Chapter 26 #2
“I mean the one I executed. Sobek killed a Shadow Human — his Omega bond mate. He broke the law, which I personally set, that no harm must come to nest mates. If we do not protect our partners but abuse them instead, then that makes us monsters and not Alphas. If we do not condemn such behavior, then our society has no right to judge itself as better than the tyrannical Dracanians. Yet Sobek did worse. He also tried to take my fae Blood Lover.”
When Horus snorts, dread coils through me.
They are hiding something.
What is the House of Crocodile plotting?
I straighten my shoulders. “Nest mates should be more precious and important to a Blood than anything in their life. Mine have asked that there be no blood sacrifice performed tonight. So, there won’t be this year.”
“Won’t there?” Isis ducks her head, but not before I see the cruel amusement dancing in her eyes.
What does she mean?
Then it hits me.
Isis and Horus are distracting — delaying — me.
Isis is smiling at me now in that sharp way of hers that she always used when we were in public.
In private, she never smiled.
On my heart, the smug satisfaction that flashes over Horus’ drunken face makes adrenaline rush through me.
This isn’t something that they will do.
This is something that they have done.
Why did Horus react to me talking about Dove?
Suddenly terrified, I tighten my arm around Freya and spin back to the food tables.
But Dove is gone.
I hiss out a furious breath, sweeping my gaze across the crowds.
I shouldn’t have allowed Dove the freedom to move further away from me, but he was wearing my crown.
To touch him would be to have a death wish.
“Where is my Blood Lover?” I roar above the music. “Who would dare to touch my King?”
The crowd turn to me in shock, as the musicians break off their song.
I don’t see the musicians, however, I only see the way that the dancing troop part to reveal the silver altar, inlaid with bone, beside the food table where I last saw Dove.
The altar, which serves as the platform for blood sacrifices.
The altar, which Dove is now stretched across with his arms and wings shackled down by iron chains.
“What in the name of the Void…?” I snarl.
Dove’s mouth is gagged with an iron bit that is burning the corners of his stretched lips.
My pulse pounds in my ears.
My heart hammers in my chest.
This masked ball was a set up.
Yet doesn’t Isis understand that I won’t throw myself into the Void, if my King is harmed? I will let the Void Devils through to damn every realm.
I will end the world.
Instantly, my fangs and claws elongate.
I start to surge forward, until I meet the eyes of the vampire who is holding the knife to Dove’s throat.
Something in me dies.
“Before you do anything rash, my King,” Heka’s bloodless voice carries through the hall, “this fae isn’t who he says he is.”
My tutor is the only unmasked vampire in the hall. He isn’t dressed for the event, which he never normally attends. Instead, he is wearing his usual pure white floor-length kilt and the diamond scarab beetle collar that I gifted to him.
The collar marks him out as important and valued in court. It should also mark him as belonging to the House of Sin, but Heka has never belonged to anyone or anything but the pursuit of magic.
“Heka,” my brow furrows with confusion, “you never accept invitations to these events. Why would you…?”
My tutor shouldn’t be here. He isn’t like the rest of the Blood Court. He doesn’t care about power, only his experiments.
He called me little prince…
What is going on?
I’m shaking.
Then I notice that the curved dagger is Mother’s Night Sky Blade, (the twin to the one now sheathed at Freya’s waist). Heka must have seized it from the altar.
The Night Sky Blade is used to perform the blood sacrifice.
I hiss in outrage, as the dagger’s iron burns Daire’s pale skin.
Heka tuts, as if I have simply made a mistake in one of his tutorials. “You have been fooled. Don’t feel too inadequate; fae are tricksters. It was a smart but treasonous ruse. I have, however, saved the kingdom and you from what was likely an assassination attempt by King Aurelius.”
My expression blanks. “Move away from Dove and drop the knife, Heka. I don’t want to hurt you, but if you hurt him, then I will make you scream.”
Shadows coil out of me, forming giant bat wings that block out the moonlight and extinguish the guttering torches.
The crowds back away from me in terror.
Ruin doesn’t move from his seat, however, quietly watching.
Isis and Horus circle closer to the altar with an eagerness that makes me sick, as if they want a better view of Dove’s blood staining the glistening silver.
Heka, to my shock, doesn’t drop the knife.
“Apologies, but I must share with you what I have discovered. In my testing for the fae’s cursed iron and mask, I uncovered his unique elemental magical signature, which was buried underneath it.
Only the most powerful of primal fae can control the elements.
I also realized that he was wearing a runic glamor on his hair and wings.
It takes a mage as skilled as I am to recognize it. ”
I listen to the sudden uptick in Freya’s heartbeat, along with her panicked breathing.
She is holding herself still, attempting to hide the truth, but she can’t hide her body’s own reactions from a vampire.
Both dread and a crushing sorrow flow through me.
Heka isn’t lying.
My nest mates have been.
“Tell me quickly,” my gaze doesn’t leave the knife that Heka is holding to Dove’s throat, while I flex my long claws in warning, “why I shouldn’t rip out your heart for binding my groom on the night before the wedding?”
“Because I don’t believe that you will wish him to be your groom, once you know who he truly is. He is wearing a disguise.”
“No…” Freya grasps onto my arm.
I make the mistake of glancing at her face.
I wish that I hadn’t.
Then I could have held onto the illusion that my Omega didn’t know the full truth of whatever this trick is. Then it would only be Dove…no, whoever this fae is…who is the traitor.
The betrayer.
My heart bleeds.
I try to pull away from my Omega, but she desperately clings onto me.
“Please.” Freya snatches onto my sleeve, but I yank it out of her grasp. “Please, fuck, please. We were going to tell you. I told you that we were before we married, remember? Things are complicated. We have been trying to save you…”
Tears tremble in her eyes.
I want to believe her. Don’t I owe her a chance to explain?
When the tears tumble over, chasing down Freya’s cheeks, I almost reach to brush them away.
“Lies.” Heka studies Freya dispassionately. “Did your Omega tell you that she met me? Or did she hide that as well?”
Shocked, I meet Freya’s anguished gaze.
“Lanlin, I…I didn’t…I mean, I d-didn’t want…” She stutters.
I take a careful step away from her.
“She was snooping by herself in the House of Life. So, I told her about my fascinating experiments with lodestones, also known as the Bone of the Gods.” Heka’s eyes gleam. “I explained that the magic wasn’t ready yet but eventually should be a powerful talisman that could work as anti-metallicum.”
“Anti-metallicum?” My pulse races. “To counter Maximinus?”
Heka nods. “I also hoped that I could have tested it on this subject tonight.”
“You told me that it was still experimental.” Freya is suddenly furious. “That it could cause extreme pain or even death. You’d fucking risk that with a king?”
My eyes flash with answering rage.
Heka merely shrugs. “With this king, absolutely.” Freya blanches. “Of course, I can’t unmask this fae tonight because interestingly, the Bone of the Gods went missing after your Omega’s visit.”
My heavy gaze settles on Freya. “Did you take it?”
She swallows, opening her mouth to answer, and I know that she’s about to lie.
Then she hesitates, before replying, “Yes.”
Devastation howls through me.
I’ve never broken before. But my heart is broken now.
I set my jaw. My expression shutters.
Isis, Horus, Ruin, and the entire Blood Court are watching for my reaction.
And I want to scream.
Mother betrayed me. Aurelius betrayed me. Now my beloved nest mates have as well.
Is it my fault?
The Void Devils prophesied that all I would know was betrayal, fighting, and suffering.
Should I trust them? Allow them to wipe away this horrifying pain with their Void?
Did I bring this on myself by defying the Void Devils? Then by swearing that the thing that was worth saving in the entire realms were the Omega, fae, and dragon who have now turned against me?
The three people, for whom I would die.
“The Golden Prophesy,” Freya mutters, staring at the altar in horror. “It can’t mean this. It fucking can’t.”
What does she mean?
When Heka wraps his hand in the trickster fae’s curls, I wince at how roughly he tugs Dove into position to move the knife over his hair and then his wings, tracing magical hieroglyphs.
The fae attempts to struggle, thrashing side to side.
Isn’t that an admission of guilt?
I steel my heart.
When the fae’s soft skin sears in the bindings, he hollers behind the gag.
Yet why is he calling my name like he believes that I will still save him?
Lanlin, Lanlin, Lanlin.
Yet I don’t even know his real name.
I ball my hands into fists. The windows shake, under the pressure of my magic.
My moths stream into the hall like the ghosts of my animalist ancestors, answering the silent call of my distress.
When my rats and scarab beetles also swarm through the open doorway, the masked guests gasp and scream, knocking over the food tables and falling over in their scramble to escape Diamond Hall.
To escape me.
To escape the unthinkable: the blood sacrifice of my own Blood Lover.
Yet the fae betrayed me first.
Despite that, why do I want to break him free from my tutor, tend to his burns, and fly him back to the desert where I trusted him to protect me from the sun?
I can’t look away, transfixed.