Chapter 51
FIFTY-ONE
Z
“ S o how do you know that S wasn’t full of shit?” Devlin asked as we skirted a corner, still running at full speed.
“You didn’t see him.” I shook my head, as if that could somehow remove the images popping to the forefront of my mind.
I knew I would have nightmares for days to come. Months, even.
Years.
“How the hell did Aaliyah get in here?” Killian asked.
He began to lag behind—no doubt unused to running with his tail thumping behind him.
We turned the final corner, and the door to the dungeons came into view.
Devlin slowed to a stop, fury painted across every line of his face.
“I think we have our answer,” he growled, closing in on Axel and the shifter representative.
The ex-assassin had the shifter pinned to the wall by his neck. The shifter snarled and growled, his face elongating as his animal fought to break free, but Axel simply grinned and slammed the shifter’s head back against the wall. His eyes rolled, and he went limp.
“What the fuck is going on?” Devlin demanded, stalking forward like an avenging angel.
Power exuded from him in almost palpable waves, saturating the air and causing goose bumps to ripple on my skin.
“Our shifter friend tried to free the kings. I, of course, had to take precautions.” Axel sounded way too gleeful by the fact.
Psychopath.
“And the kings are still locked away?” Devlin demanded.
“Safe and sound,” Axel agreed, finally releasing the shifter. He dropped to the ground with an audible thud, his head lolling to one side. “Now, can someone tell me what’s going on here?”
“Aaliyah’s here,” I said quickly, skirting over the details and getting directly to the point. “Obviously, this asshole let her in.”
We should’ve killed him when we had the chance. I knew it was a mistake trusting him, yet a tiny voice in the back of my head demanded I give him a chance.
“I j-just d-don’t understand how he could’ve done this without us knowing.” Killian forked his fingers through his garnet-colored hair. His stutter was more pronounced than usual—no doubt a product of his nerves. “We had shadows trailing all of the council members.”
“Unless Aaliyah used someone we didn’t have spies watching,” Jax pointed out, frowning.
“We have spies watching virtually everyone. Unless one of the spies is corrupted.” My brain began to churn a million miles a minute.
Axel’s face abruptly drained of all color. “I have to go.”
“What?” I asked, incredulous.
Before I could press him for answers, he disappeared in a cloud of shadow. The coalesced ball of darkness shot down the hallway, and before I could think better of it, I took off after him.
He knew something.
And I’d be damned if I didn’t uncover what that something was.
We wove through the halls, and at one point, I feared we’d lost the blob of darkness for good. But then it materialized again, rapidly ascending a staircase, and the four of us followed.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Devlin panted.
All of us breathed heavily, even Jax, who had vampiric speed and strength.
Axel in his shadow form was damn fast.
Finally, we reached a door at the end of the hall. Jax didn’t hesitate as he rammed his shoulder into the wood, causing it to splinter and break. Devlin kicked it the rest of the way down, and we stormed inside.
Axel spun to face us, his eyes wild, and a tiny girl whimpered where she clung to his leg.
I recognized her instantly, mainly because of the striking similarity to her brother.
Mary-Lynette, the half-mage and half-human child.
“What’s going on?” Devlin demanded, stalking forward.
Power flared in his eyes, making the purple positively luminescent.
“I swear I didn’t know she was bad,” Mary-Lynette said, sniffling. “She said she was my friend. She helped to teach me at night. I never would’ve let her in if I knew.”
Pieces began to fall into place quickly.
We had spies all over the capital, but we never would’ve thought to have them watch this young, innocent child.
Aaliyah had proven herself to be manipulative. I already knew she could influence dreams and even create illusions.
“Fuck,” Killian said, then winced and glanced at the young child apologetically. “I mean…fudge.”
“It’s not your fault, Mary-Lynette,” I said gently, kneeling before her. I tried to keep my mounting panic off of my face. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her. “The woman you let inside… She had red hair, didn’t she?”
Mary-Lynette glanced at Axel, as if seeking his approval, before refocusing on me. She nodded once. “She was nice. I thought she was my friend.” Tears filled her large, guileless eyes. “She told me she was like me—a halfling.”
Aaliyah was a halfling.
Half demon and half angel.
Just like me. Or…like I was, in my past life, before I died.
“Where did she go?” Jax asked, kneeling on my other side.
Once again, Mary-Lynette glanced at Axel, and at his nod of approval, she said, “She just wanted to find her sister.”
Understanding dawned, and with it came a strange sense of…comfort. She wasn’t after the others or even the kings. The shifter sneaking into the dungeons was no doubt a distraction to separate our forces.
Aaliyah was after me. Only me.
Good.
Hopefully that meant no one else would be caught in the crossfire.
“How did you let her inside? Where did she go?”
Mary-Lynette began to fiddle with the bottom of her shirt, her tiny hands wringing the fabric repeatedly. “Umm…she said she was nervous about all of the guards on patrol, so I let her in through the kitchen entrance when the guards were chatting. She was supposed to come to my room with me, but she went…somewhere else.” Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mare. It’s not your fault.” Axel held the younger girl against his chest.
It was strange to see the fierce, psychotic assassin being gentle with anyone, let alone this half-human child.
“It’s not your fault,” I agreed, straightening to face the others. “Okay, so Aaliyah is already in the building. We just need to find her and?—”
“No need,” a deceptively sweet voice said.
A second later, raw, unencumbered power flooded the room, blasting all of us in every direction. Axel gripped Mary-Lynette tightly and twisted his body so he received the brunt of the impact. Devlin cursed, Killian shouted, and Jax cried out as they hit the wall, bed, and table, respectively.
I fell on my back, an unnatural wind blowing my blonde tresses away from my face.
Aaliyah stepped through the shattered doorway, her black, skin-tight dress a contrast to my similarly colored fighting leathers. She smiled as she stepped over me.
“Hello, sister.” With an almost blistering speed, she gripped my neck and held me off the ground, my feet dangling. “I think we need to have this conversation alone, wouldn’t you agree?”
Then, before I could even lift my hands to fight back, she threw me out the window.
Glass shards bit at my skin, and I screamed as I fell onto the hard, unforgiving ground below. Pain reverberated up my spine.
The world spun, and bright lights flashed across my vision. All I could see was an endless expanse of inky-black sky riven with twinkling stars and a crescent-shaped moon.
From the window, Aaliyah materialized and began to float to the ground. Power thrummed through her like an electric current, and every hair on my body stood at attention.
She landed gracefully on the grass before me and smiled. “I’ve come to talk, sister.”