Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
RHODES
Ican feel her getting closer. It killed me to walk past her in the ballroom at court, to pretend to be a guard for a rich Vian family of nobles who had just got invited.
No one looks twice at the guards, and it makes it easy to walk around the mansion, taking in all the rooms and mapping out a path to the most guarded area—where my mate was kept.
I could smell her everywhere, her blood singing in the air, and when I finally saw her after so many months, I nearly collapsed to my knees in relief.
She is alive, and they had not taken her from me.
It took me months to figure out where the fuck they had taken her, and I did not expect the south of Mexico to be the answer.
This horrid place is hidden, extremely well hidden, and under strict invite-only.
Not even Severi knew about it, and neither did Hollis.
Every time we thought we got close to finding her, we were wrong.
We split up, all of us, searching different places across the world to find her and only checking in once every week with updates.
There were never any updates other than when she was in the cities, and all that was left was death.
There wasn’t time to tell Finnegan, Hollis or Alek about this place and the chance she could be here.
I sent word this morning, and I know they will be on their way to our hideout, if they are not there now.
I pace in front of the car, watching in the direction of the orange stone mansion, the clock tower which has fallen to the left side of the building.
The rest is blown up and on fire. Everyone inside is dead.
I killed so many tonight I’ve lost count, but it doesn’t matter as long as she gets out.
The king escaped, the tricky fucker that he is, and he will no doubt go to his city to hide.
The fucker is dead. Hiding won’t stop me from getting to him anymore.
I didn’t manage to find Georgina either. She must have left with the king.
I finally see Severi running up the hill towards us, the thick heat of Mexico making him sweat the blood off his face.
His friend—the one who gave us the information in the first place about an invitation to this place—walks alongside him, holding a bundle over his shoulder.
It’s not my mate he carries. No. My mate is in Severi’s arms, curled up against his chest but completely unconscious. Breathing. She’s definitely breathing.
Fuck.
My heart pounds so fast I worry I might throw up as I run over, nearly tripping over my own feet, stopping in front of her and Severi.
He lets me have this moment to just breathe her in, touch her cold cheek and brush damp hair away from her face, her dark locks falling down in messy clumps.
Every inch of her face is bruised, and parts of it are swollen.
Her jaw looks broken, along with her nose, as it is crooked.
Like someone broke it and let it heal like that.
Her arms are covered in different coloured bruises, blood and deep scars.
“She is too thin. What the fuck did they do to her?”
It’s a pain like I’ve never felt to see her like this—to know someone did this to her.
I am going to hunt down every fucker who ever laid a finger on my mate.
The way Severi looks at me, the brokenness in his eyes, I know he is planning the same.
The grim line on his face doesn’t falter.
I can’t even say another word. Her red dress is ripped, covered in blood, but most of it isn’t hers. Her Nexus killed to escape tonight.
Severi clears his throat. “All that matters now is getting her to safety and a damn good healer.” He turns to the masked man. “Dante, we need to move.”
Dante nods once. “There is a healer, a friend of mine, whom we can trust. Once we get to the hideout.”
I’m thankful for the information and help as I tug the car doors open. Dante bundles Feyre into the back seat, clipping a seatbelt on her, and she doesn’t move. I climb into the back and hold my arms out. Severi stares at me and then at her. “I don’t want to let her go,” he tells me.
“You can trust her with me. You know I’d die for her a thousand times over, and you are injured,” I murmur.
I need to hold her. I don’t tell him that, despite the fact I have grown to trust Severi over the years I’ve known him.
He is an asshole through and through, but his loyalty to Gwenieve is unquestionable.
Severi reluctantly hands her over, and only then do I see the two daggers pressed into his stomach, another one in his shoulder. “I smelt your blood, but what the fuck happened to you? Are you alright?”
He just grunts, pulling the two daggers out and throwing them on the floor before climbing into the front seat of the car.
Dante’s off within seconds, turning into the mud lanes behind the main road and quickly making sure no one sees us leaving.
I pull a thick coat over Gwen, covering her up as much as possible, then stroke her damp hair away from her face.
My Nexus rolls in my chest. Angry. So fucking angry.
I don’t blame him; I feel the same, but I am more concerned for her right now.
I can’t lose her, and there is every chance the wild, reckless and sarcastic woman I fell in love with might have been broken in these last few months.
I need her to wake up, to call me all the names under the sun and smirk at me.
I need Gwenieve. My mate. I want her angry at me.
I want her hate, because it’s better than her feeling nothing but pain.
They’ve used her time and again to destroy city after city.
Every time we got rare footage, anything, any hint of her, it was never enough to save her.
It was too late, too little, and we failed her.
“Your friends had best be good at getting every camera down between here and the academy,” Dante’s sharp voice cuts through the air as he turns onto a main road and weaves into the traffic.
“They’re on it. Hollis is very good at things like this, as is Finn. They are surprisingly useful.” I have full trust that my message and demands to them this morning would have been carried out without question.
“This Vian academy of yours, are you sure it is safe?” I question after a while. It is the hideout we chose, with Severi swearing it is the closest and safest place we can head to if we got to Gwen.
“It’s not mine per se, but it is shared with the three other rulers of the academy.
You won’t be allowed on the academy ground, but there’s a house hidden in the forest at the back.
It’s where we conduct our meetings privately, away from the academy where ears are always listening and reporting to the darkness.
” I’ve heard rumours of the Vian academy, a place which takes only the very best of the Vian students at eighteen, and they never come back.
No one knows what happens there, why they are chosen exactly, and what they fight.
Only that they are important to the Vian, and even the king never dares to set foot in the academy or question its rulers.
“Not a single student will dare venture to the hideout. It will be the other rulers and me who know you are there. They’ve agreed to let me step in after seeing the destruction our king is causing.
In return, do make sure you chop his head off and put a decent ruler in his place. ” He nods, waving a hand at Severi.
“I would not make a good king.” Severi answers sharply. “The throne will never be mine, and I am glad for it.”
“Then find someone that actually would make a good king,” Dante commands, “because your father definitely isn’t fitting the bill. You kill him or we will, and if we get involved in the affairs of mortals…there will be hell to pay.”
What the fuck is this man? I don’t doubt a single word that he says. Severi must not either. “There will be a decent king or queen chosen, and we will deal with my father. His death will be swift and public.”
“Then we’re all in agreement,” Dante answers, and Severi’s shoulders finally drop.
The rest of the drive is in pure silence.
I just wait, waiting for her to wake up, but she doesn’t.
At least she’s breathing. I know she technically can’t die, but the feeling when she does—the times that I’ve seen her dead, where the bond feels like it’s empty and broken and hollow, like there’s nothing there, nothing alive in it—makes me feel like dying too.
But then she comes back, bringing with her everything light and good in the world.
Eventually we start climbing through a thick forest of palm trees and yellow bushes.
The trees are impossibly high, blocking out any stars and sky.
We pass through several thick metal gates, and all I can smell is sand.
“What exactly do you teach at the academy, Dante?” I dare to question.
“We were tutors at an academy in Starlight City. We taught them to be rangers, protectors of our people.”
“Things that not even the king knows about and no mortal should,” he answers. “There are far more dangers in this world than what is fought on the surface. We are here to protect what would happily come and kill us all. This academy and its students stand to protect the world.”
“We all have our secrets, don’t we, Rhodes?
” Severi answers in warning for me to shut up.
I wince all the same. No, I don’t have secrets anymore.
My secrets cost me everything. They almost cost Gwen her life, and she still might hate me and want nothing to do with me.
I’ve decided even if that is the case, I will stay by her side to protect her until my last breath and even beyond that, even if all I become is a star watching over her from the darkness.
Severi’s eyes meet mine in the mirror, but we say nothing.
We drive for twenty minutes through a dead-silent forest before we come up to a house—or somewhat of a house.
The bottom half is built with stone, the top with wood.
There are several windows, a thatched roof, and fairy lights hung on the trees outside.
And above it, in the distance, on top of a huge hill, a dark blue castle looms over the forest—imposing, with more towers than Starlight Academy could ever claim.
I climb out with Gwen, and Severi goes round to grab Feyre.
Dante doesn’t get out of the car. He just drives off the minute we’re clear.
I walk up to the door. Before I can reach it, Finn, Alek, and Hollis storm through, sensing their mate, and their faces crack when they finally see her.
Finn spots Feyre. “Is she alive?”
“They both are,” Severi answers for me. “They both need healing and medical help. Dante’s gone to get a healer he can trust. Let’s get them inside.”
“Give her to me.” Finn says it like a demand, stepping in front of me.
His eyes are wet, his face tense, and he hasn’t asked where his father is.
The fact he isn’t with us is answer enough.
I want to comfort him, but I know he won’t talk to me.
“Give her to me now, betrayer. This does not mean you are back in her life yet.”
“How broken is she? Did you speak to her? Did you—” Alek asks instead, touching her face. “My Gods, she looks—”
“I know.” I gulp. “I fear it is worse under the dress. The entire mansion smelt of her blood and suffering.”
Hollis punches the wall, a growl ripping from his throat, and he only stops when Gwen whines in her sleep.
I clutch her tight before handing her to Finnegan.
I don’t want to let her go, but I’m barely standing from blood loss myself.
We are all silent in the hours that follow, as a female healer comes to fix Gwen and Feyre.
Only when she is tucked into a massive bed that makes her look tiny, do I sit down, and my brother moves to my side. “What if they broke her too much?”
“Then we remind her what life she has to fight for, and we serve her the king for her to kill as she wishes.” I look up at him. “For our mate.”
“Forever.” He nods once, both of us turning back and never taking our eyes off her as she sleeps through the night.