Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
E irik watched the first fire catch. Within seconds, it blazed up the ship’s masts, too fast for the scrambling crew to contain.
He knelt back down on the terracotta roof. “It's time.”
No sooner than the words left his mouth did the shouts from the docks begin to carry, migrating up the city streets, row after row, past shops and homes, until the castle alarms sounded above them. Candles lit up windowsills, one after another, the whole village awakened from slumber. Fae spilled out of taverns and residences. Castle guards raced toward the imperial fleet, shouting for buckets and water practitioners.
Eirik glanced back up to the glittering lights of Hornhall. Mekale was somewhere in there. Along with Sterling and Sage and his psychopathic aunt–the scion of the freaking Egyptian deity Sekhmet.
The absurdity of that notion was only slightly offset by the understanding he apparently had his own spiritual tagalong in this life, Janus. Not to be outdone by Merick being the scion of the Celtic goddess, Arianrhod. And, according to Merick–oddly okay with all this–the three of them were the only chance of repairing the rift in the fifth realm and saving Ventus from the encroaching darkness that the Queen of Arrowren’s cousin had unleashed and was currently using as his personal weapon.
Madness! Utter madness they were about to embark on. With only twenty-five combatants.
Those capable of flying, or being carried by those who could, landed just over the border less than an hour ago and hatched their plan. Time was not on their side. They couldn’t wait for ground troops from the Arrows to arrive. Or for Spade’s group of rebel fighters to confirm they would join their forces. Not with knowing how close Sterling had come to being executed yesterday. Their scouts had relayed everything back at the cabin.
Bastian received the news of the wizard’s death with a face like stone. His expression hadn’t wavered since coming out of his trance to the realization Sage had been taken.
Eirik understood it on a much smaller scale. The desperation, rage, and bone-chilling fear. Mekale wasn’t even his mate, but he would lay down his life to get her out. In a heartbeat . He could only imagine what manner of strength it was taking his twin not to unleash his newly acquired powers, shift into the dragon, and burn the entire realm to the ground.
Eirik was sure he wouldn’t be capable of the same restraint. Another reason his brother deserved that crown of mist and shadows on his head.
“Stick together,” Teakin reminded at his side. “If anything should befall one of you, turn back.” We’ll regroup at the agreed upon location in the forest.”
Eirik nodded and glanced to Merick at his other side. They would enter the catacombs to gain access to the castle. Once inside, they’d split up. Fenrir and Chogan would search for Sterling. Eirik, Borgen, Zaire, and his cousin would track down Katarra. From there, it would be up to Merick to convince the former Queen of Gerra to aid them. He wasn’t sure which of them had the harder task.
Merick shot them both a smile. “Now or never.” She leapt off the roof .
Eirik followed suit and landed amongst the panicking townsfolk. Fenrir, Chogan, and Zaire stepped from doorways and alleys and merged with the surging crowd. Together, they moved to the end of the street and turned north, away from the villagers, heading south to the burning harbor.
Borgen motioned from a brothel side door, and they ducked inside.
“Down here.” A snaggle-toothed whore kicked back a rug and lifted a trap door.
They filed into it. As the last in, Borgen tossed her a heavy purse of coins. She winked at the Warborn healer. “Come see me again, handsome.”
The door slammed shut behind them, smothering out the light and chaos and life from above, cloaking them in silence and dust and bones.
“ F ollow the tunnels that curve to the left,” Archer instructed Sterling. “They will lead you to the river. From there–”
“I’m not leaving here without Hanna,” LaGoryen stated, nothing but ironclad-will lacing his voice.
“Who in the gods’ names is Hanna…”
The memory of the little girl crawling for the executioner’s block came rushing back with blinding detail. The child who had come with them to test for magic. She had none.
But her sister did. Incredible power . Archer hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Katarra what he’d read in her DNA during their brief exchange. More importantly, what he hadn’t. He could only hope the girl had gotten out of the castle after the execution.
“Right,” Archer concluded his own question. “I have no idea where they might be keeping her. And I have my own pain in the ass to see to.” He pointed again to the tunnel that would lead to the catacombs. “That will get you to safety. But this is where our paths diverge.” He turned around.
But paused again. “By the way,” he added, turning back. “Her sister is here somewhere.” Sterling’s face drained of color. “Katarra was taking care of her.”
The morphing expression, from horror to shock, on the young immortal’s face was somewhat satisfying. Archer didn’t get the chance to relish in it. Drake shouted out a warning from the stairwell, followed by the clash of steel and gnashing of fangs.
Archer swiveled in time to see one of his men tumble the last few steps–minus his head. That came bouncing down a split second later.
Archer yanked a dagger from the dead dungeon guard’s scabbard and surged up the stairs, Sterling right on his heels. Another of his men lay bleeding out halfway up the spiraling steps, his throat ripped open. Wolves!
Archer jumped over him, dragging up his magic from the depths it plummeted to when he was cuffed. The key had provided the freedom. From there, it was easy to blow the bars off the cells. But the time during which his magic had slumbered would cost him.
His power sputtered in his veins, too drained from freeing them. He would have to make do with his other strengths. And pray the entire pack wasn’t at the top of the stairs.
Braxton cursed, swords sang out, and a wolf yelped. Sterling shot past him, faster than Archer’s eyes could track. He made the last rotation of the stairs, slipping in blood and climbing over bodies. He dislodged a sword from a castle guard’s chest and leapt into the melee in the hallway.
His men were holding their own, but they were severely outnumbered. Sterling was little more than a glimmer of wind, the vampire moving with such precision and speed the castle guards didn’t know where to strike. Slash, duck, lunge. The elite fae left only carnage in his wake.
Drake barked out an order to form a circle. Four of his men had wolves closing in, their maws dripping red. Archer heard the distinctive swoosh of steel through air and whirled, lifting his blade to meet his challenger. With a twist of his wrist, he sent the guard’s sword flying. Then the male’s throat was spraying blood.
Archer thrust backward, impaling an advancing attacker, then he pivoted and slammed into a pack member. The male snarled, jaw elongating, bones shifting under skin as his wolf form took over. The dagger in Archer’s left hand caught him between the ribs before those vicious snapping fangs could reach his face.
A low growl shook the stones of the castle. Archer spun toward it. The wolves hesitated.
“This defiant streak is getting tiresome,” Dagan said, standing among the fallen. He held Drake in front of him, pressing a dagger to his throat.
“Did my mother share the same defiant streak? Did my sister and nephew?” Archer’s grip tightened on the blades in his hands. “Or were they just in the way?”
Dagan shrugged. “Your mother is an annoying cunt. Your sister and nephew were just unfortunate mishaps.”
The magic in Archer’s veins thrummed in time with his heart. “Are they…”
“Dead?” Dagan asked, as casually as if inquiring about the weather. “Your sister is. Your nephew is still unaccounted for. But presumed to be as well.”
Archer heard the words as if in a dream. He might have responded to them. Might be screaming–there was such a roaring silence in him.
His sister was dead. The tender, innocent queen who had so loved flowers. And his nephew…
The killing stillness spread through him like hoarfrost. An old familiar friend. His powers seized on it, rallied under the call. His uncle was going to pay.
“How exactly did you acquire this pack from my father?”
The question caught Dagan off guard. Archer could tell by the subtle way his grip shifted on the blade at Drake’s throat. “Does is matter now? They listen to me.”
Warelow and Ulrich’s words echoed in Archer’s head. His gaze snapped to one of the wolves still in fae form. “You were once loyal to my father. Why are you not to his son?”
“We are loyal to your house,” the male replied, albeit hesitantly. “But we answer to the alpha.”
“Is the alpha the strongest?” Sterling interjected.
Dagan’s head whipped to him. “Stay out of this, bastard,” he hissed.
“Speaking of that…” Archer focused again on his uncle. “In all your scheming, you missed a vital piece of the puzzle.” Blood dripped down Drake’s neck. Archer said, “Sterling’s father is standing right beside him.”
Before Dagan could glance at his son, LaGoryen flashed to the opposite side of him, yanking Drake with him. His uncle grabbed for his sword. Archer let his gathering magic unspool.
Wind curled at his fingertips and amid the strands of his hair. “I challenge your position as pack alpha,” Archer said, whipping the air around them into a frenzy.
“They are mine!” Dagan spat. “They will not betray–”
A lasso of lashing rain whipped his sword from his hand. “They bow to the alpha.” Archer’s smile was all teeth. “You can fight me. Or you can abdicate the title.”
Dagan backed up a step. “I will fight you hand to hand. No magic.”
A wolf to Archer’s left cocked its huge head. Another one in fae form blinked.
Archer asked, though he now knew the answer, “Why not magic, uncle? Is it because yours is inferior?”
“I can take you with one hand tied behind my back,” Dagan sneered.
“Maybe you could,” Archer allowed. “But your skill with a sword is not quite the same, now is it? ”
“Why, you…” Dagan began to shift.
Archer whipped his hands in a spiraling motion and twin tornadoes sprung to life on either side of his uncle, picking up clothing, bricks and weapons and splinters of wood. Everyone ducked for cover, shielding their faces against the growing cyclones.
The debris slashed at Dagan, cutting and blinding him with its fury, paralyzing his magic with its might. He fell to his knees, and the blood from his wounds joined the rubble, whirling around him like red mist.
Archer lowered his hands.
The objects flying through the air dropped to the ground at once. Silence fell, a quiet like the one that had likely blanketed Arrowren after the siege. When trained soldiers had left their enemy’s children to the climate and the animals that roamed the forest.
Before puppets replaced kings.
Archer spoke clearly, resoundingly. “I denounce my vows to Hornhall.”
Dagan, on hand and knees, head dropped between his shoulders, rasped out, “Finish it.”
“I’m not like you, uncle.” Archer stared at him. “I will not kill a fellow warrior that’s helpless on the ground.”
He walked the distance that separated them and stood over his uncle. “But only once,” Archer said. “I won’t be so generous the next time you challenge me.”
His uncle didn’t speak, but his head bobbed weakly.
Archer turned to address the remaining guards and wolf pack. The guards stood speechless. Sterling’s gaze was locked on the father he never knew or wanted. But the wolves…
As a unit, they lowered to one knee, heads bowing in submission.
With one voice they recited the words originally pledged to Archer’s father. “My life is yours. In peace or war. Until the gods take me. I am your sword.”
M erick heard the shudder of breath.
Eirik heard it, too. He went still at her side. She lifted a hand to the others who stopped at the signal.
They all listened. Nothing. Merick was just about to lower her arm when she saw it.
There!
It blinked bright gold. Then pitch black once again.
“What is it?” Eirik whispered.
Merick focused on the spot where she had seen the two flashes of light. She was just about to inquire into the dark for the answer when a child’s voice said, “You’re the descendant of Arianrhod.”
Eirik drew his sword.
The voice, as delicate as silver bells, added, “He’s one of Janus’.”
Fenrir drew his sword.
Merick replied calmly. “And you are?”
“A friend of Sekhmet.”
The rest of the Warborn unsheathed their swords.
Merick stepped forward despite Eirik’s hissing protest. She asked, “Do you know where she is?”
The gold lights returned, this time sustaining its brilliance amid the darkness. “How do I know you won’t hurt her?” the little voice inquired– a girl’s .
Eyes. They were the eyes of a child.
Merick’s stomach hollowed out. “We need her help,” she said. “We wish her no harm.”
The eyes blinked closed again, and she caught the soft mumble of another voice, muffled as if concealed in another space. Except…there was only the one tunnel.
Chogan sidled up to Merick. “That noise came from a space with four walls.” The warrior nodded to where the eyes had last been visible. “There are secret rooms down here. Only accessible with a spelled stigmata.
“What are your names?” the child questioned .
Merick took another step in the voice’s direction. “I’m Merick. The descendant of Janus is Eirik.”
A gasp. More frantic murmurs. Then. “Eirik who?”
Her cousin answered for himself. “I am Eirik LaGoryen.”
The eyes opened wide. Then they were moving fast toward them. Chogan started to step in front of Merick just as the little girl’s form took shape down the tunnel. Then she was right in front of them, panting and staring up with those huge golden orbs.
“Where’s Bastian?” she demanded, a wild sort of panic taking hold. “Is he okay?” Her voice shook.
Before anyone could caution against it, Eirik knelt eye to eye with the child. He spoke reassuringly. “He’s fine. He is here. We’re here to help.”
The little girl threw herself into his arms, wracking sobs breaking from her lungs. “They killed them,” she cried. “And they took Sterling.”
“I know.” Eirik soothed. “We’re here to get him back.” His voice held astonishing patience and care. “But we could use your help.”
“Yes, anything.” The little girl jumped back, fiery determination lighting in those brilliantly colored eyes. “The champion is seeking revenge as we speak.”
“The champion?” Merick inquired. She already had her suspicions. Despite the scouts describing the victor as not resembling Katarra. “Of the tourney?”
A sharp nod from the child. “Sekhmet.”
“Did she tell you that was who she is?” Chogan asked.
“She didn’t have to. I just knew.” The girl looked up at Merick. “Same as I recognized you.”
Something dislodged and plinked across the tunnel further down from where the child had run. The little girl glanced over her shoulder and called out to the darkness. “It’s okay.” She turned her attention back to Eirik and smiled. “They’re the good guys.”
The shadows, tucked in and around the dead, shifted against the piled bones. Another child stepped right through the tunnel walls like an apparition. Out from one of the hidden rooms.
“How did you know where to hide?” Zaire inquired, astonishment coloring his words.
The second child inched hesitantly closer. She was taller, older. A sister to the little girl before them, Merick surmised.
The younger child said, “Champion Talon told me where to go.” She held out her small dirty hand, palm up. “She had a nice lady bring it to me in the stables.”
Chogan took the leathery, dried-up scrap of paper. Not paper, Merick realized. Skin. With a tattooed symbol on it.
The Warborn warrior’s eyes darted to Merick’s. “Something tells me this wasn’t given freely to our champion.”
Merick glanced back down at the brave little girl and her terrified sister. A strange ache tapped at her heart as she thought about who had shown them kindness. The same queen who had shown her compassion. In her own weird way. A female who would carve the skin off someone, then give it to a child for safe keeping. If it meant keeping the girl safe.
Sekhmet, deity of war and love .
A smile tugged at the corners of Merick’s mouth as she started down the tunnel and said, “What else would you expect from a cat?”
T he ballroom was taking notice. Hushed whispers fluttered around the room, behind raised fans and masks, like a wave on the horizon building in size and strength as it traveled toward the shore. It was only a matter of time before it broke.
Sage wasn’t sure how Gideon didn’t realize this would happen. Everyone knew something beyond the castle walls was amiss the moment he dispersed the wolf pack and ordered the balcony doors closed. Equally surprising, he hadn’t noted the tendril of magic she’d gotten loose.
A small link in the chainmail hood at the back of her head provided the escape. Just big enough to relax the tightness around her eyes, allowing more visibility, and to summon a thin breeze of air to her ear. It carried with it the words the page boy had muttered to her cousin minutes after rushing into the ballroom and up to the throne.
It gave her hope. Especially now, as Gideon shifted in his seat, trying to disguise his pursed lips behind a wine goblet. He’d underestimated how easy this would be. Had he really thought to waltz in, declare all the fundamental players of both kingdoms dead and replaced, then simply resume the party?
It was as ill-conceived as underestimating Bastian LaGoryen.
Sage had little doubt who was responsible for the harbor fires. For the chaos making its way from the docks to the castle steps. Her cousin might have been planning this takeover since the fall of Arrowren. But he’d failed to account for the might of its participants.
Ventus was a vastly different realm from the one her father ruled over. After the collapse, Gideon had cloistered himself away and plotted. Sage had built an army.
And with that army came trust and loyalty. Love. What Gideon had amassed was the opposite. Sage could tell by the way Xavier kept close to his mother. He was gauging which side might be most beneficial.
If it was to come down to a side.
Sage’s attention shifted to the charismatic ex-Queen of Gerra. Unlike Gideon, the beauty in question knew how to read a crowd. She was quite possibly the only thing keeping the perception of orderliness intact at the moment.
Sage watched Katarra laugh at something someone said. At Gideon’s request, after her and Dagan’s initial introductions, the female previously known as Talon had shed her borrowed body, revealing the real one. The champion had been beautiful, but the daughter of Dante was jaw-dropping.
And completely unreadable. Her true motives were anyone’s guess. She was akin to observing a cobra. One couldn’t help but become transfixed. Even though they recognized the dangers of doing so.
Gideon was faring no better than the enchanted partygoers. His eyes constantly darted from the ballroom doors back to the female at the center of the festivities. Sage had no idea where the vampire would stand if push came to shove. She had sported the remnants of a fading bruise upon entering the ballroom. Presumably given to her by the stalking male at her side, Dagan.
Sage found it difficult to believe the female she was observing now would have allowed anything of the sort. Without permission. Or a plan.
The double doors opened, and two soldiers entered, faces like stone. They cut around the crowd, in an attempt to not draw much attention to their arrival. Still, guests noticed. A few inched closer to the edges of the room.
Just when the soldiers were steps away from the throne, Mekale stood up, hands clasped in front of her, head held high. Gideon and Xavier’s gaze shot to her.
Voice regal and unwavering, the princess declared, “I grow tired.”
The soldiers hesitated, waiting for the princess’s statement to be addressed as protocol would demand. Royalty came first. They would refrain from relaying whatever message they had come to deliver until it was.
Because they had no idea she was a prisoner...
Another marvelous flaw in her cousin’s planning. One the princess had clearly picked up on and was now testing.
Gideon stared at Mekale, face hardening. She held her unwavering composure, the picture of someone used to getting her way. Then she added, sounding a perfect balance between boredom and annoyance, “Who will escort me to my chambers? ”
Something like delighted amusement in her golden eyes, Katarra said, “I will show the princess to her rooms, if you like, Your Majesty.”
“No,” Gideon replied. “Stay, enjoy the party.” He smiled tightly. “Xavier will show his fiancé to her rooms.”
Xavier eyed his uncle, but he did as suggested and walked to the princess, then extended his arm. Mekale took it without so much as a flinch and allowed him to lead her out of the room. Sage manufactured a cool wisp of wind to gently twine through the princess’s hair as she passed under the double doors’ archway. Mekale glanced back before the doors shut, a gleam of acknowledgment in her eyes.
The soldiers finally approached the throne, voices lowered.
They had pulled anchor and gotten the majority of Hornhall’s fleet safely into the bay. Still no sign of who had set the fires. Windsong ships were starting to arrive up the coast. But with the entire harbor in flames, they were confined to the bay, unable to make port.
So focused on hearing every detail, Sage jumped when Katarra whispered in her ear, “How’s my nephew?”
She didn’t bother lying. “Vengeful.”
The vampire laughed, a velvety sound that tickled over Sage’s neck. “I always liked him best.”
“Didn’t he kill you?”
“Precisely why I like him best.”
Sage felt the faintest movement behind her head. Then the ex-queen was in front of her and Gideon’s penetrating stare was on them.
Katarra didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed a glass of wine off a passing serving tray and lifted it to the emperor. “To His Majesty.”
Gideon lifted his goblet, focused entirely on the beautiful creature addressing him. Not on Sage. Or the neat slice Katarra had made up the back of her chainmail hood.
T he Queen of Arrowren didn’t hesitate.
The second Gideon swallowed the wine, she struck. A gust of wind so strong it sent him careening across the floor, taking out spectators as he went.
Katarra took a sip of her own wine, smiling around the rim of the glass.
Gideon roared and the ballroom shuddered. He surged to his feet, eyes wild, bearing his fangs. Sage Astamere yanked the hood from her head, cloak swirling around her as she crafted a bow and arrow out of thin air.
“Don’t you dare…” Gideon growled.
“Or what?” Sage said. “You’ll enslave my people, summon demons to take over this land, force me into marriage, and steal my crown?” Disgust curdled her pretty face. “Yeah, that’s not working for me.”
The mighty bow groaned as she nocked an arrow and drew back the string. No one dared get in her way. Farther and farther, she pulled. Her slim arms strained, but she lined up her shot. Dead center of her cousin’s chest.
Gideon threw up a hand, summoning his magic. None came. His face clouded with disbelief and horror. He tried, and failed, again.
His goblet clanked to the floor, his bewildered gaze landing on Katarra. She took another sip of wine.
His eyes went from enraged to outright glacial. “You!”
“The party was getting boring.” She shrugged. “Now it’s not.”
“What did you slip in my wine?” the newly made emperor demanded. “When?”
The stunned crowd watched their volley of words as if it were a sporting match, eyes darting between them. So completely captivated were they that they didn’t register the sounds of trampling feet moving down the long hall. One set arriving from the west, the other from the east. Or the flapping wings .
“The one thing I’ve learned about the fae: your kind doesn’t get out much,” Katarra replied evenly. “If you did, you might have some basic understanding of other cultures.” She shifted a tiny black pill between her fingers like a coin on the hand of a magician. “Like how advanced a vampires reflexes are.”
She delivered the next words standing at his side. “How fast we are.”
Either the drugs were doing their job, or Gideon had enough self-control not to flinch. He only hissed, “You’ll pay for your hand in this.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” she said. Then she winked at the Queen of Arrowren. “He’s all yours, sweetheart.”
Katarra flashed out of the room.
S age steadied her hand, her breathing.
Then she fired.
The arrow whistled through the air. A clean, killing sound that found its mark.
In the Princess of Windsong’s chest.
Sage gasped as her friend’s eyes grew round and she collapsed into the arms of the male who had placed her there. Xavier…
Gideon, totally hail and healthy, blinked where he remained standing. The arrow intended for him, protruding out either side of the princess.
No, no, no!
Xavier let her fall to the ground, then brushed his hands together. “I didn’t want a mate anyway,” he said, voice like ice.
Sage couldn’t breathe. She took a step forward, stumbling thoughtlessly toward her friend.
“Seize her,” Xavier ordered.
The guards came running. Sage ignored them. Her eyes remained on Mekale, her beautiful face frozen in shock .
Sage’s heartbeat pounded so wildly it was all she could hear. In her head, her arms, her gut. The incessant panic consumed her senses, overriding every thought but one.
She had just killed her friend…
Then she felt it.
A shuddering through the earth. Through the brick and mortar and wood and marble. A tremor across the land, coming in from the sea.
The windows started to shake, tiny vibrations against the glass. And Gideon’s discarded goblet began to rock back and forth on the floor by his feet.
Right before the impact came.
G lass exploded and debris rained down. The castle swayed.
Then the screaming started.
Archer yanked his sword from the gut of a falling solider and sliced his dagger across the neck of the next. Then he broke into an all-out sprint toward the ballroom. Sterling was a streak beside him.
Archer swung around the archway, blood sluicing down his blades, and came to a sudden stop.
Standing in the center of the room, amid the shattered glass and crumbling bricks, striking the marble with angry pawing hooves, was a black winged horse. Atop the mythical beast sat a male with eyes of blazing gold, a crown of shadows–sky and sea and embers and stone–whirling around his head.
Those same color eyes glowed from the sockets of the male by the steed’s side. Fire wreathed his hands, smoke rolling off his broad shoulders in waves, skin rippling with the onset of a transformation. Teakin LaGoryen.
Archer’s gaze shifted back to the striking raven-haired immortal on pegasus back. The famed dragon’s nephew. The Chosen One …
The entire ballroom seemed to make the connection at the same time. Some guests fell to their knees. Others prayed, stuttering tumbles of words gobbled up by the biting wind rushing in through the shattered window. Many bolted for the doors, only for them to slam in their faces.
Not by the Elementals from Earth. Instead, by the darkness spreading over the walls, seeping in through the vents and under the doors, crawling through cracks, a spider web of decaying veins.
Archer’s magic raised its hackles in response. Then, a tickle of wind around his fingertips–a summoning. To trust, to act. To unify .
His head snapped to the source of the familiar marshaling. Not to the white-haired male he now knew to be his uncle. But to the female on the floor.
The Queen of Arrowren .
Something, lightning-bright, snapped through Archer. Home, purpose, family. A court that would change the realm. That’s what she offered. He could sense her ideologies as if they’d been handwritten onto his soul .
And her silent call to arms–her magic’s plea. Was a godsdamned battle cry in his fae blood. To protect and serve and honor. Both Hornhall and Windsong had made mockeries of that instinct. Not her…
Not the rightful Queen of Ventus.
He didn’t get the chance to think any more on it. Claws clicked over stone and the darkness began to take shape. Twisting up from the floor and lurking out from the shadows, hairless skin stretched over misshapen bones. Creatures not of this realm. Long gnarled fingers ended in razor-sharp talons and rows of fetid black teeth jutted from salivating unhinged jaws.
The sightless eyes were the real thing of nightmares, though. They blinked, as if sniffing–tracking…
When those deadly maws tightened with interest, no one uttered a sound.
K atarra had ninety-nine problems, but knowing when to exit a party wasn’t one.
She’d grab Legion on her way to the catacombs, retrieve the urchin and her urchin’s sister, and then double back to the stables for Anarchy. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances of her newest handicap; a conscience.
Four of them to be exact. Four pestilent little things had somehow hijacked her perfectly villainous life. Turned it into something she didn’t recognize. Shackled her to the very thing she feared the most, giving a shit.
Katarra turned down the hall to her room and slowed her pace. She sized up the two fae warriors standing with Lord Ulrich. One was as big as a mountain and as dark as oil. The other was his opposite, in coloring and size. Ulrich just looked like a speck of lint wedged between an Oreo cookie.
If the rat bastard had betrayed her, she’d cut off his balls and feed them to the wyvern. She said, “As much as I like a good foursome, Ulrich, I’m in a pinch for time.”
The ex-advisor opened his mouth. Closed it. Katarra was just about to compliment him on entertaining the visual, when she remembered she was in her regular body.
“You’re…” he managed.
“Even better. Yes.” She pivoted and slinked toward them, not breaking her stride. “But seriously, in the interest of time, who the fuck are they?”
“Sekhmet…” Ulrich blinked, ignoring her question. “In the flesh.”
“Scion, technically,” she amended.
But she was impressed. Very few had the talent for discerning such things. The little ferret was more gifted than he’d let on when he first reached out to her, mind to mind, during the execution of the wizards. When she’d been trying to get to Oakley. And later, when he met her in the tunnels and they formulated their plan.
She would keep Dagan and his men distracted during the ball, by whatever means necessary. During that time, Ulrich would get Archer the key needed to escape. He would also see Lady Erinned had an excuse to slip away from the ball to the stables. Where she would deliver to Oakley the skin tattoo, and Oakley’s sister. Along with instructions for the two girls to go to the catacombs and wait there.
So far, things had gone somewhat to plan. But Katarra knew from well-documented experience how quickly plans could change. She’d built a reputation on being the cause of most interrupted plans, after all.
Deliberately, she scanned both his companions again, head to toe. “Who are the gym bros?”
“Unexpected allies.” Ulrich gave a slight nod. “But I think it would be best if I let another explain.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
“In your room–”
Katarra flew past them, flinging open the door before he could elaborate further.
Sitting regally in a chair on the far side of her bedroom, stroking a content, traitorous wyvern, was a face she knew well. A face crafted from stardust and endless blue skies. The face of an angel. The heart of a dragon . Merick…
Leaning against the wall a few feet away, a look on his handsome face that read, this is a shit idea , was Eirik LaGoryen.
Katarra smiled.
K atarra’s pupils widened–with amusement or predatory intent, Eirik didn’t know. “And you think the three of us can accomplish this how?” she asked, idly twirling a lock of her thick chestnut-colored hair and lounging on the end of her bed. “Holding hands and singing Kumbaya?”
“Actually, not far from it,” Merick said. “Kielyn and I made contact by simply asking Freyja and Arianrhod to hear us out.”
Katarra seemed to consider her words for a second, her mini-dragon emerging from under the bed. The wyvern was on its fourth trip out now, dragging a pair of thongs this time. It dropped them in the pile it was constructing. So far it had retrieved a bra, a pillowcase, and a pair of handcuffs. Then it turned and stalked back under the bed.
“What’s in it for me?” Katarra asked.
“I think the better question is who will be affected if you don’t help us?” Merick countered, holding the former queen’s stare for longer than most would consider wise. “Oakley and her sister.” She glanced at Katarra’s feet just as the wyvern shoved his face between her shapely calves to peer up at them, a sock in its mouth. “Your pet.”
Katarra studied Eirik’s cousin with a hitman’s unflinching assessment. He didn’t so much as blink when she turned those cat-like eyes on him. It had been a gamble to meet with her here. Just the two of them. Even with Zaire and Borgen on the other side of the door.
Charming as sin and lethal as fuck–w as the parting wisdom Teakin had given. Eirik repeated it in his head every few seconds. It would be easy to fall under his aunt’s spell. To let his guard down and succumb to the cunning nature that was Dante’s daughter.
“Fine.” Katarra stood without warning, and with the fluid grace of a female who knew her worth. “I’ve certainly done less interesting things.”
She opened the door to Borgen, Zaire, and Lord Ulrich–a rebel sympathizer who had been waiting for them exactly where the scout said he would be. “Come in boys,” the former queen said with a smile. “Looks like we have some gods to summon.”