Chapter 6 #2
“Apparently, he’s got a . . . thing for her, and the other day Sweyn caught on to it and demanded Sam discover his name by any means necessary . . .” Tegan grimaced at that. “She only just told me this now because she had to be careful.”
My stomach tightened into knots. The Unseelie Prince was our biggest problem right now, and knowing his name could possibly turn the tides. I licked my lips and balled my hands into fists at my sides, adrenaline rushing through me. “What is his name?”
Tegan flicked her wrists and a single word appeared in the air written in bright flames.
VOSEN.
“What a name.” Thiago let out a whistle and shook his head. “What a hot name.”
I couldn’t believe it. This was a huge break for us. If Sam had gotten his name a few days ago and we’d seen him in battle since, then she hadn’t relayed the information to Sweyn. Not that I thought she would, but it showed Sam’s acting skills were even better than I realized.
Tenn stared at the ground, but I saw the wheels turning in his head. “We need to be smart about how we use this information and when.”
Tegan nodded. “We need a plan.”
I cursed and turned for the stairs. “Let me grab Saber—”
“They left,” Cooper cut me off.
I slid to a stop and spun around to face him, my heart already lodged up my throat. “WHAT?”
“Savannah, Riah, and Malachi all said it was time for Akecheta to return to Issale.” Cooper shrugged. “Then the angel brothers were summoned by Lucifer and left but not before he ordered Savannah to accompany them.”
“I don’t like that,” I heard myself say softly.
Royce snapped his fingers and nodded.
“Saber, Akecheta, and Savannah all left together?” I gripped the wall for support. It was too soon. It was too dangerous. They should have waited for me. “When?”
“Lucifer was rather adamant about their departure.” Tegan scowled. “I’m not one to openly question Lucifer just yet.”
“Why is there a yet in that bloody sentence, mate?” Jackson whispered through his hands.
I pulled out my phone to track their location and call when the front door flew open and slammed into the wall so hard it fell off its hinges.
A massive emerald green dragon head poked through the door, his eyes wild with panic.
He shook his head, but his jaw had gotten lodged in the doorframe.
He thrashed and the whole house shook. Fire burst from his nostrils.
Emersyn threw one hand up and the flames shot straight over to her like an obedient puppy.
Hunter rushed over to the green dragon and pressed his palms to his snout. “Easy, Finn, just breathe for me.”
“BOY, GIT!” Savannah screamed from the other side of the dragon with her thick accent. “I AIN’T GOT TIME FOR THIS RIGHT NOW. TENN!”
Tenn cursed and then he was at the door pushing against Finn’s snout with his hands and that two-toned blue magic that matched his eyes. “Don’t fight me, Finn. Fuck’s sake.”
Finn whimpered, then he slid out of sight.
He wasn’t more than a foot back before Savannah raced into the room. Her blue eyes were wild with fear and panic, her mangled hands trembling. “They came for us. Unseelies came for us—”
Everyone started screaming.
The world swayed around me. Nausea rolled up my throat. I leaned against the wall to keep myself upright.
Tegan held her hand up and everyone’s mouths slammed shut. “Savannah, show us—” Rainbow magic slammed into Savannah’s face.
A split-second later a holographic image with remarkable clarity and realism appeared in the middle of the living room.
The others scrambled to move closer, but I knew I did not want to see whatever Savannah had.
I did not peel my gaze away, though, as Tegan’s magic showed us Koth flying with Silas, Yaluk, and the dragon twins surrounding him.
Saber, Akecheta, and Savannah were on his back.
I watched my daughter with every muscle in my body locked tight.
Her eyes—no, Saber’s eyes—widened suddenly then she glanced over her shoulder.
I heard her voice speaking the shifter language, which Akecheta had taught us eight centuries ago.
I listened with growing horror as she told them to leave her and get to Issale because the Unseelies were catching up quickly.
“No, ma’am, watch this part right here—”
Saber’s holograph jumped off Silas’s back and sprouted white-feathered angel wings. I groaned and fell into the wall completely. Her short black hair changed to long strawberry blonde waves. Her skin tanned.
“SHE’S A GADAMN ANGEL!” Savannah shouted and waved her arms around.
I knew the moment the group around me saw Saber’s real eyes, Auryn’s eyes, because they all looked right to me. Then back. Then to me again. They glanced left and right.
“Hold on, hold on, that’s not Saber,” Malik said with a sharp, suspicious voice. “Who the fuck has been pretending to be Saber?”
Braison narrowed his red and green eyes. “But her eyes—”
“That’s not Saber—” Tegan’s voice cut off suddenly and her whole body jerked like she’d been slapped. Her face paled, her green gaze distant and panicked. She tapped on her temple, then turned her gaze to meet mine. “Sam just told me . . . Saber was kidnapped and taken there to Avolire.”
A strangled whimper left my lips. No, no, no, no, no.
My chest tightened, my lungs already burning.
I needed to breathe but the world was crashing in around me.
Don’t do this to me now. We’re so close.
SO CLOSE. Around me I heard the room erupt into chaos and shouting but it was all a haze to my ears.
My heart pounded so loud it drowned everything else out. Sweyn has Auryn.
SWEYN has AURYN.
“Tell them,” Tegan said into my mind. “Tell them about Auryn.”
I flinched and turned my gaze to her yet couldn’t form a response.
“I figured it out and then she confirmed it.” Tegan gestured around the room to everyone yelling over each other with panic as they watched the holographic image show Soneillon and Astaroth attacking Auryn and Silas.
Bile shot up my throat.
“Everest, I wasn’t planning to reveal her identity. I wanted us to hold on to that longer, but if Sweyn has her . . .”
I squeezed my eyes shut and nodded. “Then Lilith has her.”
The room went quiet. I felt their eyes on me, felt their questions in the air.
“I’m going—”
“No.”
Tegan’s rainbow magic coiled around my already shadowy form, forcing my eyes open. “We’re going to help you get her back—”
“You can’t—”
“BULLSHIT!” Tegan shouted and everyone flinched.
Libby scowled. “Maybe it is best if he goes himself. I mean, he knows the place best—”
“NO.” Tegan pointed one finger at me. “Tell them or I will.”
Everyone turned to fully face me.
Tenn arched one eyebrow and pointed to the pale-haired angel in the holograph. “Who is that pretending to be Saber? Or who is Saber really? Which is it and how?”
“Saber is an alias, a fictional character made up so she could be near me without being seen—”
“Near you?” Braison scowled. “This is suspicious, no? Did you know this—”
“Yes, I knew.” I scrubbed my face with my hands. “Saber’s real name, the name I gave her at birth, is . . . is . . . Auryn.”
Silence.
“Auryn, Saber, is my daughter.”
“Like us?” Braison raised his hand, then gestured to Malik. “Like you’re our father and we’re your sons?”
I couldn’t think straight. My thoughts were a level of panic I’d never experienced. My magic swirled around me, knowing I wanted to rush to her aid.
“Everest?”
I looked up to meet Braison’s confused stare. “No, I am not your father. I am your sire, and you are my progeny. Auryn is my daughter—”
“So you didn’t turn her? Or you did?” Thiago frowned.
“I conceived her within her mother’s womb and then delivered her.” I gestured around the room. “Exactly as your parents made each of you.”
“Akecheta is your daughter’s soulmate,” Hunter said with a cringe. “Your son-in-law took that hit for you.”
I nodded. “I have to go—”
“Everest, no—”
“Tegan, I can break free of this, but it won’t be pleasant for you, so let me—”
“Then do it. Hurt me—”
“TEGAN,” I growled.
Tenn’s eyes narrowed. He reached for his soulmate and grabbed her by the elbows. “Babe—”
“It’s a trap, Everest!” Tegan screamed.
I leaned forward. “Then trap me. I don’t care—”
“WE CARE—”
“SHE’S MY DAUGHTER!” I shouted back, then sucked in a ragged breath. “I don’t expect you to understand. You’re sixteen years old—”
“I’m not.”
I gasped and stood up straight as Myrtle strolled into the room. My eyes burned as my emotions began to slip.
She walked up to me with those silver eyes that knew too much. They knew everything I wasn’t saying. “I am a mother. I’m a grandmother many, many times removed.” She gestured to Tennessee.
“Myrtle . . . please . . .”
“Everest.” She pressed her palm to my chest. “You know better than anyone that Sweyn and Lilith would use anything they could get their hands on to lure you into their trap. They are not going to hurt Auryn . . . until they get you.”
“What are you saying?”
She cocked her head to the side and watched me. “I once had to let my daughter be cursed and taken from me for three centuries without knowing if she’d ever return to me. Without knowing Thorne was on our side. I had to have blind faith in Valathame . . . and in my brother.”
My heart sank. My throat tightened. “Your brother—”
“Sacrificed himself . . . twice—”
“So why can he do it but not me?”
“Because Leyka had a plan,” she snapped. I’d never, ever heard Myrtle snap at anyone.
I blinked down at her. She was half my daughter’s age and yet she felt more like a mother to me than my own. “I have a plan, Myrtle.”
She patted my cheek and smiled softly. “Yes, but Tegan’s plan is better.”
My eyes widened.
“Do you trust me, Everest?” Myrtle asked softly.
I nodded without hesitation.
She smirked. “Do you trust Tegan?”
I took a deep breath, then let it out. “Yes.”
“Then let me try to beat them at their own game, Everest.” Tegan stepped forward, shaking off Tenn’s hands. “Let me at least try. If my plan, and my backup plans, fail . . . then I won’t stop you from rushing in guns blazing to save your daughter.”
I stared at her, torn between what I should do and what my soul was begging me to do.
“Everest,” Tegan spoke to me telepathically now, “you have waited eight hundred years for your wife to return to you. Let me try to keep you alive long enough for Frankie to come back to you as Celina.”
My eyes watered. I put my hands on my hips and stared at the ground. “How long have you known?” I asked telepathically.
“About Frankie being Celina?” She chuckled and it sent a chill down my spine. “Since you pulled her from that frat house.”
I gasped and looked up to her, yet I was speechless.
“Give me a chance, Everest. Please.”
“Tegan . . .”
“Let The Coven help you for a change, Everest. You’ve been keeping this realm safe for eight hundred years.”
Tenn stepped up beside her. “She’s right, Everest. Tegan’s mind is a devious hellscape—”
“Thanks, Babe,” Tegan said sweetly, no sarcasm in sight.
“She’s already outsmarted Sweyn a few times. You know that better than anyone.” Tenn crossed his arms over his chest. “If anyone can outsmart your mother, it’s this batch of crazy next to me.”
Devon stood and nodded. “Let us try. If they don’t work, then you do your thing.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay, okay, okay. Fine. But we need to move now. What’s your plan?”
“Do you remember when you beheaded Cooper?”
My eyes widened. I glanced over at Cooper who grimaced behind her. “I’m too stressed for subtlety right now, Tegan. I’m unfamiliarly panicked. Just lay it out for me.”
“Me, Thiago, Savannah, and Willow will use our magic together to pretend to be you—just as I did with Cooper that night. If Sweyn didn’t realize Cooper was an illusion, she won’t realize you are.
” Tegan pointed to Thiago and Savannah. “They’ll be with me to supplement your magic as best as possible while you offer yourself up for a trade. You for her.”
“And where will real me be?”
“At my side, waiting to see—” she gasped, her eyes going wide as her face paled.
My stomach turned. “WHAT?” I growled.
“Sam just messaged again . . .” She cringed. “Saber was taken into Lilith’s realm.”