Chapter 56
Rylee
Cries ring out as green bands of energy spear from me with such force, I have to bend my knees to stop from toppling over.
The first one hits the Fader gripping Layce.
He immediately releases her, and they both hit the ground.
Layce is twitching involuntarily. Ivy races to her, gathers her in her lap, tears in her eyes as she finds me across the chaos.
She must see the power all around me, must see it radiating in my eyes, because she gives me a nod of approval that provides me with all the reassurance I need.
I send the rest of the energy bands sprawling, each one finding a Fader, an elite enforcer, a regular enforcer, the kings. My bands wrap around them, hold them aloft, subduing all of them in a matter of seconds.
“Ivy?” Her name is a panicked, strained cry from my lips.
“She’s okay,” she calls to me. Layce is coughing in her lap, raising a weak hand toward me. “She’s okay.”
Relief is a tangible thing that sharpens my focus. I shift my arms, the energy bands moving with me as I force the struggling group to the ground. Another band easily silences their pleas as I turn and walk toward Baydel.
He thrashes against the bands, eyes wide and feral as he sees me. He yells behind the energy gag I’ve given him, his power lashing out at me.
I flinch against it as it slams into me, doing its best to lock onto my body and halt me. It’s no match for the combined wealth of power now flooding my veins unhindered.
Half a thought, and I drop him to his knees. I step to tower above him.
I could kill him.
I want to kill him.
I could kill them all.
It’s taking a great deal of effort not to.
“Rylee.” Kal says my name with such softness, I blink out of my murderous thoughts enough to see.
All the Faders and enforcers struggle against my bonds. The guests are staring at me in hope and terror. Lucas and Jullian and Brooks are on their knees, too, confused but not fighting their restraints.
Kal approaches me, then Axl and Pierce.
I close my eyes, and it’s as easy as breathing to send them pieces of their power. An open current between us. We can freely take and give as we please.
I just needed to accept them as mine. To trust myself. To accept who I am.
I’m Rylee Gray. Ashlander. Legend. Mate. Queen of Lumathyst.
I turn back to Baydel. “You will tell me everything you know, or I will make your death last an eternity.” I remove his gag.
“I didn’t—” His eyes flare in terror as I send a wave of ice-cold fear straight into him. “How?” he gasps through the panic. “How?”
I bend down to meet him at his level. “You couldn’t kill me,” I whisper. “Though you tried to poison me. You failed.”
Baydel’s eyes fill with anger as I take the fear out of him. “You stupid, stupid girl. You have no idea what game you’re playing.”
A fist cracks into Baydel’s face, snapping his head sideways. “You fucking did what?” Axl growls. “You poisoned her?”
Baydel spits blood on the cracked floor, his lip split.
The action drags up the memory of Baydel as a child, his brother hitting him just the same way. My heart squeezes with an involuntary ache.
I ignore the empathy. He doesn’t deserve it.
“I tried to save you from her,” Baydel barks. “You have no idea how badly she’s messed things up.”
“Coward,” Kal seethes as he and Pierce rush toward him, but I stop them with one upraised hand.
“I know about your brother,” I say, relishing the moment when Baydel turns a shade whiter. “The siphon.” I look to the struggling Faders. The ones who don’t wear gloves. “He’s sending them. But you knew that, didn’t you?”
The night Evaluna sent me to find him. He was talking to someone through his Occuli. He said call off your dogs.
I shake my head. “All this time,” I continue, “you were making us chase a group of people you allowed in.”
“I did no such thing!”
“You did,” I say. “I know you did.”
He tips his bloody chin. Defiant. “You don’t know anything.”
I hate that he’s right. I have pieces of the puzzle. Not all of them.
I turn to my mates, hurrying to show them exactly what I saw in Baydel’s mind. I can’t risk uttering it out loud. I have no idea who we can trust.
Kal, Axl, and Pierce keep their outward reactions locked up, but I can feel the ripple of emotions through my and Jax’s power. Anger, confusion, betrayal. More confusion.
At least we’re on the same page there.
“Mirren.” I spot her near Ivy and Layce. She has a nasty cut across her forehead that threatens to send me spiraling again, but I manage to breathe. “Can you help get the RAC off the balcony and inside to the healers? Yourself, too.”
She looks like she might argue, but she nods, helping Layce to her feet. I send her a look that promises hugs and tears and explanations later before Mirren takes her inside first. The rest who are able form groups and follow her inside.
Ivy comes to stand near me, supportive and at the ready. I want to crumble. I want to lie down. I want to do anything other than what I’m doing right now. Which is try to unfuck this entire situation.
But right now, I have to see if one of the pieces of the puzzle is what I think it is.
I look to the Faders, then render them, the enforcers, and the elites all unconscious. They slump in their restraints to the cracked glass floor.
All except one.
“Erin.” I don’t need to say her name more than once. I know exactly what her mind feels like, knew her the second my energy bands touched her. I release her from them now.
She steps over the bodies, ripping off her mask. “I did warn you about this.”
“You should’ve stopped it,” I fire at her, noting the dead who were victims of the attack. The lifeless bodies strung along the once-beautiful glass floor of the balcony.
“I can’t—”
“His brother,” I cut her off, nodding behind me to Baydel. “Is he the one who tied your tongue with his power?” I saw him control Baydel’s mind in his memory.
She nods, confirming my assumption.
“And you work for him,” I say. “I can’t pretend to know why. I don’t care anymore.” I sigh. “Ivy, take her to my chambers and don’t let her out of your sight. Please,” I add. Ivy nods, flashing me a concerned look. “Erin, I swear on the goddesses above, if you try anything, I will kill you.”
Her eyes widen, almost like she doesn’t recognize me. She looks down, spotting One on the floor, unconscious near Baydel’s feet, like she can’t bear to look at me.
I don’t feel the sting. Not when I don’t know if I can truly trust her. She may have warned me about this attack, warned me about Baydel, but she’s never done anything to help stop this violence. She’s actively been a part of it, and Layce almost died as a result.
But I need Erin. She knows more about Baydel’s brother, and since he’s clearly the one behind the recent deaths, the Faders, and who knows what else, I need all the help I can get.
I turn, eyeing the other kings, then my mates. “I don’t know if we can trust them.”
Kal looks to his father, pain shaping his features.
“And I don’t have time to figure it out,” I continue, then go quiet, slipping into my mates’ minds.
If we can, we’ll go into their minds and figure out if they’re on our side or not. But right now, we don’t have time. We need to secure them. And the elites. Their Occuli. Anyone who would be loyal to them and not to us.
They nod.
I need to go deeper into Baydel’s mind to find out the pieces we’re missing, I continue. Or force it out of him. Something . . . something about all of this. It’s wrong. Way more wrong than I think we understand.
That cold apprehension claws at my spine. Erin being here, warning me about the attack. The way she let Ivy take her so easily. Something isn’t right.
None of it is.
“Do we have room in the dungeons?” I ask Kal aloud, motioning to the unconscious group, then the kings.
I can’t have them interfering when I question Baydel.
Kal nods, drawing from our connected power, using it to speedily secure them all in the dungeons over the course of a few trips.
“I’m going to need each of your help,” I say when it’s just us and Baydel left.
“We’re here,” Kal says. “Tell us what you need.”
Each one steps around me as I look down at Baydel, our bonds strong, unbreakable and trembling with power. I wish Jax was here. He’d want to see this.
“I need to know everything he knows,” I say.
“We’ll help you,” Pierce says.
“Whatever you need,” Kal adds.
“Together,” Axl says.
Baydel glares up at me, shaking his head. “I’ll never tell you anything,” he says. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
I shape my lips into a smile my Nightmare would be proud of. “We’ll see about that.”