Chapter 2 Maeve
Maeve
Iscrubbed a hand down my face, pressure building in my skull from logging artefacts from the destruction of the Phoenix Compound.
It was taking far longer than it normally would, but Dante’s army had set off explosions at every level of the structure.
It was a wonder—a miracle actually—the mountain hadn’t collapsed from the attack.
But it became my job as interim director of Phoenix to ensure the vaulted magic—items we’d locked away over the last several centuries—were tracked, warded, and then placed in a new location and vault.
We had over a thousand years’ worth of items just from Avalon alone. Not to mention the pre-war magic that needed to be catalogued, most of which hadn’t been touched since Phoenix was created.
I sat back, the office chair creaking, and glanced out the window.
My office on the first floor—the same office we’d found when we first entered the manor—overlooked the courtyard of the house, where Ivy had gotten her large outdoor table set up.
With the sun out and skies clear, she and the children were at the large wooden table with paint and glitter while Eloise lay on a sunbed reading a book, likely waiting for them to go down to the lake.
My heart twisted at the sight of them; the smile on Ivy’s face made a warmth swell within me, a feeling I was slowly getting used to, but still startled me occasionally.
I was so used to the tension, the fear. Looking over our shoulders and expecting an enemy—Dante, one of his High Council, a soldier, the mythical Order—ready to attack. I wasn’t used to the quiet.
But slowly, I was. Gradually, I found myself more open to the slow mornings—not the ones where I spent an hour in the gym training, then in an office with paperwork.
But mornings where I helped Adrian with breakfast, or afternoons where I joined Ivy in the living room and we sat together while she worked on her next book, and I filed paperwork.
There was no rush here. Sometimes, it was like we were frozen in time, in our own safe little bubble where the outside world couldn’t touch us.
And I enjoyed it more than I expected to.
I thought after a month I would get antsy.
Would want to return to work at Phoenix, assuming some new position.
I’d reworked my expectations to become a knight of Ivy’s rule, her loyal mate while she ascended as Queen.
But now that she’d stepped back from the crown, from the palace and everything that had to do with being a Queen of Nyx, I had to do something else. Something useful.
I supposed it was why I’d volunteered to log the artefacts, even though I had no desire to lock myself away anymore while my family was beyond the window enjoying the world.
I pulled another box out, this one marked as STOLEN. There had been many artefacts taken from Phoenix and stored in the compounds we knew belonged to Dante, so it didn’t surprise me I was being tasked with identifying, cataloguing, and putting them with the rest.
The box was filled with small items, most of which emitted a familiar, powerful magic. Nyx’s magic. He must have found the section of the vault dedicated to artefacts of the previous Queens.
Some were daggers, a few pieces of jewellery, rune stones and crystals imbued with magic.
But to my shock, at the bottom of the box, was my mother’s ring. And with it, the dagger I’d gifted Ivy.
Tears burned my eyes as I freed them. Phoenix had no use for these, but I knew my mate missed them dearly. She thought Dante had stripped her and destroyed them when she’d been taken. But he’d saved them, likely thinking they held more magic than they did.
They would be the perfect gift for what was to come and easily hidden in my desk where she wouldn’t look.
Before I could set the current artefacts away, a knock sounded at the door to my office.
I sat up, hitting a rune under the desk to unlock it.
We’d needed to put some protections on certain areas for the children’s sake.
Maisie was a curious creature, and Eloise had a terrible habit of taking things she thought were cool—unfortunately, those items were dangerous.
Two rune stones had gone missing while she’d been in Griffon’s care, both charmed to set off explosions.
She hadn’t known that, of course. She’d simply wanted to know more about them.
As the door opened, I set the artefacts I’d been cataloguing away in their warded chest beneath the desk, glancing towards the door to find Rhadamanthus entering. He slid into the office as if he didn’t want anyone to know he was here, and that had my brows furrowing.
He—other than Ivy—could just shadow jump into this room. So why would he knock?
The demon closed the door behind him and leaned against it, a stiff smile on his lips. “The plan is in motion,” he stated.
My gaze flickered to where Ivy and the children still sat outside basking in the late morning sun, before finding his stare. “How soon can we do this? Ivy is growing weary, and she is struggling deeply with how she feels regarding this pregnancy—and us.”
The stiff smile turned sad as his gaze went to the window, too. “I sense it within her, but she won’t speak of it.”
“I tried getting her to open up last night,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “But she feels as though it is something she must deal with on her own. I think it has something to do with her mother and her relationship with her stepfather.”
Even after months of searching, there was no news on the male who’d fathered Ivy’s sisters.
We had a name for him now, Aalto, but it was common amongst the Fae of the Abyss and Summer Courts, so it barely helped us.
Greer’s mate, Leith, and his son were under the assumption the siren male knew we were looking for him and was running away from his responsibilities—and the new laws in place for Fae who abandoned their young.
Since Ivy returned the magic to Faery, there had been changes.
An effort to bring back systems and ways that’d been lost over the last three and a half thousand years.
Especially regarding Changelings. It was a practice only one or two courts practiced, and only ever rarely, but abandoned young in the human world—especially knowingly—fell under those laws.
And if Andrew—Aalto—was caught, he would have to face not just the Fae council, but us.
Rhadamanthus shook his head sadly before pulling a piece of paper from his breast pocket. “Sao has confirmed for me the supplies we need. I will be shadow jumping them directly into the basement.”
“Where she will not look.” It was the only area we knew for certain Ivy wouldn’t go snooping. She disliked the dark, enclosed space far too much, and with it being the place where we kept the skull of Nyx, she remained far away from it.
Instead, when the dreary, wet days came, she and the children turned the old ballroom into a makeshift play area, which we’d offered to do to the basement to give it new life.
The corners of Rhadamanthus’s lips quirked as he approached my desk with the paper folded between his fingers. “Sao has also alerted the small guest list of our plans. All know to keep it a secret until the day.”
“And her dress?” I asked, taking the letter from him and scanning Sao’s words.
“In progress,” Rhadamanthus replied easily. “As are the children’s and Thea’s. All are set to arrive with the supplies.”
I checked the letter again, heart racing.
The last couple of months had both been busy and yet somehow slow; it was a rush of helping to rebuild our world, meetings to decide the council and its head, assessing the systems that allowed Dante to take the power he did and deciding whether it could be changed.
Oberon’s admittance system was overhauled.
The Council changed hands. And Phoenix, which had taken advantage of young creatures like Elias, and thrived on those willing to do anything for absolution like me, had to be burned to the ground and rebuilt into something that had real standards—that didn’t take advantage of those with nowhere else to go.
The letter detailed the specifics of our plan, with what we needed for our ceremony and the small party afterwards.
Even though Rhadamanthus was no longer king of Elysian, he still had deep connections.
Well, he still had Sao in some capacity.
The demon had declared he would stay at the palace until a new ruler made themselves known and vowed to help that demon when it happened.
I breathed a sigh of relief and handed him the letter. “Thank you.”
Rhadamanthus tucked the paper into his breast pocket, eyes darting to the outside courtyard and our mate. “It is what she deserves.”
I wouldn’t disagree with him on that. Following his line of sight, I felt my heart skip a beat as the sun brightened her dark hair. Up close, I knew her eyes would appear more gold than brown with the light of the sun warming her face.
Our mate, at peace at last. It was not something I would change for the world, even if how it came to be meant an entire shift for our world. It was what she deserved.
And it was what we needed, too.
Ivy trailed her fingers down my bare arm, tracing the old, silver scars marring my skin lightly. “I don’t think I ever want to leave this bath,” she murmured, tilting her face to look at me.
The arm I held her with tightened under her breasts and over her stomach. Beneath my forearm, I almost thought I felt the flutter of baby B where they were wedged on her right side. “Do you feel better, a mhuirnín?”
My sweet mate dropped her head to my shoulder, humming under her breath. “Much. Though I tend to when we get to spend time together.”
I dropped my lips to her temple and pressed a kiss to her damp flesh. “I very much reciprocate those feelings,” I murmured, taking her other hand beneath the water. “Especially now.”
With how much work we were all doing to prepare for not only Ivy’s surprise, but the time we’d need to help her through the birth and postpartum period, there was so much going on, and some of the only time we got to spend with one another was in the evenings or when we slept.
We were all trying to take as much as we could off Ivy’s plate, which meant we were all busy trying to keep up with our responsibilities.
But soon, it would all be over, and our newest mission would begin.
Caring for our mate and new babies.
“I will be so glad when you finish going through those boxes of artefacts and Xerxes doesn’t have to work on the council, and…”
“And we can all be together again,” I said, cutting her off with another kiss. “I know.”
“It’s a little selfish of me,” she said quietly. “I know that. But I’m going to blame it on the hormones.”
I chuckled lightly, moving our joined hands to the top of her belly.
Over her shoulder, I took in the way she poked out of the water, her belly button little more than stretched skin to accommodate the pregnancy.
Silver and red stretch marks shimmered in the dull, golden light of the bathroom, her normally milky skin flushed.
“This is also common in mate circles when one is pregnant. You are allowed to want your mates. Especially now,” I murmured.
Ivy sighed, her free hand moving once again to trace my scars. “I’m figuring that out.” She looked back at me, eyes dark. “I’m glad you’re all here for this.”
“Even though some of us are still…wary?” I asked carefully.
My mate returned to her mindless tracing. Normally, I would test the bond, but I held back, waiting for her answer.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “At least you don’t have to worry about accidentally knocking me up after this.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, tightening my hold on her. “Perhaps not, but there are ways.”
That had Ivy pulling away from me completely and turning, her eyes wide. “Really?”
I nodded once, chewing the inside of my cheek. “Rare, but a fertility witch can impregnate a female with another female’s…essence. I’m not sure how it works, and it can be hard, but it can be done.”
Ivy watched me for a long moment before smiling. “Are you bringing this up as an option?”
“Perhaps.” I swam towards her and captured her in my arms once more. “Maybe in the future.”
Through the bond, I glimpsed happiness, bright and hopeful, and it soared through me in the same way.
I’d feared much throughout my life, but there were experiences I would only want to have with her.
And our future together had never looked brighter.