Chapter Fifteen
Ronin
“Would you mind taking your notes to Erlik for me? So he can deliver them to the headmistress? I’ve never met the woman, but I’ve got a feeling her threats are promises.”
I stood in the corner of the room, watching events unfold. Despite my promise to protect her and not interfere, I wanted to break through my invisibility glamour and strangle that rat with my bare hands.
Despite his promise to Charlotte that he’d deliver his mothers’ message to her first, I knew for a fact that the reason it took him three and a half weeks to make a three-day journey was because he stopped off and gave the information to any and everyone who paid his price for a head start in the Hallow Hunt.
I knew from the second I saw the bitch. This rat was a snake.
Done with him, Charlotte left the room and I followed behind her—never more than three feet away as I’d been for the last four weeks.
And what an interesting four weeks it had been.
Charlotte was right that announcing the Hallow Hunt to all of hell gave her added protection.
Almost immediately, all the vampire elders of all the covens declared to their people that Charlotte wasn’t to be touched.
There were a billion food sources in the mortal world.
And any vampire who threw that away to feed on one would die in the most brutal way the elders could imagine.
An even more effective threat than expulsion, because not a single vampire tried it. More than that, a few of them even foiled other murder attempts against Charlotte.
The vampires were done starving. They were done chasing after food that bit back. They wanted out of hell, and they wanted out now.
But as fortunate as Charlotte was to have an army of silent bodyguards who never slept and had supernatural hearing, not even they could stop every attack—
So I did.
I blew up that worthless shit Connard when he tried to hit her with the gut-exploding spell for the second time. I covertly switched out her food and drink every time it was secretly poisoned. I beheaded three glamoured assassins who tiptoed into her bedroom, thinking they were clear to go.
I did it all, and it baffled me every time.
I didn’t understand it, but with every murder attempt, it became clear that someone, or a group of someones, did not want supernaturals to leave hell.
They didn’t want anyone to gain the power of the All Hallows.
They didn’t want a single thing in hell to change, and they were willing to kill Charlotte to stop it happening.
But who? I mused as I followed her through the halls. The lords of hell want to abduct and imprison her for sure, but they don’t want her dead. They want her firmly under their control so that she could grant the All Hallows to no one but them.
They wanted it so badly, that after centuries of extraordinarily shitty parenting, Zariel, Mammon, Leviathan, Beelzebub, and Asmodeus were sweet-talking and showering their little princesses with so much praise and presents, it was embarrassing.
All five of them were swearing up and down that everything was going to change. All their daughters had to do was deliver the Avos witch to them, and they could rule side by side—father and daughter—emperor and empress of the twin realms for all eternity.
So far, none of the princesses had given in. Like I said, centuries’ worth of shitty parenting had frayed any trust between them a long time ago, but that didn’t stop my head from exploding every time one of them followed Charlotte around or put their hands on her.
Bzzz.
Fishing in my jacket pocket, I took out my phone.
Father: He’s here. Now get rid of him.
I grinned even as I rolled my eyes. Only my father would get annoyed at a visit from a devoted lackey who’d do almost anything for him. Dear old dad really didn’t like it when someone got in the way of his doing nothing.
I looked up at Charlie as she reached the tower steps and started climbing. “Finally,” I whispered. “Your gift is finally ready, and you’re finally going to be mine again.” I scoffed. “I’ll show that stupid mutt who’s the master of groveling.”
The whole way up, I practiced what I was going to say. She’d be surprised to see me pop out of nowhere, for sure, but as long as I could convince her to come with me, everything would be fine.
“What’s up, Charlie, I— No, fuck! That sucks.” I cleared my throat, starting over. “Hey, Charlotte, how you been— Idiot!” I pounded my head. “She’s been horrifically depressed and throwing herself into revenge to mask it. You can do better than this!”
Charlotte pushed open the tower door.
I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with acrid, burning air. “Charlotte, hi. I know you’re surprised to see me, but there’s something I—”
Charlotte climbed onto the ledge.
“Wait! No—!”
She jumped.
“NOOOOO!” Racing to the ledge, I shattered the invisibility and ripped off my face glamour. Turning my face toward the skies—blinding, golden light pierced through the never-ending gloom. “SAVE HER!”
The carrion crows launched off their perches—shrouding me in shadows as their massive flock dove.
“Ow!”
Charlotte kicked, flailed, and carried on as they plucked her from certain death and took off, flying her back up to the top of the tower.
My glamour was firmly in place by the time her head crested the ledge.
“I knew it!” she shrieked.
“What the fuck was that?!”
“You’ve been following me! Stalking me!”
“Are you insane, woman! Why would you jump off a fucking tower!”
“I knew all those times I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I heard someone cough, I wasn’t imagining it!
“Don’t ever do that again!” we shouted at the same time, chests heaving and eyes flashing.
The crows deposited Charlotte on her feet, and I shot forward, crushing her in a hug. “You scared the shit out of me,” I groaned, furious tears blurring my vision. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Charlotte was still in my embrace, allowing me to hold her close—
—for all of ten seconds.
“Get off me!” She wriggled free, shoving my hands away. “I only jumped to prove you were stalking me. Telling you to disappear doesn’t mean you literally disappear, Ronin. It means fuck off!”
Her fury didn’t faze me in the least. “I’m not fucking off anywhere now, then, or ever. You’re mine, Hunter. I love you and I’m always going to protect you. Whether you like it or not.”
Charlotte’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me? You can’t still be on that. What is wrong with you! I swear, you’re the worst fucking psycho ex-boyfriend ever, and you’re not even my ex-boyfriend!”
I brushed her rage aside like a gnat. “This wasn’t how I was going to do this, but since you’re running around throwing yourself off of towers, there’s no more time to waste.
“Get ready, baby girl, because as much as you hate me right now, that’s how much you’re going to love me in the next ten seconds.
It took six weeks of pulling favors, dropping my glamour more times than a whore drops his pants, and amassing enough hatred to power the spell, but I’ve finally combined the best gift, best grand gesture, and best apology into the ultimate grovel. ”
Charlotte gaped at me—dumbfounded.
I smirked right back, raising my fingers. “Get ready to love me.”
Snap.
The super-powered transportation spell ripped us out of Abaddon Academy, and dropped us into the fifth-floor, east wing bedroom of Ignavia Palace.
The room’s inhabitant glanced up from her lunch as we popped out of thin air and stumbled over the rug.
She beamed. “Tracy!” Adora jumped up from the table and bolted through the mass of servants, throwing her arms around Charlotte. “You’re finally here! Oh, I missed you so much—”
Charlotte ripped away, gaping wide-eyed at Adora as if she’d seen a ghost—and to be fair to her, she kind of did.
“Wha— Wha— You—” Eyes rolling up in her head, Charlotte fainted.
CHARLOTTE
I jolted back to consciousness almost immediately after I hit the floor.
Ronin gazed down on me, his hand cradling the back of my head—protecting it from the fall. “You faint a lot, Hunter. Is that normal for mortals?”
I barely heard him. I only had eyes for the very confused and very concerned Adora kneeling down next to me.
We were in a grand room, even by palace standards.
The space was three times as big as my fancy dorm room, and eleven times more lush.
Nearly everything from the floor to the chandeliers were gold-plated and diamond-crusted, and an army of servants were fluttering around making sure that everything that was already perfect, was more perfect.
“What’s going on?” I rasped, eyes filling. “This is a trick, isn’t it? An illusion. This can’t be real.”
“She is real, Charlotte. The illusion is what you saw all those weeks ago in the library.” Ronin was gentle sitting me up, and even more gentle slipping his hand over mine.
“Come on, Hunter, I never would’ve ordered you to kill your own sister.
I told you that very day that I couldn’t hurt or break you even if I wanted to.
I couldn’t do anything that you don’t want me to.
” He shrugged, grinning wryly. “The master in this bond was always you.”
Ronin raised his head, nodding to someone as they entered the room.
A plain but pleasant-looking man with long, brown hair and a closed-mouth smile shut the door behind him. He had on a simple gray suit and matching gray loafers. He looked like he just left the office.
“I wish we had more time, but I’ve suspected for a long time that Lucifer’s been tracking you with more than just spies,” Ronin went on as I dizzyingly tried to keep up. “He must have monitor and tracking spells on you, and I don’t have a clue how they work because it’s angelic magic.”
“Fallen angelic magic,” the gray stranger cut in. “Notable difference.”
Ronin tipped his head in agreement. “Either way, I have to assume that the clock’s ticking and we’re already out of time, so you and Dora need to go now, Charlotte. Go with Samael. He’s an angel, and he’s taking you and your sister back to the mortal world.”