Chapter 5 Sorin
CHAPTER 5
SORIN
S orin stepped through a ?re portal into the receiving area of the desert palace in Siofra, the capital of the Shifters territory. Gauzy curtains lined the open terrace walls as waterfalls cascaded among the rocky dunes surrounding the building. The palace sat in an oasis in the middle of the desert lands that they’d been sequestered to. The sun glared down brightly outside, and he watched as various animals moved about the grounds. With so many of them, it made it dif?cult to discern which were actual animals and which were Shifters in their animal forms.
He had come alone, leaving the others to pack and prepare for their departure tonight. He would not need backup in Siofra. Not with her. Not with their history.
He’d sent Eliza to deal with Callan and prepare him to return home. He didn’t have the time or the patience to coddle the mortal prince right now. Although, now that he was thinking about it, perhaps Rayner would have been the better one for that task. He had never witnessed his general so on edge. But Rayner was off doing some ?nal scouting before they left for the mortal lands, and Cyrus was getting other things together and ?nalized.
“My, my,” a sultry voice purred from behind him, a hand landing on his shoulder. “This is a very pleasant surprise. The Prince of Fire again in my company.”
That hand trailed along his sculpted back lower and lower, stopping just before it grazed across the upper swells of his ass. Sorin turned to address the owner of that voice, but a golden cobra was now winding its way up his leg. It slithered around his torso and along his chest. It stopped near his neck, hissing, and its forked tongue brushed the area beneath his ear. It continued moving across the back of his shoulders, winding down his other arm. Until it stopped and lifted its head when it reached his left wrist.
The cobra hissed again before there was a ?ash of soft golden light and a woman stood before him. She possessed effortless beautywith her dark skin and olive, almond-shaped eyes. Her long, black hair was braided into several small braids and gold beads adorned the ends of all of them. The thin, gold, silk dress she wore sported a plunging neckline, reaching nearly to her navel, and the slits up the sides revealed ample amounts of herlong legs. She reached for his left hand, the gold bangles at her wrists tinkling against eachother.
“You have a marriage band on your ?nger, Prince.” She brought her eyes to his. “You have a wife.”
“I do,” Sorin replied. “That has only been the case for a few days.”
“You have also started the Trials. Wife and twin ?ame then,” she continued, her gaze back on his hand.
“Yes,” Sorin answered, a small smile playing on his lips.
The woman dropped his hand, a pout forming on her full lips. “Pity,” she said. But then those lips tilted up sensuously. “Unless she is with you, and you are both here for fun?”
Those olive eyes scanned the room, presumably looking for his wife.
Sorin cleared his throat. “She is not here, Arianna. She is also not one to share.”
Arianna brought her eyes back to his, as she asked coyly, “She is not one to share, or you are not one to share, Prince?”
“I think the feeling is mutual, my Lady,” he answered with a slight bow, “and that is no slight to you.”
“My dear prince,” Arianna said as she sauntered over to a low, coral-colored settee. “I know well that you enjoy everything I have ever had to offer.” She sat, bringing one foot to the cushion beside her. Her other foot dangled to the ?oor, her dress revealing all too much as it hung between her legs.
A giant tiger prowled through one of the curtains to the right and padded to her. She ran her ?ngers through its fur as it rubbed against her leg.
“Jamahl,” Sorin said with a nod of his head.
The tiger gave a nod of its own before sprawling onto the ground before Arianna’s feet.
“You could bring your new bride, and I could bring Jamahl, and we could all have some fun,” Arianna suggested, tilting her head back against the settee. Sorin opened his mouth to decline once more, but she spoke again before he could. “Maybe you should ask her before you speak for her, Prince.”
Sorin crossed the distance between them and sat on the other end of the settee. A woman immediately appeared with a tray of iced tea and red grapes, setting it on the low table before them.
“If you are not here for pleasure, Prince, does my brother need to be summoned for this little meeting?” Arianna asked, picking up a grape and biting it in half.
“Not unless you desire him here,” Sorin answered, ?lling a glass of iced tea and handing it to her.
She scoffed, taking the glass from his hand. “I do not even know where he is. The ports maybe? Or visiting a neighboring town? Alpha business, I am sure.”
“Alpha business but not Beta business?” Sorin asked with a raised brow, pouring himself his own glass of iced tea.
“I do enough business in this territory. Stellan would run me ragged if I did not push back against him,” she said with a frown. A large brown wolf had come stalking in, shifting in a ?ash of light to his human form, and begun massaging her shoulders. She groaned softly as he worked a knot from herneck.
“I need your help, Arianna,” Sorin said quietly, setting down his glass of iced tea.
“What kind of help?”
“The posing as another person kind of help,” Sorin answered grimly.
Arianna sat up straight at the words, brushing the hands of the Shifter away from her neck. “Outside of this territory?”
“Yes. In the mortal lands,” Sorin answered. “To get my wife and queen out.”
“You, a full-blooded, all-powerful Fae Prince of Fire, need my help to get your wife and twin ?ame away from humans?” The doubt and suspicion were stark on Arianna’s beautiful face. “What aren’t you telling me, Sorin?”
Sorin launched into the short, abridged version of who Scarlett was, where she’d been hidden, her new role as queen, how she’d been taken, and what he needed from Arianna.
“You seem to forget I cannot shift in the mortal lands,” Arianna said gravely. “How I enter the mortal lands is how I will stay.”
“You can shift with this,” Sorin said, holding up his hand with the Semiria ring on it. “Prince Azrael will be wearing Talwyn’s to Travel us all out once we have her, if she cannot do so herself.”
He didn’t want to think about what state she might be in. If Mikale had her, her mental state would be shredded. If the Assassin Lord had her, she might not be physically able to do anything. He had no idea what she’d been enduring since she blocked their bond.
Home.
He needed to get her home. When she was whole and ?ne again, they’d have a long discussion about this blocking the bond shit.
“Do you know how long it has been since I have been out of these lands?” Arianna asked, sipping from her iced tea. “Stellan usually takes care of the tasks that require us to go outside of our own lands.”
“Would you prefer I ask Stellan instead?”
“Gods, no,” she cried. “I would do just about anything, or anyone for that matter, to get out of here, even for just a few hours.”
“We will likely be gone for more than a few hours. I am hoping for no more than a few days, but it could be longer,” Sorin replied grimly.
“Even better,” she said, standing from the settee.
“This is not a vacation, Arianna,” Sorin warned, standing as well. “Those who hold her are not mere mortals. Night Children were involved in her capture.”
A dark look crossed her face, her lip curling up from her teeth. “Do I need to remind you, Prince of Fire, that I was killing alongside the Fae while you were still suckling at your mother’s tit?”
“You do not, Lady,” Sorin said. “I simply do not want you to be unprepared.”
She snapped her ?ngers, and the tiger at her feet shifted. Jamahl stood in his human form. Tall and muscled and as dark-skinned as his Beta. “Keep an eye on him while I pack a few things,” Arianna ordered.
“Yes, my Lady,” Jamahl answered with a bow of his head.
There was a ?ash of light, and Arianna had shifted into a red falcon soaring out of one of the terrace openings.
Sorin sat back on the settee, sipping his iced tea and going over his plan in his head again and again. Arianna Renatus agreeing to help him was the ?rst step of many. He hadn’t been worried. She was always eager to leave her lands, and her brother often kept her sequestered here while he handled other affairs. He knew she would leap at an opportunity to leave, and he knew coming directly to her and by-passing Stellan only aided his cause in convincing her to help him. The Alpha wouldn’t be happy with him, but he’d deal with that later.
Ten minutes later, the falcon ?ew back in through the same terrace opening, and in another ?ash of light, Arianna stood before him, a small pack dangling from her ?ngers. She had changed out of her thin silk dress and now wore loose pants that cuffed at the ankles. Her top was the same coral color as the settee, and the sheer sleeves cuffed at the wrists.
“You do know I live in the mountains and that the mortal kingdoms are in the winter months?” Sorin asked, his lips tilting up slightly in amusement. He knew she wouldn’t care. He’d spent enough time with the Beta to know her intimately in more ways than one.
“I assume you can keep your palace plenty warm, Prince,” she answered. “As for the mortal lands, it sounds as if I will rarely be in my own skin.” She turned to face Jamahl. “I have left a note for Stellan, but I am sure he will be unhappy I have gone without consulting him. You know what to do.”
“Of course, my Lady,” Jamahl said, bowing his head once more. “Good.”
Sorin opened a portal and gestured with his hand. “After you.”
Arianna threw him a sensuous look as she stepped through the ?re portal, Sorin a step behind.