Chapter 46
Axl
I shift off the bed in Rylee’s chambers in the palace, doing my best not to disturb her and Kal sleeping on the other side.
Predawn light trickles in from the balcony doorways, casting the room in a soft glow. When I glance down at Rylee, my heart is full.
It was fucking torture being away from her. A kind of agony I’m not used to. Usually, I’m a go-with-the-flow guy, but the kings forcing me to separate from her so early in our mating process, and during such a tumultuous time, was rough.
Coming home and finding her in the midst of a Fader battle? I’ve never known an anger like I felt last night.
We have to end this.
I tear my eyes away from her, rummaging around the pile of clothing that’s tossed carelessly along her floor. We were all in a hurry last night. I’m not mad about it. We needed her like we needed air. And now that we’re back, I don’t have any intention of ever leaving her like that again.
I slip into my pants as Ash decides to stroll out of the darkened closet across the chamber, narrowing his cat eyes at me.
I mimic the look, not breaking his stare. The creature tolerates me but loves Rylee—though she denies it—so someday we need to find a common ground.
After a few seconds with neither of us breaking, he snorts, dismissing me, then heads out through the balcony doors.
“Good morning to you, too,” I softly grumble to his back before searching for my shirt.
I see a peek of it beneath Rylee’s Legend jacket and lift the thing so I can grab it. Something falls out of her jacket pocket with the motion, and I raise a brow. Shirt forgotten, I bend to scoop up the small brown paper.
“What the fuck?” I say out loud, all but forgetting Kal and Rylee are still asleep.
Rylee mumbles something, stretching awake as she sits up. Kal follows shortly after.
“What is it, Axl?” she asks after she yawns. Fuck, she looks incredible with nothing but a sheet wrapped around her. The tops of her full breasts peek out in a way that begs to fill my hands.
Focus.
Right.
I head over to the bed, gently extending the small brown paper toward her. “Careful,” I caution as she takes it. “It’s folded that way for a reason.”
Rylee’s brow pinches together, the look similar to Kal’s as he watches her crack the paper open a fraction.
Her eyes widen as she looks at me. “Where did you get this?”
I motion to the pile of clothes on the floor. “It fell out of your jacket pocket.”
“That’s not possible—” She cuts herself off, her shoulders dropping. “Erin.” She looks down at the white substance in the paper. “She slipped it to me.”
“Why?” I ask, unable to keep the sharpness from my tone. “Why let the Faders chain you only to give this to you?”
“They’d already dosed you with it, right?” Kal asks.
“Erin didn’t,” she says. “But her minions did.” She shrugs, eyes contemplative as she shifts off the bed, laying the paper on the bedside table.
“I’ve been looking for some,” Rylee continues. “While you were gone. After I got back from Silvac. If we can study it, I’m hoping Ivy can help us come up with an antidote.”
I glance around, my mind clearing. “Yeah, remind us why you’re here alone again? Where’s Pierce? Is Jax not back yet, either?”
Rylee slips on her clothes as she relays to us the events since we left. By the time she’s done, we’re all dressed and full from breakfast, and we’re ready to meet with Ivy.
“So, technically, Pierce should be home in two weeks?” Kal asks as we move to the sitting area in her chambers.
She tucks herself between the two of us on the couch, nodding as she takes another sip of her coffee. “Should be,” she says. “But I haven’t heard anything. Not from him or Jax. Even though Baydel said he made it.”
Something churns in my gut. I do my best to not let that emotion head down our bond. She’s dealing with enough. I don’t need to add to it. And surprisingly, I still have my powers.
“Side note,” I say, cocking a brow as I look down at her. “My powers are still with me. Are you doing that?”
“Same,” Kal adds.
She smiles. “I’m getting better at keeping them on the other ends of the bonds, with you.
Pierce has his, too. It’s hard to explain.
It’s exhausting, but if I keep that part of me tense, flexed, they stay.
Some times are harder than others, like when we’re in danger, but right now, it’s not too difficult. ”
“I’m so proud of you, love,” Kal says, nuzzling her neck. “But if it’s exhausting or a strain on you, don’t do it. Keep them for yourself if it’s easier.”
I grin down at her. “We’ll be fine, kitten.”
“I’m okay,” she assures us both.
She’s incredible. If roles were reversed, I don’t know that I’d adapt as well and as brilliantly as she has.
“I’m here!” Ivy says as she rushes into the room, Layce and Mirren behind her. She spots both of us and gives us a polite nod. “What’s happened?”
Rylee explains last night in detail for her friends, then pushes the paper packet toward Ivy. “Do you think you can work your magic on this?”
Ivy eyes the Tox studiously, then nods. “I’ll do everything I can, but I’ll need a space to work. And access to gardens with healing plants. I’ll have to test several.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Rylee says. “You should go to Pierce’s place in the Emerald Wood. It’s secluded, and he already has everything you need there.”
“And you can have access to my mother’s gardens,” I add. Rylee’s eyes meet mine, gratitude spilling from them in a way that makes my chest puff out slightly. “It has some of the rarest flowers and healing herbs. Take whatever you need.”
“Thank you.” Ivy carefully pockets the Tox. “I’ll go right away.”
“I’ll fetch you a carriage,” Mirren says. “Layce, you should go with her. You two can tell anyone who bothers asking that Rylee ordered you to get Pierce’s home ready for his return.”
“Good idea, Mirren,” Rylee says, nodding. She hops up to hug her friends. “Be careful with that stuff.”
“You know us,” Ivy says, smiling. “We’ll figure this out.”
Relief is visible on Rylee’s features. “This is the first solid clue we’ve had in months,” she says. “I’m hopeful.”
Ivy and Layce hug her one more time before following Mirren out of the room. It grows quiet as Rylee sinks onto the couch again.
“If we can get an antidote, we’ll have an edge against the Faders,” she says. “Maybe finally stop them.”
I wrap my arm around her, drawing her closer. “What about Erin?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to do about her,” she admits. “She barely told me anything but slipped me exactly what I’ve been searching for? Even Jax’s contact, Atlas, couldn’t do that.”
“That’s surprising,” Kal says. “About Atlas. He’s Jax’s go-to source for a lot of things, not just enhancements.”
“Mirren tried to find him, but she couldn’t. And maybe he didn’t want to approach me without Jax present,” Rylee says. “Either way, Erin is a wild card. I asked her to come with me, to help me put an end to this. She wouldn’t.”
My heart sinks. “I can’t imagine how bad that stung.”
She nods, then leans farther into my chest. “Helps that you’re both here now. If we can just get Pierce and Jax back, maybe we can figure out who the he Erin kept mentioning is.”
She mentioned an interaction with Baydel, too, of him being afraid of someone. It’s almost hard to believe. If it was anyone else telling me the story, I wouldn’t.
“Wonder if it’s the same person,” I say. “That Baydel spoke with through his Occuli?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Kal says, tilting his head. “And if it is, maybe this person has something on your sister,” he continues. “That’s forcing her hand?”
Rylee worries her lip between her teeth, then shakes her head.
“There’s nothing,” she says. “We have nothing left for anyone to use against us. Our parents died on a Never List mission. I’m here.
” She waves to Ash, who lies in the sun on the balcony floor.
“She cared enough about that damned cat to ask about him last night, and he’s here safe, too.
What else could anyone possibly have on her? ”
I look down at her empathetically. She doesn’t want to hope it’s that. Not when she’s already had her heart broken by her sister so many times.
And I really can’t blame her. I just hope, for her sake, when it comes to a head—which I know it will—she’s not the one who has put her sister’s antics to an end.
Ivy works at rapid speed, returning to us only two days later.
“I broke down the properties,” she says, motioning to the Tox now perfectly concealed inside a glass vial. “First, I had to track down its source. You won’t believe it, Rylee, but it makes perfect sense.”
Rylee visibly swallows where she sits next to me. “What is it?”
“You remember those stones that used to make you sick in the Ashlands? The one you brought to me to study all those months ago?”
“Yeah,” Rylee answers.
“Didn’t you say those stones were imported?” Kal asks.
Rylee nods. “They weren’t from our mountains,” she explains.
“We’d get shipments in crates, but there was never a seal or anything.
We were only told to break them down. They came incased in a gray, hard exterior, and the milky white stone inside is what the enforcers said the royals wanted.
We were told it was for medicinal purposes. ”
“Well, that’s what this stuff is made of.” Ivy points to the vial.
Rylee shakes her head. “I didn’t make the connection. The effects of the Tox felt so different from how dealing with the stones made me feel.”
“That’s likely because the raw form wasn’t as potent as this refined version,” Ivy explains.
“Do you two know where it’s from?” Layce asks Kal and me.
I shake my head. “Sapphire Cove gets imports all the time from Cardrayton. Steel and spirits. We trade with them monthly or if demand is high, biweekly. The imports always come with a seal and a letter of inventory.”
“Same with Ruby.” Kal casts me a curious, concerned look. “Did you ever see anything indicating where it would be from?”
“No. And when I brought the enhancement issue up with Erin . . .” Her words are cold, disappointed. “She wouldn’t tell me anything. It’s like she didn’t trust me with the information.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulders, a silent show of support. I don’t have a brother by blood, but the Legends are closer than any blood relationship could ever be. Still, I can’t imagine them betraying me as deeply as Rylee’s sister has betrayed her.
I keep hoping that I’m wrong, that all these instances with her sister are some big misunderstanding, but everything is pointing to her sister not giving a shit about her well-being. Which is not fucking okay with me.
“But Erin slipped you this.” Ivy points to the vial.
“This is the only reason we know what it is now. And thanks to our access to Axl’s mother’s gardens, I was able to get what I needed.
It was easy once I knew what it was. Nature always offers a balance.
” She nods her thanks to me, then motions to the other vials she’s brought with a golden powder nestled inside.
The vibrant color comes from the flowers she used to create the antidote—the same ones that only grow in my mother’s gardens. Her favorite. I take some pride in that, knowing my care of those gardens over the decades was worth every ounce of grief that it triggered. My mother . . .
I think she’d be proud to know that, too. That something she planted helped us so much.
We’ve already started mass producing the antidote, entrusting it to Jullian and our chancellors to distribute it to those still in the healers’ quarters suffering from the effects.
Jullian is the only king any of us even marginally trust right now, despite my father desperately trying to reconnect in the last two days.
It’s strange, the way he worried over my return, but I haven’t had time to figure it out.
“I know,” Rylee says. “When it comes to her, nothing makes sense. She wanted me to find her and meet her at that spot but then couldn’t tell me anything concrete.
She stopped the Fader group from going further with me but then claimed she was going to hand me over to ‘him.’ Someone higher than her, clearly.
So, who’s behind all of it? And is she truly with them?
Or was she trying to help me? Or was she only doing that because she wanted to convert me to her way of thinking? ”
Rylee pinches the bridge of her nose.
“I don’t know,” Ivy says. “But I’m glad she slipped it to you. To me, that’s a sign she knew we’d do the right thing with it. If she wanted to dose you with it again, she wouldn’t have wrapped it up like that.”
Rylee nods. “Regardless of her intentions and cryptic messages, we can go to the kings and the Royal Authority Council now and give them our findings.”
I nod. We’ve already distributed the antidote, but we haven’t officially declared we completed one of the kings’ tasks yet. Priorities.
“After that,” Rylee continues, “we just have to hope Jax comes home with the alliance. After meeting every task, there’s no way the Royal Advisory Council can’t vote you all in as the new kings.”
“I agree,” Kal says. “We’ve met their terms and then some.” He sighs. “We need Pierce and Jax home, though.”
“We do,” I say. “They have to be close.”
“I hope so.”
“What are we going to do to pass the time when all this is over?” Layce asks, trying to lighten the mood like she often does. “You’ll have so much free time on your hands when you’re not battling the kings, the Faders, and everything else in between.”
Rylee smiles at her friend. “Eat?”
Everyone laughs at that, the tension in the room cracked for just a moment.
I hold Rylee close, relishing the light laughter, and know exactly what I’m going to do once I claim the throne.
Put her on it.
Worship her like she deserves.
And spend the rest of my days watching her turn Lumathyst into the realm we always hoped it would be.