Chapter 15 Rowan
Rowan
Icrossed my arms, taking in the old shifter.
I never had the pleasure of meeting him during my time at Phoenix, since he’d already retired from teaching before Adrian and I joined as agents.
But we’d heard stories about him; the missions he’d gone on in the mortal world hunting down rabid vamps terrorising humans, or the jobs he’d done in Faery, locating some of the worst mate killers known to our world.
He was a legend at Phoenix.
But he was also a traitor.
I definitely wasn’t going to be able to see him the same way again, knowing what he’d done to Wolfy and the others. How many children had he held captive for Dante? How many had he help torture?
And how the hell could he sit before us without fear? He wasn’t sweating, and he didn’t look like someone who betrayed his Queen, Goddess, and the people who’d looked up to him for years.
Maeve moved to stand in front of him, the smell of copper strong. She hadn’t bothered wiping her hands of Hyperion’s blood before coming here.
“Cyrus, you claim you can tell us everything we need to know.” Maeve cocked her head, something in her stance telling me she didn’t believe shit. “And you claim you can now do so because you died.”
The bear shifter lifted his chin, but not out of defiance. He didn’t even look defeated. Nothing about him screamed I’m being held hostage, but there was a flicker of shame in his eyes, an air of guilt.
“I can,” he replied gruffly. “And I’m not working for him. Never have.”
I snorted. “Sure.”
His eyes flickered to mine, narrowed. “We’re all pieces on a larger board being moved by the Goddess herself,” he said, looking between me, Maeve, Elias, and Rhadamanthus.
“I’m not the only one who went undercover searching for the enemy.
We’ve all been playing our parts. Some better than others.
” Those last words were directed at Elias, who stiffened. “I’m sorry.”
Wolfy pushed off the wall he leaned against and growled. “Don’t be sorry,” he hissed. “Tell us what we want to know and help me rescue my fucking mate.”
Shame and something else flickered in the dark eyes of the bear shifter. “I’ve been keeping tabs of the organisation’s workings. Their entire base is hidden in the Luna Court, which I suspect you already know.”
“Why didn’t you just…come to us?” I asked, stepping forward. “If you wanted to help so badly, you could have reached out.”
Cyrus his head. “It wasn’t that simple. Wouldn’t be until I got rid of the glamours and his hold on me.”
“If you were working for the Goddess, like you claim, then how did he have control over you?” Maeve pointed out. “Why not have protections against that?”
A sigh left his lips, the guilty air around him thickening.
“Because I wasn’t always her agent,” he admitted.
“For the first few years, I was a willing participant in his schemes. There was a small sector of us who were sick of the way the world worked. At first, it had nothing to do with Queen Greer. It was just a system that seemed unwilling to bend or be reformed. We wanted to see change, but then Hyperion Black became High Lord of the Luna Court, and we thought we had a voice on the council. That voice was quickly manipulated by another, hidden in the shadows.”
A chill rolled down my spine. “Dante,” I said, stomach clenching. “He was that voice.”
Cyrus nodded. “Never saw him. Didn’t know who he was.
But when he crawled out of the darkness, so did others.
And what started as a need for change shifted into something else.
” Cyrus stopped, clearing his throat as he dropped his eyes to the stained ground.
“I was a weak man, and I let him get in my head. So did the others.”
“Do you know who is on his High Council?” Maeve asked, crossing her arms. “Or where his compound is?”
Cyrus looked up. “Yeah. But if you want your girl back, then you better have a place to hide her once she’s out. He’ll know to come here, and you have too many civilians to worry about. He’ll throw everything he has into getting her back.”
“We have to be smart,” I said stiffly, crossing my arms. “We also need to get the others, too. She won’t leave her other mates behind.”
“The boy is right,” Cyrus said, his eyes on Elias. “A mission like that requires someone on the inside. Lots of pieces need to be manoeuvred at the same time for it to work, and you need to be prepared for what you’ll find when she comes back to you.”
Elias shook his head in disbelief, cracks finally appearing in the strong facade he threw up when he returned. The male who had tried to assume a leadership role was crumbling, revealing the broken wolf within.
I scrubbed a hand down my face as Elias turned away from his mentor. “We can’t do shit if we don’t know how to neutralise the God Runes Dante is using against her.” I glanced at the demon, then the bear shifter. “You know anything about those? How he even found out about Nyx’s skull?”
The bear shifter blinked up at us, as if we were speaking an entirely different language. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, looking between us. There was no way he was faking his confusion; it played out clearly in his dark eyes, in the tone of his voice.
“You’re telling me you don’t know about Dante’s secret weapon?” Wolfy stepped towards Cyrus. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. What the hell are God Runes?” Cyrus directed that question at me, but I shared a look with Maeve.
Even though I thought he didn’t know anything, that didn’t mean he wasn’t lying. Between her and Elias, they could easily tell when someone wasn’t telling the truth. But you’d think someone as old and well trained as Cyrus could tell a convincing lie.
“That’s a need-to-know basis,” Maeve replied after a long moment, keeping her voice even. “You not knowing about them tells me you weren’t as high up in his little council as you thought.”
For the first time since dragging him down here, he looked angry.
“I never claimed to be in his council,” he snapped, the chains holding him straining as he leaned forward.
“My job was to build his army. And I only knew those in the ranks around me. Dante liked to hold a lot of things close to the chest. Including whatever you’re talking about.
I guarantee his soldiers know nothing about it.
You want to get your hands on a council member. They’ll have answers.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek, glancing over at Maeve. I had a feeling we would find out where Dante got any of this from him and him alone. I doubted he’d share that kind of thing even with his most trusted.
“I already have one of his council members,” Maeve said with a shrug. “The High Lord of Luna is in a cell with the flesh being carved from his bones as we speak. And he won’t talk, because I have a feeling he knows about as much as you do.”
There was a cruelness in Maeve’s tone that made a shiver roll down my spine. She was usually very careful with the way she treated prisoners, but with Hyperion…
She’d lost all of her ability to remain calm.
And I couldn’t blame her, not when I felt the vile need to do worse to him for answers.
Cyrus bowed his head, but he said nothing at her response.
“Let’s take a moment,” I said, motioning to the door. “We need to figure out our next move.”
“We know our next move,” Elias snapped. “We need to go after Ivy.”
I gritted my teeth. “Let’s go.”
The bear shifter didn’t move as we left the cell. The witches lining the hallway moved to place their fists over their hearts when we exited, bowing their heads as a sign of respect.
When the door to the cell closed, the runes and charms etched into the metal took on a soft glow before settling into the door, trapping the male inside.
“I refuse to let her stay in that fucking hellhole a minute longer,” Elias growled, turning on me. The presence of his wolf shone through his green eyes, but he somehow maintained control. “We need a plan of action now. We can figure out the runes later. All we need is Ivy.”
“Don’t think we aren’t on the same page,” Maeve said, her accent thick with barely hidden anger. “Archer and I both want our mate back. But we must think logically. We cannot risk Ivy’s life, but we also can’t allow her vision to come true.”
“The only vision coming true right now is his,” the wolf hissed. “Come on—”
“We are no use to her captured,” the demon king interjected. “But I can also admit that I hate waiting. I do not like the idea of her being with him any longer.”
“She’s not the only one we need to get out.
If we leave without her other mates, then we’re in for a hell of a lot of trouble, especially if Dante decides to use them against her,” Maeve said, taking a step back.
I drew in a deep breath, sulphuric burning my lungs, but it was better than the anger.
The fear. “We need a plan to get them all out.”
Elias scrubbed a hand down his face. The battle in his mind was clear, the fight he was having with his wolf playing out in his eyes. I felt it within myself, too.
“My mother is hiding something from Dante. He said it himself.” A lump formed in my throat, one I couldn’t push down. “That might be the only thing keeping Ivy alive right now.”
“You sure you think the blood moon is when he’s going to get her power?” Elias asked, turning to me.
I froze, heart pounding, uncertainty coiling deep in my gut. “Maybe,” I replied quietly. “We can’t know—”
Before I could finish, Elias turned on his heel and pushed open Cyrus’s door. “What do you know about the blood moon in Avalon?”
I couldn’t see the shifter, but there was a pause. “Used to hear whispers. A Luna Fae—not Black, but another—used to track the cycles for Dante. Timed them for when your girl was meant to be coming here. He’s been planning this for a long, long time.”
Sickness curdled deep in my stomach as Elias slammed the door and turned back to us, the colour drained from his face. “When’s our next lunar eclipse? We can’t wait.”
“Three weeks,” Rhadamanthus said darkly. “We have less than that to rescue her.”