Chapter Twelve #3
I drew back and turned to Maddox and Callum. “What about the Second Order? I don’t want you abandoning your knights because of me.”
“Worry not of the Second Order, Thorn Prince,” a familiar voice chimed in. Duke?
Men then approached. Ones I saw as the older brothers I’d never had but always wanted.
“Duke,” I said, voice wobbling. “Baden and Quincy. You’re all here.”
“Aye.” Quincy smiled, causing the jagged scar cutting across his face to wrinkle. “Like we’d be anywhere else when our little lad is in trouble.”
Baden nodded. “I, for one, refuse to follow the commands of a tyrant. Cedric will never have my loyalty. But you, my prince?” He bowed his head. “Always.”
“Your… prince?” Something quaked in my core.
The knights exchanged glances before dropping to one knee, heads lowered. Shock had me staring like a deer caught in headlights.
“I…” My throat squeezed. “I don’t understand what’s…”
“Blame Captain Glutton for that one,” Rowan said, toying with the dagger he’d unsheathed from his hip. “He told them everything.”
“Because I trust them with my life,” Maddox responded, his gaze finding mine in the shadows of the forest. “More importantly, I trust them with yours.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. I looked at Draven.
“I suspected from the first moment I met you,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “Only a fool could look at you and not see the family resemblance.”
“Can we stand yet?” Quincy asked in a harsh whisper. “My knees are killin’ me.”
That’s when I laughed. Hard. It felt out of place, considering everything that’d happened, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. They really did make any situation better, my men and my knights. My spies too. Men I trusted and loved with my whole heart.
As the knights stood back up, Duke swatted at Baden’s ass.
“Dirt,” he said.
Baden arched a brow before swatting Duke’s ass, but harder. “You had a leaf.”
Quincy looked between them before twisting around, trying to see his own behind. I laughed again. They were too much.
“Wait.” I scanned the area. “Where’s Reign?”
“I’m touched,” he said from nearby. His voice grew louder as he approached, leaves crunching. “Keep worrying about me, and I may just join your harem after all.”
Maddox scowled.
Any comment I had flitted away as I saw the body at his feet, one wrapped in a thin chain and seemingly lifeless. “Is he dead?”
“No.” Reign nudged Stryder’s side with the tip of his boot. “Not yet anyway.”
“Unfortunately,” Rowan muttered, still toying with his dagger. His eyes, however, burned into Stryder. “One swift movement can fix that though.”
“We need him alive,” Briar said. “He’s the key to learning who’s after Evan.”
“He won’t tell us shit, Specs. And even if he does, he’ll spew nothing but lies. Truth serums have no effect on him.”
“About that,” I chimed in. “King Silas hired him. That’s one mystery solved.”
Callum’s expression hardened. “So Haran is behind it after all.”
I nodded. “I just don’t know why. Other than something special in my blood.”
“Your blood?” Maddox frowned.
Reign, however, smiled. “I knew it.”
Stryder blinked open his eyes and sluggishly rose to a sitting position. A faint shimmer traveled along the chain each time he moved. It wrapped around his torso, keeping his arms pinned down. “You think this can hold me for long?”
“It’ll hold long enough.” Reign turned to Lake. “Will you lead the way to that cottage? It’s too dangerous to speak out in the open like this.”
“Bold of you to assume you’ll make it that far,” Stryder casually said.
Draven grabbed Stryder by the chains and hauled him to his feet. He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. The threat in his stare did all the talking for him. One wrong move, and Stryder would start losing body parts.
“And you’re with me.” Maddox gently picked me up.
“I can walk just fine on my own,” I said, cradled in his arms like a baby.
He lowered his face to mine and kissed the corner of my mouth. “Whether you can or not doesn’t matter. I wish to hold you.”
I recalled the way he’d slammed against the bars of my cell, desperate to reach me. My big guy needed the closeness right now. I rested my head on his shoulder and breathed him in, letting his scent calm the nerves not yet dissipated in my gut.
Yeah. I needed the closeness too.
Lake led us through the forest, glancing back at me every so often. Briar kept pace at his side, with me, Maddox, and Callum behind them. Rowan and the spies walked behind us, and the knights created a sort of protective barrier around the group, alert and swords at the ready.
Stryder watched me for a moment, and then his golden eyes moved to Rowan. “You, with the red hair.”
“What the hell do you want?”
“The dagger with the black hilt. The one found on him.” He nodded to me. “Where did you get it?”
Rowan glared. “Why would I tell you a damn thing?”
“Beautiful craftsmanship, wouldn’t you agree?” Stryder tipped his face up as we walked, staring at the branches above us. “Lightweight but strong. Had one just like it when I was a boy.”
Was that why Stryder had seemed so interested in the dagger on the balcony? Made him remember something from his childhood?
“You’re from Solynia,” Rowan said. Not a question.
“As are you. Perhaps we’ve met before. You’re, what…” Stryder scrutinized him. “Four years younger than me? Give or take a year.”
“Unlikely we’ve met,” Rowan responded, expression hardening. “If we had, you would’ve had your throat cut and bled out in a sewer before your balls even dropped.”
That smirk returned to Stryder’s lips. “You’re quite skilled with your shadows. They masked your scent in the prince’s study. I didn’t detect you at all.”
“Am I supposed to be flattered?”
“No. But you should be curious.”
“About what?”
“Unlocking your full potential,” Stryder said. “Nocturne could help you with that. Dark magic is our specialty. These spies will only get you so far.”
“Not interested.”
“Such a waste of talent.” Stryder blew out a breath. “Accepting my offer would’ve saved you. Now, you’ll die with everyone else.”
A twig snapped from the left. I barely had time to even turn my head before a bright green light lit up the forest.
Quincy flew backward.
“Q!” Baden exclaimed.
The front of Quincy’s armor was slashed open. No blood though. He groaned and touched his chest. “Feels like I’ve been kicked by a horse.”
Half a second later, another flash appeared in the trees, coming from the right side.
Duke raised his shield just before the spell hit. The impact was strong enough to send him stumbling backward. Dark shapes then flitted around us. One leapt from the nearest tree, while two closed in on the sides. More appeared behind us.
We were surrounded.
“Still believe you’ll make it to the cottage?” Stryder asked, calm and collected, if not a bit cocky.
Draven slammed the hilt of his dagger into Stryder’s face.
Reign’s mask moved as his breaths quickened, and panic swarmed his eyes. “I… I didn’t sense them.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Blood filled the spaces between Stryder’s teeth from the hit to the face.
He spat on the ground. “One in our ranks can manipulate the air. Use it as a sort of camouflage that can deceive even high-level magic sensors like you. It’s why we lured you and your men away from the castle during the ball.
It allowed him to slip inside unnoticed and poison the king. ”
“And to frame me for it,” I said, voice shaking.
Maddox’s arms tightened around me, and he surveyed the area. Callum had his sword drawn, standing at his back. The dark figures from earlier were barely visible in the darkness. Not clear enough to make out any details, but just enough to know they were there: standing eerily still and watching.
“Hand him over, knight.” A man then came into view, coming from the direction Quincy had been hit. He walked as if he were gliding. “Or die.”
The threat in his words contracted the somewhat impassive tone used to say them. He had a dainty build. About my height and small-framed.
“You!” I pointed at him. “You’re the one who bumped into me at the ball.”
I hadn’t seen his face, but I recognized his build.
“Of course it was me,” he said, still in that nonchalant tone. “No one else could’ve done it better.”
“How old are you, like, twelve?”
“Eighteen.” He stopped gliding, his expression veering on bored. Closer now, I saw more of his features. Violet eyes and hair the shade of honey. Pointed ears protruded from his hair, and his porcelain skin seemed to shimmer along his cheeks and down his neck. “Why do you ask.”
The question didn’t sound like a question, lacking the necessary inflection.
“Akito,” Stryder greeted him. “Mind helping me out of these chains?”
“How interesting,” Akito said in a voice suggesting anything but. “You’ve found yourself captured once again. If only one of us had been sent in your place from the very beginning. Then we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
With a wave of his hand, there was a clink. The chain then broke apart, the pieces falling to the ground. Stryder vanished in the blink of an eye and reappeared beside Akito.
“How—” Draven whirled around to them, pulling two daggers from his wrist cuffs.
Akito sent the daggers flying in the opposite direction with a mere flick of his fingers. “The rest of you. Seize the target. I despise wasting time.”
All hell then broke loose for the second time that night.