Chapter 43
Damon
The truck skids to a stop on the wet gravel drive outside Mercer Manor.
No snow tonight, just a fine, relentless mist that slicks every surface and turns the headlights into smeared halos.
Hunter kills the engine, and my boots hit the ground before the door even finishes swinging open.
Hunter’s right behind me, coat flapping, moving fast toward the cluster of men striding across the backyard.
Timothy is there–masked, rain-soaked, shoulders rigid. Killian Payne beside him, gun already in his hand. Tristian Mercer is a step ahead, pointing toward the darkness. Sy’s at the rear, fists clenched.
Hunter reaches them first, grabbing Timothy’s arm.
Timothy’s head snaps around. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” I ask, falling into step.
“Story said she saw someone she knew,” he says. “Someone she recognized as one of ‘my men.’”
I wish that was a surprise. I wish any of this was a surprise.
“King!” Hunter shouts. “Stop. There’s something you need to know.”
He looks over his shoulder at Tristian, who’s already moving across the wet grass toward a structure in the distance.
Everyone’s expensive clothes are dark and clinging–suits ruined, shoes squelching.
Timothy’s mask is coated in a fine sheen of condensation, making the eye holes look like black mirrors.
“What?” he asks, voice low, lethal.
“Alone.”
“There are no secrets here, Baron.” He gestures at the others. “I need everyone’s help to make sure she is found safe.”
Hunter grimaces, his light brown hair darkening with the rain, then says it flat out. “Whoever’s hunting the girls and taking them, they’re using Baron rituals.” His jaw sets. “It’s one of us.”
I wait for Payne or Perilini to explode, to start throwing accusations. They don’t. They just watch–tense, waiting. There’s a clock ticking, another bomb about to explode, and Timothy’s eyes, shadowed behind the mask, go wide with shock.
“One of us,” he repeats. The words sound hollow.
Hunter nods once. “It’s all Barons-coded. The bodies, the masks that Arianette remembers, the positioning–but most concretely, the beetle. It’s a rite of transformation. Someone’s sending a message and they’re using the old ways to get it across.”
For a heartbeat he’s frozen–rage and regret warring across the lower half of his face. Then Perilini, of all people, circles him fast, grabs his face in both hands, and forces eye contact.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Sy says, voice low and vicious, “or what fucked-up House of Night bullshit is happening right now, but I am not letting anyone take another one of our girls. Understood?”
Timothy’s eyes clear and he nods his agreement.
Simon spins him around and shoves him toward Tristian. “Go.”
We move as a unit.
Tristian leads us across the slick lawn to the bulkhead doors–rusted iron set into a low rise of earth.
He yanks them open. “I think this is what you’re talking about,” he says, turning on the flashlight on his phone.
“It’s usually locked. My parents didn’t want us down here, especially the girls, but lore was that it led to the catacombs. ”
Torchlight flickers up from below–someone’s already down there. Timothy doesn’t hesitate. He goes first, descending the stone steps fast. We follow–Killian, Simon, Tristian, Hunter, me–a mixture of fancy shoes and scuffed boots ringing on the narrow stairs.
“You never came down here?” I ask.
“Girls don’t really like dark, creepy places,” Tristian says as though that explains everything. “I needed them out of their pants, not freaking out of their minds.”
Killian rolls his eyes, but continues down the narrow stairs. He and Sy both have to duck, their shoulders brushing the stone walls. At the bottom, the tunnel opens into damp darkness. Timothy stops dead and bends, picking something up off the ground.
“Fuck,” Hunter growls when he sees Arianette’s collar held up. Black leather with the bronze pentagram pendant glinting in the torchlight.
Killian’s voice is tight. “Tell me you’ve got a fucking tracker on her.”
“Fuck, yes.” I pull out my phone, thumb swiping the app open. The map loads–and my heart lurches when I see the green dot pulsing as it moves deeper underground. “I’ve got her,” I say, fighting relief. “She’s definitely down here, but I may lose her once we’re further in.”
Tristian and Hunter take point, the latter saying, “All of these tunnels tend to run North to South. If we’re really dealing with a Baron then they’re probably going to go North East, back to our territory.
” Everyone turns on their flashlights, bringing light to the small pathway.
Killian and Simon flank Timothy–obviously unwilling to take their eyes off of him.
I bring up the rear, phone in one hand and gun in the other.
“How come you both get guns?” Sy asks, ducking his head.
“Because you’re on Lord’s territory,” Killian says, the mother of pearl handle glinting in the light, “and Kemp and Sorrin didn’t go through the front door.”
I’m not sure how far we go but I’m sweating by the time the tunnel narrows, then opens into a chamber–old stone walls and a low ceiling with torch brackets spitting flame. Three masked men stand over a stone slab in the center.
It looks like we’ve interrupted a sacrifice and my heart fucking explodes.
My girl is on her knees, dress torn at the shoulder, hands bound behind her back, gag in her mouth. Tears streak her face, mascara running in black rivers. Her eyes are wide, terrified, and locked on the man holding the blade to her throat.
Mateo.
I recognize his eyes, but not the emotion in them. I have no idea who the fuck this cold and fanatical monster is, who dares to think he can hurt what belongs to me. The other two, hidden behind their masks, are strangers to me, but not to the King.
“Liam,” he says, identifying the man as one of the former Barons. That means the other, the one with the ponytail, is Billy. The King continues, voice low and lethal, “I knew your brother was rotten, but you?”
Billy steps forward. “You betrayed us first. You offered Will to the enemy. You allowed his murder, for what? To appease children that never should have existed?”
Timothy’s gloved hands flex. “Will attacked the Princess. He was a threat to a woman, a Royal, and her unborn child. I handed him to Whitaker as a sacrifice. He earned his death.”
The man laughs, bitter and unhinged. “You think that balances the scales? He was one of your chosen.”
“And she is my wife.” He takes a small step toward the altar. “Walk away now and maybe I’ll let you live.”
“It’s too late,” he says. “It’s always been too late. You turned your back on the old rites. The Guardian remembers.”
The Guardian.
The name lands like a stone in my gut. He’s talking about whoever is orchestrating this entire thing–the kidnappings and killings. Mateo shifts as the King moves closer, knife pressing harder against Arianette’s throat. A thin line of blood wells up. She whimpers behind the gag.
“This ends tonight,” Liam proclaims, lunging suddenly.
“Fuck,” Sy curses, and we’re all a second behind as Liam snatches the blade from Mateo’s hand and drives it toward Arianette’s chest.
She screams, muffled behind Liam’s grip and the gag, and everything detonates.
The King moves first.
One second he’s braced beside her, the next he’s airborne–pure violence from a man known for his calm. He launches himself at Arianette’s attacker. They collide in a brutal tangle of limbs and steel, bodies slamming into stone hard enough that dirt falls from the mud-packed walls.
From there the world fractures into simultaneous war.
Simon hits Mateo like a battering ram. They crash to the ground, Sy already on top, fist pistoning down again and again, the wet crack of knuckles on bone echoing off the walls. Mateo snarls, trying to twist free, but Sy’s fighter instincts are feral and relentless.
Killian’s gun is up–steady, merciless–barrel inches from Mateo’s eye. “Don’t move,” he says, voice as flat as a grave marker.
Billy flashes steel. His knife arcs in a savage slash toward Tristian’s throat.
Tristian jerks back, heel catching Sy’s outstretched foot–Sy having shifted just enough to wreck his balance.
Tristian stumbles, giving Billy the opportunity to bolt–panic finally cracking through zealotry–his long hair flying behind him as he vanishes down a side tunnel.
Hunter is already moving. He chases after him, silent and lethal, the chase swallowing them both into dark. Back at the epicenter, the King and Liam slam into the wall.
The impact thunders through the corridor.
Stone dust rains down. Liam’s knife arm is trapped, wrenched backward at a brutal angle as the King drives into him chest-to-chest, mask-to-mask, horns scraping rock.
Liam snarls, trying to twist the blade toward Arianette anyway, still reaching for her even with his shoulder half-torqued out of socket.
I’m moving before I think.
I shove between them, shoulder checking the King aside just enough to open a line. My gun is in my hand, cocked, muzzle snapping up, straight to Liam’s head.
“Back the fuck off, traitor,” I growl, ramming the barrel into his temple.
The metal clicks against bone.
Liam goes still. Then he grins.
Blood slicks his teeth, running from a split lip down his chin. His eyes shine, bright and ecstatic, already halfway gone. Probably gone for a while.
“Dying like this,” he breathes, voice raw with devotion, “for this? It’s an honor you’ll never understand. You’re not a Baron, you’re a pawn. He’ll betray you the same way he betrayed our brother. Like the rest of Forsyth, legacy reigns, he will always choose blood over loyalty.”
Rage spikes hot behind my eyes.
“You’re fucking pathetic.”
I grab his mask and rip.
The straps snap. Metal tears free. His face is exposed–sweat and blood–everything stripped bare in the flickering tunnel glow. My finger is on the trigger when Killian steps behind him and slams the butt of his gun against Liam’s head, cracking his skull, and he falls into a heap.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, sweat dripping down his neck, “what a fucking asshole.”
Behind me I feel the King shift.
He folds himself around Arianette, dragging her fully behind his body, one arm locked across her shoulders, the other still clamped on Liam’s ruined knife arm. Shield. Fortress. Claim.
No one touches her now.
The King turns, breathing hard, blood on his gloves, Arianette clinging to him with tears streaming down her face.
And that’s when I see it.
Blood seeps through the front of his white shirt–dark, spreading fast from his abdomen.
Arianette notices at the same time.
She screams–raw, broken. “Timothy!”
He sways–once, twice–then drops to one knee–fingers gripping the edge of his mask as he rips it free. It falls, clattering against the stone slab as he takes short, rasping breaths.
“What the fuck,” Killian mutters, staring down at Maddox’s face.
I’m already moving–gun up, shouting for Tristian or Sy, “Get help. Somebody get help,” but the chamber is spinning, torchlight flickering, and the only thing that matters is the look on her face.
Pure terror.
And the King, bleeding out at her feet.