Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
SCORPION
Large maps covered the table, the food shoved to the side as we studied them. Some were of the city, roads, and rail, and some appeared to be handmade, covered in X’s and hundreds of lines connecting the city like weeds.
“What are these?” I pointed at the webs connecting through the city, which went back to the sixth century.
“Ah.” Olek pushed up his thick glasses. “During the Cold War, Stalin had underground tunnels and bunkers built, adding to the catacombs and drainage system already there.” Olek traced his finger over the lines from one of the X’s.
His face had shifted, and the kind old man running the keep became intense with knowledge and critical information someone had risked their life for.
It was a seriousness people had when they had gone through real life and death experiences day to day.
At any moment, you could be dragged off the streets and killed on the mere speculation you were a spy or speaking truths about the government.
No proof needed. They turned everyone against each other.
Everyone was an enemy. “Most don’t realize that under their feet, there is a world that is probably just as large as the city above.
A vast labyrinth of systems which connect the city. ”
“Many of the tunnels are known. Before the wall fell, they even had tourist tours of them.” Killian cupped his coffee with one hand, leaning over the table to inspect the map with the other.
“Ivanenko would have them not only guarded, but probably in use. Great way to do your dirty work without being noticed.” He glanced at Olek, his free hand absently moving from the map to the girl next to him, his hand brushing Rosie’s hip as if he needed to know she was there.
You didn’t have to be connected to them like I was to Brexley to feel the sexual energy and giddy emotion coming off them.
It was thick, coating the room like confetti, pissing me off more.
Caden and Birdie’s hate-fuck mood didn’t help either.
And my bedroom wall was shared with Ember and Eli; those two seemed to be on par with Brexley and Warwick.
And I wasn’t even going to get into what I heard coming from Ash, Lukas, and Kek last night.
The inn was full of sex. No, worse—love. I fucking hated it. It tugged at something in my gut. A need to move, to forgo all this bullshit and find her.
My lungs clenched, struggling to breathe, the thought of her drifting out from the back of my mind where I tried to keep her tucked away.
Little Viper.
All I could see was her face in the last moments before she ran off with Istvan’s soldiers—the pain in her eyes when she looked at me. I should have known, understood what she was telling me. Stopped her.
Done something. Anything.
The guilt and anger I felt for not fully comprehending, not hearing her cries for help, was overwhelming. My ego was too big to think she could walk away from us—from me. But she did.
I was mad at her for allowing them that power over her and mad at myself for letting her go.
Would she be here right now if I stopped her?
The restless agitation, the need to tear the world apart, the sensation nothing was right until I found her, pumped air heavily through my lungs. Because I understood what it meant. What she was to me. What I felt the moment I had sunk into her.
It wasn’t the realization that scared me, and now that I knew, I might lose it forever. My gut told me she was alive, but she might be lost to me all the same.
“Yes, a lot of the main tunnels are in use. Sources have told me the activity has picked up since General Markos’s arrival.
Especially the old shipping yard area, which is also close to a government’s private rail station,” Olek replied, oblivious to the slight snore coming from the sugar bowl, where all you could see was a naked ass and pixie wings.
Not one person had sugar in their coffee this morning.
“That’s where my father has his labs.” Caden nodded at the section Olek was circling. “Shipping out from land and sea.”
Warwick rubbed his head, a grumble in his throat. “He will have them well guarded. We probably can’t get anywhere close without being seen.”
“Not true.” Olek wagged his head. “The tunnel system is vast and complicated. Most passages are unused or not even known. I have spent many years discovering and finding passageways no one has used in decades, if not centuries.” He stabbed his finger into the map.
“The good news is that starting here takes you right to the shipping yard.” He pointed at an X and slid his finger to the port.
“Why do I feel that was the end of the good news?” Brexley folded her arms, bearing down, preparing for the bad.
“Because not only are these tunnels dangerous—many have died trying to get through them—but they are filled with fae doors.”
“Fae doors?” I exclaimed, dread sinking into my gut like a stone.
Fae portals were tricky when the Otherworld still existed.
Back then, it had been a way for fae to travel to and from Earth and around the Otherworld.
But after the wall fell, it created thousands of magical holes, which seemed to have no meaning or structure.
They were hard to see, and even fae were falling into them, getting trapped, never to be seen again.
“Szar.” Ash tipped his head back. “Of course.”
“Nothing is easy with us, is it?” Lukas sat down with a heavy sigh, all of us having the same dismal reaction. “The chances of one of us falling in one? Getting lost? Can we take that chance?”
“Well, good thing you have me.” Ember’s half smile turned from Eli, sharing some inside joke, to us.
“What do you mean?” Wesley asked her.
“I happen to be a master at fae doors.”
Choked laughs sprinkled around the room.
“No one knows how to use them anymore. They lost all meaning when the wall fell,” Killian stated.
“I think that’s why she gets them.” Eli scoffed. “She and my brother are the only two I know who actually understand how to work them. I think it’s because they’re both mentally ill.”
“You’re putting me in the same category as Lorcan?” Ember rammed her fist into Eli’s arm playfully. “I will so get you for that one.”
Lorcan Dragen was known here because he was the mate of the Seelie queen. The scandal of a Druid queen and a Dark Dweller lover had rolled through the east with intrigue and shock. The mated pair defied the odds, even having twins, a boy and a girl.
“Bring it, Brycin.” Eli winked at her, then glanced back at us. “She’s not lying. She really does know how to work them. It’s how we can get around the countries and travel so easily unseen.”
“Though please avoid them if you can help it. They will waste a lot of time if I have to keep searching for you guys.” She set down her mug. “I can stay in front with Simmons and Cal. They are good at seeing them too.”
“At your service, my lady.” Simmons tugged on his jacket with pride, beaming at Ember, hovering right near her ear.
“Okay, say we can get into the lab.” Warwick tied back his hair, his forehead crinkling. “How do we take it down?”
“I think I can help with that.” Olek dipped his head, waving us toward a broom closet. He pulled open the door. Leaning down, he lifted a stone slab, which seamlessly appeared as part of the floor. Underneath was a staircase leading down underground. “Follow me.”
Trailing after him, we all stepped down the creaky wooden steps, venturing into a dank, chilly basement. He reached out and pulled on a string. Dim light brightened the small hidden room enough to see what he concealed below.
“ó, hogy baszd meg egy talicska apró majom,” Oh, may a wheelbarrow of small monkeys fuck it. Birdie breathed out in awe. “That is a lot of distraction.”
Our figures moved like shadows in the night, our dark clothing blending in with the brush and trees, heading to a spot we had stared at all day on a piece of paper.
The only sound was the hum of Simmons’s wings flying next to Ember, which could be mistaken for crickets or insect wings.
The entrance to the underground Olek had circled for us was obscure and hidden, probably only known to him and his “scouts.”
The cold temperatures prickled my nose and cheeks, my lungs aching, but it made me alert.
I had almost lost my shit waiting in the house all day, my need to do something—act, move, do anything but sit and stare at maps, going over the plan again and again.
I couldn’t stay still. I couldn’t concentrate, a pull I couldn’t describe tugging at my chest. And it only seemed to be getting worse with every passing hour.
Ash, Lukas, Kek, Birdie, Caden, and Wesley slunk around me, while Brexley, Warwick, Eli, Ember, Killian, and Rosie were slightly ahead of us, climbing over broken chain fences and trampling through weeds and overgrown plants.
The late hour left the motorway near the site absent of horses and automobiles.
“By the GPS, it should be about here.” Brexley’s whisper floated softly through the dark, though I could feel and hear her without her even opening her mouth.
The link was locked in place again, and from the energy in the air last night and how many times I had to jack off because I could feel them together, their bond was winding deeper.
It never bothered me like it did now. I never saw the reflection of what I didn’t have before.
It was an utter loneliness I felt in my soul.
That was before her.
Now it was pure torture. I was more restless and agitated, wishing I could sever my link to them forever.
Would this be my life? The third wheel in their love story? Feeling everything I couldn’t have, being reminded of everything I wouldn’t experience. Would I always be tormented with the happiness that was lost to me before I even had it?