Chapter Fourteen
Haide
“So.” I lean back, crossing one boot over my knee as the last gifted clears the room, leaving only me, the royal crew, and the blonde twat. “You want to talk about what caused the flood, or are we pretending I’m the problem?”
“Sit the fuck down if you’re staying,” Legend warns, his voice low.
“No.” I turn to his brothers, sick of looking at his face. “Someone started that flood. I didn’t.”
“I think we know that,” Vicente murmurs, without a single snarl. When my eyes land on him, his head dips. “Thank you, Haide. You did well today.”
My shoulders fall and my brows knit.
This is the first time I’ve ever felt any kind of… I don’t know what it is, but I don’t hate it. The corner of my mouth twitches slightly, and his chin dips a little more.
“This is not happening! This is what she wants you to think!” Arabella screeches. “She flooded the academy herself.” Her hand slaps the table, rings clinking against the wood. “Think about the timing. Look at how she’s acting, like—”
“Oh, shut up.” London’s voice cuts through every other sound.
Arabella’s chin snaps toward her. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” London’s eyes land on hers, and she leans back in her chair. “You keep running your mouth, and it’s annoying. Blaming her once again when you weren’t even there and have no proof.”
“I don’t need to be there.” Arabella’s voice pitches up. Oh no, the princess is being challenged. “And the proof is in what she is. She is a witch and a liar!”
“And what are you?” London challenges, lifting a brow. “Innocent? Good?” She pauses. “Real?”
The last word lands heavily, warping the silence. I straighten. This exchange has suddenly become interesting. Arabella’s lips press into a thin line. “She is going to be your downfall, and every single one of you refuses to see it!”
“You know what?” London tests the word, her chair scraping against the ground as she stands. “I’m about a fucking—”
Legend cuts between them. “Arabella—”
Arabella’s eyes blink on Legend, and I see it. Right there. When they shift from fight to plead. “She hurt you, Legend, and she tried to kill me.” She turns wholly to him, lips trembling. “She has tried to kill me twice and you are all treating her like—”
“Unless you wanna fight a royal fucking demon?” Legend gestures to London. “You’re gonna need to shut. Up.”
Arabella continues speaking over him with increasing volume. How the fuck can she get louder?
Legend bites back at something she says until Vicente intercedes. Knight attempts to pull London back, only to be shoved backward, while Sinner drags a hand down his face.
It’s all fucking hilarious.
I consider asking for a snack to really enjoy the show, but that would mean interrupting them, and I’m way too entertained for that. Movement beyond the table catches my attention and I look up.
Creed stands in the corner, half-swallowed by shadow, his back against the wall with his arms crossed. He presses a finger against his lips, gently nudging his head toward the door. A quick glance at the others shows they’re too distracted by their own drama to notice anything else.
Creed carefully slips out the door.
“Beast?”
“Follow him,” he urges. “He knows the truth now, remember?”
“And what do we think he plans to do with this information?”
“One way to find out, Hellpet.”
“And if it goes south?”
“You can take him.”
I swallow the laugh threatening to build in my throat, not wanting to draw attention.
Might as well see what he’s got to say. Carefully, I slide out of my chair and follow through the same door he exited, where he waits on the other side.
He moves with purpose, leading me deeper into the palace than I’ve ever been, and I swear the walls around us hum faintly as we pass. We turn down a narrower hall, and he pushes open the final door.
Not sure where I expected us to end up, but it wasn’t a small circular room.
The windows cut high into the curved wall, and there’s nothing in the space but a single low table, covered in ink stains and books, that sits in the center. Torn pages are stacked under a—
“Is that my codex?” I jerk toward it.
The next thing I know, my back slams into cold stone.
Creed’s hand wraps around my throat, his other palm braced beside my head, boxing me in.
I tense instantly, muscles coiling and ready to knee his sorry ass in the nuts, but something in his expression stops me.
His eyes are not their usual calm, calculating blue.
They’re raw, but it’s not only that. His grip around my neck trembles, a sort of desperation wafting off him in waves and thickening the air around us.
The Nightkin was wrong.
Creed doesn’t know anything, at least not for sure. He suspects, but something holds him back from believing what he’s seen or sensed or however the royals’ magic really works at its core. Honestly, it’s probably me. I’m the problem.
The poison seeping into his thoughts and taking over.
That must kill a man like him. His own power being the reason for his sleepless nights. By the looks of it, he’s had a ton of those.
But something’s changed. What could have happened without me here that now has him second-guessing himself?
The longer he stares into my eyes, the more strained his become, his fingers twitching against my throat.
I should tell him to suck my dick and revel in his moment of weakness, because that’s what this is.
Only, for some stupid fucking reason, I don’t want to.
“How do I let him in?”
Creed’s brows pull together. “Who?”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
I feel the Nightkin shift inside me, that low hum turning attentive, but he doesn’t answer.
Creed’s grip loosens as realization slaps him across his face. His brows jump, eyes widening in a way that looks dangerously close to awe. “So it’s true.”
“Which part exactly?” I tilt my head despite his hold. “Last I heard, there are a fuck ton of things floating around about me right now.”
“His Ethos.”
My silence is answer enough.
Creed releases me abruptly and I shove him back in spite, smirking when he stumbles a half step before catching himself.
“Beast.” This time, I speak inside my head and watch as Creed’s eyes narrow.
“Trust, Hellpet. Your powers are still wild and angry, but they’re protecting you until you learn how to protect yourself. You’re fated to a man of royal blood, that means you’re strong enough to rival one. To let him in, the thing that lives inside you must believe he’s of no threat.”
“But I don’t trust him.”
He goes silent before a warmth rushes down my spine, and I wish I could lean into the touch. “Are you sure, little mate? He offered to help you once. I believe he’s ready to keep his word.”
My jaw clenches as Creed continues to study me with unwavering focus.
“You don’t have to show me.” He surprises me with his words. “I didn’t ask you in here to dig around in your mind.”
“But you want to.”
“I only want to find the concrete truth.”
“How will you do that if you don’t have all the facts?”
“Do you have all the facts, Haide?” He pushes. “Or are you walking without them, same as me?”
“Your brother belongs to me,” I throw it out. “I didn’t ask for him, I didn’t trick him, and I don’t even want to want him. I just do and he just is.” My chin lifts, bracing for the fight that always follows.
All I get is a very guilty, “I know.”
“How?” It doesn’t matter how, honestly, but it might help with that nasty little five letter word the Nightkin brought up.
If I thought I was bad at trusting before, gods help us now.
“Because I can feel the pull to you,” he admits.
“What pull?”
“Haide, what do you know about the bonding process? Specifically, bonding with a Royal?”
“Everything that can be found in that.” I point at the codex. “Why do you have it?”
“Because I had to know for sure.”
“Know what?”
“If you were killing our people to make us look bad and turn our realm against us. Legend hasn’t been right since he brought you back.
He went to that island and came back different with you at his side.
I felt it immediately: a void where there wasn’t one before.
Knight didn’t have that same void when his bond first formed with London, so that told me something was wrong.
At the time, the only logical conclusion was that you were the problem. ”
“And now?”
Creed holds my gaze, his shoulders falling a little. “The codex is a living archive with warded ink. Every crossing of a threshold, every portal tear or shift through sanctioned lines leaves an imprint in it. It’s called a magical signature and it tracks the echo of power as it moves.”
“So, what you’re saying is all the students at Rathe walk around with a tracker in their bags and they don’t even know it.”
“That is exactly what I am saying. That’s why it’s a requirement to keep it on their person at all times. They’re young, dumb, and have a lot to learn about who they are and what they are capable of. It’s necessary.”
I cross my arms. “And what good was that thing to you when it comes to me?”
“I was able to look through your time on campus and line up when and where you were during the murders, something I should have done from the beginning. You were at every site, but seconds or more after the death clock.”
I wince. “Yeah, before you celebrate that, I should tell you the murders were one hundred percent because of me. It was…him.”
Creed frowns. “Who?”
“The Nightkin.”
Creed blinks. “He has…a name?”
I shrug. “He had a body back on Exile.”
“That’s—” Creed shakes his head. “We’re getting off track. I fucked up. And I need your help to fix it.”
“What exactly did you do, Creed?”
“Legend is tied to Arabella. My brothers and I, with the help of a mage, used forbidden magic to form a fake bond.”
Anger tears through me, but I’d already figured as much. Well, not the forbidden part, or the part where they all helped, I don’t know shit about that. But I know that thing between them is rotten to its core.
I just need to make sure it doesn’t reach him before I can. Problem is, I have no idea how to fix any of this and if the beast does, he hasn’t exactly shared that yet.
Probably because he knows if there’s a way to let Legend rot and save the Nightkin, I’m more likely to lean that way.
“Hellpet.”
Knew it.
“So, you went and did to Legend the very thing you accused me of doing. And now you want me to help you clean your mess.”
I don’t need almighty magic like the man in front of me to know what he’s feeling. Creed doesn’t hide his regret. I don’t think he could even if he wanted to. He looks that fucked up about it. As he should.
“That is exactly what I’m saying. Help me find a way to make this right and I swear to you, no matter the cost, I will make up for what I did to you. And him.”
Staring at Creed Deveraux, for some dumb reason, I believe him. And isn’t this part of the reason I came back here?
To save Zev, but also to save the part of my mate that fought for our bond from the very beginning, even when I didn’t know it.
To do whatever it takes to protect the Nightkin.
Having a royal on my side can only help with that—not that I have to admit as much to him. But just because I believe him doesn’t mean I’m going to make this easy on him.
Which brings me to the other reason why I’m here.
“Okay, king dickhead.” Creed’s lips twitch, but it’s almost sad. “I’ll help, but I need something from you first. And this is in no way part of you making it up to me.”
“Name it and it’s yours.”
“Give me back my best friend.”