Chapter 14 Sorin
CHAPTER 14
SORIN
H e couldn’t stand to be in that room anymore. He couldn’t stand to hear them all talking about the mortal prince and what they needed to do to help him. Maybe that made him a sel?sh prick, but he didn’t give a fuck. Not when it involved Scarlett. The rest of the world could go to hell for all he cared at this point, because his entire world was chained to a wall in some private study where everything he feared was coming true. Alaric had her, was breaking her in ways far worse than physical torture. And now he’d brought Cassius into this, knowing exactly what kind of leverage he now held over her.
He was down on the ?rst ?oor of the warehouse, debating if he could safely burn some of the scattered crates to ash to release some of the tension in his veins. Rayner was standing near the stairwell, watching and waiting. What he wouldn’t give to feel her down that bond again, just another glimpse to know she was still ?ghting, still reaching for him as adamantly as he was reaching for her.
Scarlett .
But the word was met with the same resistance it had been since she had left him at the border. There were no cracks in that wall this time. No weaknesses to hurl ?ames at. No ?ssures to exploit to try to bring that wall crashing down.
Footfalls sounded on the stairs, and a moment later, Arianna stepped into the room, followed by Eliza, Cyrus, and Luan. Of course, it was Luan who opened his mouth ?rst.
“We cannot meddle in the affairs of mortals, Aditya. That is not what we are here for,” he said, his tone holding a slight chiding tone to it.
Sorin snorted a hollow laugh. “Of course you would say something as foolish as that.”
“Foolish? What is foolish is you getting into an argument with a mortal prince when we could be focusing on getting your wife and queen out. He wants to go back to his castle and walk into some kind of trap? That is his choice to make. Leave him to it, and focus on what we came here to do,” Luan retorted.
“I would not expect you to understand any of this, Luan,” Sorin sneered. “Your motives have always been purely about gaining the upper hand for the Earth Court any way you can.”
“Of course it is,” Luan drawled. “They are who I answer to. They are who I am responsible for. They expect me to ?ght for them, to go after whatever advantages we can.”
“At the expense of the wellbeing of others?”
“As if you and your Court are any different,” Luan countered. “Tell me, Aditya, who were you thinking about when you dragged a small unit across the border to rescue Eliné? Was that for you, your Court, or the good of the world? Were those lost worth the sacri?ce you asked them to make?”
Sorin snarled, lurching towards him, but Rayner got there ?rst, casually drawing his short sword with a dark grin.
“Oh, Luan,” Eliza sighed from behind them. “When will you learn not to spout off when we’re all present?”
“When will you all learn that I am not concerned by your little threats and pretty blades?” he returned, the dirt beginning to swirl at his feet.
“Sometimes I forget how young and petty you all are,” Arianna cut in, sauntering to the center of the room. She held out her palm where a piece of iron sat. Where she had found it, Sorin had no idea. “Which one of you is going to give me what I need?” she asked, glancing between the princes.
Luan crossed his arms in clear refusal of giving Arianna his Semiria ring when Sorin didn’t need his. Sorin gritted his teeth, sliding Scarlett’s ring from his ?nger and feeling his ?re magic stutter out in his veins. He handed it to Arianna. She slipped it on and her attention turned to the iron in her palm. It immediately began shifting, shrinking and thinning out, into a long, small key.
Her olive eyes landed back on him, and they had softened a touch, some form of sympathy looking back at him. “This key will unlock her chain anchors,” she explained. “She wouldn’t let me close enough to look at the actual manacles.”
Sorin snorted a small laugh at the thought of Scarlett kicking the Beta Shifter off her foot, even if the Beta was in the form of a small mouse, but the laugh died in his throat as quickly as it had come. He swallowed thickly before locking eyes with Arianna again. “She is chained? To a wall?” he asked, the Beta’s words on constant replay in his mind.
Cassius had carried her into the Fellowship in his pocket. While he had been intercepted and questioned, before apparently being taken directly to Scarlett, Arianna had slipped from him and made her way along the halls and rooms. She’d spent hours the last few weeks studying the maps Cassius and Nuri had drawn, learning everything she could about the Fellowship and memorizing the places Scarlett might be held.
When Arianna said she had found her, laid eyes on her, and heard her speaking, Sorin had been ready to charge into the Black Syndicate immediately. Of course, he knew Nuri and Cassius were right. This plan was multifaceted and figuring out where she was at was only one of many, many steps. Besides, who was to say she was always held there? Was she constantly moved to throw them off ? Or had she been chained to that stone wall since she’d fallen back into the Assassin Lord’s hands? Had she once again been sleeping on a stone floor? Had they been withholding food? Giving her water? Had he been letting Mikale have her?
Fury, hot and acidic, ?ooded him at that last thought, and he was suddenly grateful he didn’t have that ring on his ?nger. He was certain something would be on ?re if he did. His eyes fell to the ring on his left hand though. His marriage band. His only mark of their union in this land. His only connection to her here. Another wave of fury washed through him at the thought of her blocking their bond. That anger was nearly as potent as the rage he felt about Mikale laying a single ?nger on her.
“Yes, Sorin,” Arianna replied. “Shirastone shackles adorn her wrists and ankles. While her wrists are anchored above her head, her feet are not secured to the ?oor. This key should unlock the anchor. If another key needs to be made once we have her out, I can do so here.”
“Why can you not just make another key there?” Eliza asked. She was leaning against the far wall, her face calculating and grim. The face of his general, going over battle plans and strategies. “If she can have access to her magic, it will certainly aid us in getting her out.”
“Because there are wards around that place,” Arianna answered, her face going dark. “They are wards like I have never felt, that block my abilities, even with a Semiria ring on my ?nger.” At the mention of the ring, she slipped it off her ?nger, handing it back to Sorin.
“You have met Cassius. He is very powerful,” Sorin countered, feeling his ?ames spring back to life with the ring back in place.
“Those were not Witch wards, Sorin,” Arianna said.
“Cassius also stated he’s never been asked to put wards around the Fellowship,” Rayner supplied.
“Then we can only assume that these wards will affect us when we go in to get her,” Cyrus chimed in.
“I will not need my magic to get to her. My blades and my own hands will be enough,” Sorin said darkly. “When I come for her, she will walk out of that cesspit with me, or I will stay there with her. There will be no in between. There will be no middle ground.”
“Your blades and your hands will be enough in a house and district full of lethally trained assassins, thieves, and mercenaries? I think not, ?re prick,” Nuri drawled from a shadowy corner.
Where the hell had she come from?
“Would you care to test that theory, Daughter of Night?” Sorin answered with a dark grin.
“You take that ring off and tell your lackeys not to interfere, Sorin, and I will certainly be willing to make you bleed,” she answered with a wicked grin of her own.
“If you need a drink, Nuri dear, you only need to ask,” Sorin taunted. Nuri hissed at him, her fangs snapping out. “Every time I start to think you’re not as bad as I remember, you prove just how big of a dick you truly are.”
“Let’s just focus on getting her out,” Rayner cut in again, but his low voice was dark and tense, and it snapped Sorin’s attention back to where it should be. Rayner was always so stoic, always so impassive, that when some sort of emotion did make its way to the surface, you took notice. Mainly because if his Third lost control, there would be more than blood littering the ?oor of this warehouse, and his tone said he was riding an edge Sorin had been on for weeks now.
“How far out did you feel these wards?” Luan asked, his eyes ?xed on Nuri, watching her every move.
“Not until outside the grounds of the Fellowship,” the Beta answered. “As much as we’re going to want to go in and kill everyone we come across, I think it’s going to be best if we can get in and out undetected. Can we go in disguised somehow? As servants, like I did for so long at the Tyndell estate?” Eliza asked.
“You’d be better off trying to go in disguised as assassins,” Nuri said. “If the Assassin Lord’s attention is focused on Scarlett right now, there is a chance you could get in. You’d be cloaked and hooded, your faces hidden. I can only assume his most trusted are guarding her so the others may not instantly recognize an outsider.”
“What if we were with one of his most trusted?” Sorin asked slowly. “I can’t go there, Sorin,” Nuri answered.
“Not you,” Sorin said, shaking his head. His gaze swung back to Arianna. “You said Mikale was in that room while you were there. And Lord Tyndell.”
“Yes, along with another and the Assassin Lord,” Arianna con?rmed. “Did you see them, speci?cally Mikale, well enough to shift into him?”
Eliza pushed off the wall she was leaning against. “You want her to impersonate Mikale and go in for Scarlett? Scarlett would never believe he had come to rescue her.”
“No,” Sorin said, shaking his head again. “I want her to impersonate Mikale so that when I enter as an underling assassin, no one will question it. Then, when I ?nd Scarlett, I can explain who Arianna is. If Mikale is with me, who will question us moving her about?”
Nuri had a knife in her gloved hand, playing with the blade as she thought over everything he’d said. “It could work,” she said thoughtfully. “Before all of this happened, if I had entered with an outsider, no one but Alaric would have questioned me. If he is distracted, his awareness of your presence would likely be delayed.” She fell quiet again, clearly running over different outcomes in her mind. Everyone stayed quiet, letting her think, recognizing that she was the expert here. As much as he hated it, she’d been right when she had yelled at him, reminding him that her knowledge was superior to his here.
“This will probably be our best shot,” Nuri ?nally conceded. “And now that he has Cassius too—”
“What do you mean he has Cassius too?” Cyrus interrupted. “I thought he was only keeping the commander if he was lying about the mortal prince? That has been taken care of.”
Nuri huffed out a hollow laugh. “If you think the Assassin Lord is going to release the greatest leverage he has against Scarlett, you are sorely mistaken. Cassius will be used against her until he has gotten everything he wants from her, and even then, he will likely be kept as collateral, to keep her under control.”
“So you are saying when we go in for Scarlett, we will need to get him as well?” Rayner asked, the smoke swirling in his eyes seeming to thicken.
“Yes,” Nuri answered simply.
“Well, that’s just great,” Eliza muttered. “Because getting Scarlett out wasn’t challenging enough, we now need to try to smuggle two people out.”
“When?” Sorin demanded. “When can we go in?”
Nuri’s honey eyes met his. “Give me a few days, Sorin.” Her tone had softened, like it often did when he glimpsed her conversing with the younger children. “Let me make sure that we have as many of our people on duty as possible when we go in. It will give us the best chances.”
Sorin nodded, not liking having to wait even another hour, let alone a few days, but what else could he do? If those few days were what it took to avoid losing their advantage, then he’d suffer through them.
They all dispersed, agreeing to meet again later tonight as usual to discuss things further, after Nuri had some time to get in touch with her contacts. Eliza went to speak with Callan and make sure they were as prepared as possible for returning to the castle. Sorin didn’t know if the mortal prince would even speak to her, but he didn’t care any more. The mortal prince could do what he wanted.
He found himself slipping out the side door, his feet carrying him back to the beach. This was where he normally ended up in the afternoons, staring out across a sea so vast and endless, yet it felt minuscule compared to the abyss separating him from his twin ?ame.
Hold on, Love . Just a little longer. I am coming.