Chapter 25
Igot to play with the kids and some teenagers before Fergus returned with the herbs.
Part of me got way too excited to see the two angsty teens from before holding hands, blushing, shy, not saying a word to each other.
Just holding hands while she drew, and he watched her draw.
Hidden in a corner, their own little reprieve where crushes could exist without the weight of the world on their shoulders.
Mothers everywhere were packing, gathering their things in case a quick getaway was needed. If our plan went as expected, they would still have several days to get ready to leave.
I hoped, I hoped, that what I was about to do would buy everyone enough time to properly prepare to get out.
I was sitting in a circle with some younger kids, holding a sleeping infant on my shoulder, getting random moments of his dreams pushed into my mind.
The feeling of his mother’s voice in his ear.
How safe he felt when she fed him. Random notes from instruments he’d heard already.
The baby couldn’t have been more than six months old, but he was big.
I had to sit to hold him because of how dense he was.
Nearby, his mother helped his older siblings wash clothes in a portable bin.
“Van,” that was Audrey’s voice. I slowly turned my head, determined not to wake the baby.
“Yeah?” I asked her.
Audrey bit her lip, wringing her hands together, “Fergus is back.”
The kids who were chattering around me quieted their conversations.
The nearby mothers paused their chores to look at me, varying looks of pity, gratitude, and pain painted their expressions.
I hated seeing them. I didn’t want their pity or gratitude.
Part of me wished Caelena had never told the mothers what I was about to do to help buy them time.
“Alright.” I slowly made my way to sit up, before the baby’s mother came running over to gently lift her son off my shoulder, helping him stay asleep. I stood, straightening my clothes, which felt silly considering how abused they were going to be soon.
At least I wouldn’t be conscious for any of it. A warm hand rested on my shoulder, halting my retreat.
“Thank you,” the siren mother whispered. “All of us will know your name, Vanessa.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I patted her hand with mine and squeezed her fingers before following Audrey back to where our friends were waiting.
“…So…” Audrey tried to sound nonchalant but failed miserably. “You and Drustan are mates.” I grunted a noncommittal response, then she said, “Did you already know? Or suspect?”
“It doesn’t matter, because there is no ‘me and Drustan,’” I assured her, watching her shoulders relax with my words. “Just because he feels some magical pull toward me, doesn’t mean I have to engage in any sort of relationship with him.”
Audrey quirked her lips to the side in thought, “I don’t know if it’s that simple, Van.”
“Well.” I released a frustrated breath. “I can’t just wrap my head around the fact that your half-brother—who is also the man who killed your boyfriend’s parents—for reasons that feel all too familiar to me right now—” Audrey’s head snapped in my direction in disbelief.
“—seems to have some magical claim on me. For some reason, my non-existent love life feels very insignificant at the moment.”
She bit her lip as her brow furrowed. “But you have Drew.” I stopped walking, making her stop, too. I stared at her, waiting. I waited until her eyes widened in realization and she said, “Drew was Drustan—oh my god.” She slapped a palm on her forehead. “It seems so obvious now.”
“Imagine how I felt.” I sighed. “There’s more we need to catch up on.” Like how he had been breaking into our condo. “But we will have to save that for after…” I tipped my head toward Caelena’s office.
We walked in silence the rest of the way.
Yes, Drustan was a killer. However, if we were being blunt, so was I.
Even though I’d only taken one life, and he’d taken more than that, I still stood by my decision I made as a teen.
I saved Audrey and me. That man would have killed us that night otherwise.
The idea of some fuckass human man, unknowingly murdering the Chosen One destined to fulfill a prophecy in a secret magical realm, struck me.
Was killing our foster father in self-defense maintaining some sort of magical balance that the goddess of this realm demanded, too?
Is that why a mate bond snapped into place between Drustan and me when we first met?
Did the goddess bless me for saving us as teens, in the only way Hyvenmerians seemed to care about?
“Are you ready?” Audrey asked me as she pushed the door open to the room I hadn’t been in before.
I scoffed, “Nope.”
She hesitated, “Did you change your—”
“No.” I strode through the threshold, where a medical-looking table sat in the center, and some monitors that reminded me of medical equipment were stationed in the corner.
Everyone was there except for Sergei, who had to return to Lydhavn for his usual check-in to keep up loyal appearances: Caelena, Fergus, Liam, and Audrey.
Does Drustan know about this? I asked Caelena.
She didn’t react to my words. She kept doing exactly what she was doing when we walked in, checking the monitors. She didn’t flinch, didn’t address me with eye contact or her body, nothing.
She was an excellent liar, having to be after experiencing firsthand what the consequences of slipping up did.
Once he arrives at the Shaw estate, Sergei is going to try to find time to speak to Drustan in private, since I’m sure the prince won’t be pleased about the state his mate is about to be in.
Well, if I do end up dying anyway, I argued, at least Drustan won’t have a powerless human mate hanging over his head. I didn’t know if I believed my own words; I just wanted to distract myself from what I was about to do.
Don’t be a moron, was Caelena’s immediate reply as she turned to murmur something to Sergei. Well, that was probably all the stalling I could manage.
“Okay.” I plopped myself on the table, staring at the jar in Fergus’s large, bronze hands. I held a palm out toward it. “How do we do this?”
“Sergei should be arriving at the Shaw Estate any minute now,” Caelena explained while she walked to a countertop and started mixing a tea.
“While he’s updating Ilia this evening on the nothing he and his men have found, I will call in on our comm that I have you.
” Caelena walked over to me with the tea, unscrewing the jar in my hand and pinching some of the herb.
“A little less than that,” Fergus said, nodding when Caelena followed his instruction.
“Perfect. The halfling in my territory took no more than a teaspoon, so it would make sense for Van to consume even less since she doesn’t have our strong Hyvenmerian blood in her veins.
” He nudged his knee against my leg that hung off the side of the bed, and I appreciated his ribbing.
It helped make this moment less terrifying.
Caelena stirred the herb into my tea, before sniffing it, and hanging it over. Fergus took the jar out of my hands so I could cup the warm mug, inhaling the smells that reminded me of citrus and lavender.
“How soon will I feel its effects?” I asked Fergus.
“Minutes, maybe less,” was his reply.
“You can still say no, Van,” Audrey chimed in, stepping between Caelena and Fergus to address me. “You don’t have to do this. We can find another way—”
“—as long as that way allows me to prove my allegiance to Ilia in less than a handful of hours, sure.” Caelena retorted. Audrey glared at her before giving me a pained expression. I waved my best friend off.
“I’m okay. I can do this,” I laughed humorlessly. “If you could make sure that I’m completely under before you start beating me up, I’d appreciate it.”
Caelena, all seriousness, nodded her head. “The story I’ll give Ilia is that I found you and Audrey at a location far from here. Audrey and I engaged in a fight, and you were injured. During our fight, I ended up pushing you down a canyon, and your weak human body failed you.”
“Wow,” I deadpanned. “I was hoping my death would be less embarrassing.”
“Audrey became too distressed with your death to fight back, so she ran—feeding into Ilia’s assumption that you’re her weakness,” Caelena continued. “And I brought your body back for him to see for himself.”
“And hopefully Leon’s sister will get off your dicks,” I finished. “Sounds good. Let’s do this.”
I looked everyone in the eye, trying to memorize all their faces. Their eyes. Their expressions. Their features. Caelena’s military uniform, Fergus’s gold rings on his fingers and dreadlocks, Audrey’s hoodie, and Liam’s hand squeezing her shoulder in comfort.
“Well…” I lifted my mug of tea in the air. “Bottoms up.” Then I tossed the entire drink back in one go. It had a sweetness that made chugging the entire thing easy. I let the last drop rush past my lips before I lowered the mug and grinned at my audience.
And then the heaviness in my body started to settle in.
I remembered uttering the words, “I think it’s working.” Then my vision became hazy and a darkness tunneled my vision.
The sleep I succumbed to was warm. Not as warm as I was used to, though.
I felt alone in this sleep. There were no dreams for me to recall.
One moment, I was holding hands with Audrey while waiting for the herbs I had consumed to kick in, the next everything was dark.
All I heard was beeping. I tried to roll over and hide from it, but warm hands were gently stirring me back to the surface.
“Van!” Audrey’s voice was raspy, as if she had been sobbing recently.
“Her vitals are good,” Caelen’s voice draped over me. “She’s made a full recovery.”
“Gods, that was brutal.” Liam’s voice sounded next.
“It had to be.” Sergei was back, apparently. “It needed to be convincing.”