, but Nikhail refused to allow that to happen.
Getting River into the Hub had been difficult, but getting her out was proving to be even more challenging.
Nikhail held River’s hand, and he was doing his best to ignore how frail she felt standing beside him.
As if a single gust of wind could blow her away.
He channeled his frustration into his glare, which he directed at the armed guards before them.
The pair stood behind a desk, guarding a locked door.
Williams and Thatcher, according to the badges on their uniforms, stood with their arms crossed and fingers brushing the tops of their guns.
A warning. Nikhail knew very little about the soldiers, other than the fact that they were refusing to allow them past. Or, more specifically, refusing to allow River to enter the room behind them.
She was an unknown, even with her last name. They were nervous about granting her entrance to the room they were guarding.
The nerves, Nikhail understood. Every soldier was on edge right now, especially since the Black Night’s attacks hadn’t stopped at Hydrangea House.
Less than an hour after the first attack, four others had taken place in the Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Regions.
The coordinated bombings had all targeted government buildings.
Blessedly, they hadn’t resulted in further casualties, but they’d destroyed important structures in each region.
Before this, the rebels had merely been a pest. Or at least, that’s what the Chancellor said. The group had been causing her problems but could be ignored. That was no longer the case. Between the murder of Representative Blackwing and the bombings, the rebels were making a stand.
Chancellor Rose was finally taking them seriously.
The fire fae was still in the hospital, but that hadn’t stopped her from working or sending out orders that, until the rebels were rooted out from the Republic, no one was to be trusted.
She had implied in her latest message that she believed the rebels might have one or more people working within her government and the military.
Distrust was at an all-time high.
The problem was that even though the soldiers in front of Nikhail were doing their jobs, he didn’t care all that much.
Perhaps it was the emptiness gnawing at his soul from being exposed to prohiberis for two weeks, or it could’ve been the quiet despondency River had fallen into, but he needed to get River out of here.
His water fae had showered and gotten changed before they left the room, but she’d barely spoken since he promised to walk through the storm with her.
These guards were in his way, and that was a problem. This was their last stop before they could leave.
“Listen,” he said in a measured tone, holding up his badge again. “I told you who I am and what we want. Let us pass. We will be in and out in five minutes.”
The guards were keeping them from entering the Hub’s warehouse. Despite the name, it was a glorified storage room. However, it was also the only place in the capital to get the keys to the prohiberis cuffs hanging around River’s wrists. Therefore, he needed entry.
The sooner they got out of here, the better. Nikhail’s chest ached from the loss of his magic, a growing void that had slowly been devouring him from the inside out, and he wasn’t even wearing the manacles. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it was for River.
During the first few days in the Hub, Nikhail had felt his magic dwindle, then disappear. The room where they’d been staying wasn’t like the central section in the Hub, where magic vanished the moment one passed over the threshold.
The gradual loss of his magic had almost been worse than instantly losing it, and Nikhail wanted it back. He yearned to hear the wind whisper in his ear, feel its caress on his cheek.
Williams raised her brow and narrowed her glowing orange eyes—a marker of werewolf kind—not on Nikhail, but on River. Distrust swam in her gaze, and her lips thinned, as though River was a threat.
A growl rumbled in Nikhail’s chest, and although he tamped it down, he glared at the werewolf, hoping to convey his displeasure. It took everything he had not to shove River behind his back to remove her from the woman’s line of sight.
“As I already mentioned, the water fae is not authorized to enter,” Williams said haughtily. “We cannot let her through.”
This again.
Nikhail bit back a groan. “She’s with me.”
Thatcher tilted his head. A lock of dark brown hair fell in front of his forehead, but that didn’t hide the distrustful look he shot in River’s direction. “Do you have a guest pass for her, Galebringer?”
What a ridiculous question. Of course, he didn’t have a fucking guest pass.
The guards knew he and River had been here for the past two weeks—everyone did. After all, the rooms in the Hub were rarely used for longer than a day or two at most. Who would willingly choose to have their magic cut off?
On top of that, there was the not-insignificant fact that news disseminated rapidly through the Republic of Balance.
The presence of Representative Waterborn’s daughter in the Hub would’ve traveled quickly through the region, especially since River’s storm had come out of nowhere and had been so widespread.
Nikhail wasn’t sure what Tertia Waterborn would’ve been able to do to stop the gossip, even if she hadn’t been sidelined by her grief. He didn’t even know how Tertia and Ryker had concealed River’s involvement in Chavin’s storm all those years ago.
The power of the Waterborn name was potent, but it wasn’t almighty.
Nikhail ground out, “No, but—”
“Then we cannot permit her to enter,” Williams interrupted him firmly. As if that was the end of the discussion.
Which it wasn’t. Nikhail wouldn’t allow it to be.
“Surely an exception can be made.” Nikhail looked at Thatcher, hoping the other soldier would see reason.
He didn’t care that pushing this hard sounded an awful lot like begging. For River, he’d do just about anything, including this.
“We just need five minutes in the room,” he added. “We won’t even remove the keys; all I need to do is unlock her cuffs. Then, we’ll be gone.”
Nikhail didn’t have the authority to remove the keys from the room, but in theory, the process of getting the cuffs off was uncomplicated. They could’ve been done and on their way out by now.
And yet, they were still here.
The door loomed above them. So close, yet so damn far. He didn’t want to use force to get in. There were some lines that, once crossed, would be harder to come back from than others.
“Nik.” The word, barely more than a whisper when it left River’s lips, struck him in the center of his chest. His heart contorted. River sounded so fucking broken compared to the woman he knew her to be. It was hard to believe that a mere two weeks had passed since the night they’d spent together.
Nikhail slowly turned, his brows furrowing. A frown tugged on River’s lips, and the look of despair on her face made Nikhail want to roar his anger to the heavens. He hated that River was hurting, that her pain wasn’t something he could easily fix.
“What is it?” he asked, angling his body away from the soldiers.
She rolled her lip between her teeth. “It’s okay.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to push them. It isn’t necessary.”
What was she saying? Of course, it was.
“We have to go in there, Princess. That’s where the keys are.” He’d explained as much when they left the room, after they’d both showered and changed.
Her lips slanted down, and she shook her head. “No.”
How was it possible that one monosyllabic word, spoken so quietly it was barely more than a breath, could affect him so deeply?
River tugged on his hand, pulling him away from the soldiers. He followed. Of course, he did. He would follow her anywhere.
They stopped a short distance down the corridor, far enough away that even though Williams and Thatcher were still in sight, they were out of earshot.
Nikhail frowned, gazing down at the woman who had become his world. Maybe she didn’t quite understand why this stop was so important. She certainly had enough on her mind.
“We need to sign out the keys to remove the prohiberis,” he patiently explained.
The magic-blocking shackles were infrequently used, and each use had to be cataloged. Some were kept in military safe houses across the Republic, along with the keys to remove them, but those were few and far between.
On the day of the storm, Nikhail had hurriedly filled out preliminary paperwork before grabbing an emergency pair of cuffs from the back of a military van.
There’d been even more documentation he’d had to tackle when they arrived at the Hub.
Today, there would be even more forms to fill out, but he didn’t care about that.
He refused to allow bureaucratic nonsense to stand in the way of freeing River’s magic.
Her eyes widened, and gods help him, why were they lined with tears? What was happening?
“We don’t need the keys, Nik,” she said.
“Yes, we do.”
Her bottom lip wobbled. The sight was a knife to Nikhail’s heart. “No, we don’t. Even if you had them, it wouldn’t matter.”
Nikhail’s stomach contorted. “What are you saying?”
She raised a trembling hand, pushing back the sleeve of her oversized dark purple sweater. The prohiberis was a stark contrast against her pale skin, and she traced the shackle, shuddering.