Chapter 57 Damon
Damon
My magic burned with each jump. Each time I shifted between the realms, I felt it wane.
But the final group of soldiers, mates of the late Queen, and children were in my grasp, and soon they would be home.
Not even I could have anticipated the half-demon’s choice to steal the magic of the island. His lack of memories made him a curious creature indeed, one I couldn’t help but admire.
At least the vampire had pulled the creatures together. Soon enough, I’d taken our Queen and her ragged group of mates to the edge of Avalon, where storms ravaged the islands and made the terrain unknown. But it was where we sought protection, hidden from the eyes of the false king.
Leaving her again had been one of the hardest things I could have ever done, but I needed to get the others back to the Underworld.
And I needed to retrieve our key to safety.
The throne room greeted us, already a flurry of activity. So many shifters being carried out after being put into sleep stasis. They were to be moved into private rooms where they could be monitored and hopefully coaxed into shifting, much like the bear my wife saved.
Then there were the soldiers. None got the benefit of the doubt. They were immediately taken to the dungeons to await further instruction from me or their Queen. Until they were questioned—and we could ascertain the truth—they would be kept away from the rest of my kingdom.
The mates of the late Queen were amongst those seeking medical attention, and the ones who jumped with me—Lazarus and my nephew, Onyx, as well as the one known as Theon—bid me farewell as they joined their brothers, handing small children off as they did.
To my great relief, the young ones were being treated with care. The demons of House Gluttony and Sloth were careful in how they handled them. Those that were shifted, however, remained as such. But they were being fed, at least.
“Are you alright, my King?” one of the Wrath demons asked. He was covered in blood—which he’d assured me was not his own—and his gear was not in the same state as when we landed in Faery, but he was unharmed.
I nodded. “See to it you are all treated by the healers. Check in with the generals and update them on everything you learned. If you found out where the entrance into the compound was, tell them. Share with them your trackers, build on our map.”
“And where are you going?” a witch asked as she ran a trembling hand through her sooty hair.
“I am returning to my wife.”
The young Windermere witch barely looked up from the sleeping Luna prince when I cleared my throat. Her eyes swam with a fierce protectiveness as she stepped away from his bed.
“Is it time?” she asked, crossing her arms.
I nodded once, glancing down at his unconscious form.
Dark bruises circled his eyes, and his skin was sunken, pale with a tinge of grey.
To the naked eye, he appeared dead, as if his soul had left his body.
And to all but us, he was. To those outside of the Queen’s direct council—and to her, I supposed—the Heir to the Luna Court had died by the hands of his father. And we had done nothing to change that.
“I dropped the others off on the coast,” I said, meeting her eye. The liner around them was smudged, with dark tracks running down her cheeks. “Now, I need you to unlock the island.”
The witch blew out a shaky breath and stepped away from the bed. “Alright. Will you…can you bring me back after?”
My eyes narrowed as I watched her, but I bowed my head once. “Yes. If that is what you desire, I will jump you back to the Underworld.”
“Thanks.” She cleared her throat before grabbing a duffel bag from beside the bed. “You should know I don’t feel anything inside his mind. No sign of Dante, but no sign of Orion, either.”
“He is there,” I said, motioning for her to join me. “His soul sits in wait, knowing it must be reunited with his body.”
The witch visibly shuddered, though she moved to my side. “What about Dante?”
“Cyrus claimed he was able to completely destroy his connection to Dante by dying,” I replied honestly. “That might have had the same effect on your friend.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” she murmured, eyes on the Fae prince. “I don’t like it, though.”
To that, I didn’t respond. Death could mean rebirth for some. For the prince, I had a feeling his moment in the hands of my old friend gave him exactly what he needed:
Freedom.
Crisp, cool air filled my lungs, the smell of rain heavy on the wind, a touch of sulphur not too far behind it. In the distance, a storm raged along the horizon, churning the ocean into something dark and twisted.
If there were sirens nearby, they’d fled for shelter in deeper water or made their way to land. The creatures of the deep would have likely also fled whatever this storm was.
The bed the Fae prince lay upon floated in the air as I turned towards the trees. For a moment, I saw nothing but deep forest. Just thick trunks over a thousand years old and swirling clouds hanging low over the tree line.
My breath caught in my throat as a moment of panic washed over me, but when the wolf appeared behind a large tree, the breath escaped me in a huff.
“Took you long enough,” he grunted, picking up the unconscious wraith. The power he’d consumed to get us off the island had been too much, so once the wards went down, so had he. “We got everything we need?”
Beside me, the witch stalked towards the trees. “There’s a charm hidden on one of these trees that hides a boat. We need to get that first.”
The world turned quiet as the witch moved through her list of precautions the Luna prince created. His hidden boat, the wards, everything. There was only a deep, shared understanding that we had to get away and find safety for our Queen. Not even those new to our world fought us on our plans.
It took little time to find the boat, step aboard, and sail into the storming sea.
Waves lapped at the edges, crashing into the sides and threatening to take us down. Jumping through the shadows would have saved us time, likely been much easier than having to sail, but the witch said she wasn’t sure we would find the island otherwise.
Through the maze of small and large islands, we remained quiet.
My wife slept in the arms of her charm mage mate, curled into his chest as he rested his chin on the top of her head.
Any sign she was still trapped in her earlier nightmare was gone, replaced only with the exhaustion written clearly across her features.
The fact that she slept without stirring had me concerned, but it appeared as though she needed the rest desperately.
We had no idea what the false king put her through, the kind of torture she was forced to experience. If she could sleep through this storm and each harsh rock of the ship, then so be it.
Without speaking, the witch guided us to what appeared like a large sand dune.
The Luna Prince’s warnings replayed in my mind, his story about the island becoming more clear.
He’d warned us that he’d hidden it with wards and glamours, ensured it would be completely hidden away from any who passed it.
But the witch drove the boat into the sand, dark hair whipping around her.
She didn’t look back as she pulled something from her duffel bag.
No one spoke a word to ask her what she was doing, though I doubted the Queen’s mates really cared so long as this fortress the Fae prince promised us would truly be safe for her.
My eyes strayed to my sleeping Queen as the witch tossed what appeared to be a rune stone into the air. She threw it three times, each time catching it in the palm of her hand, never looking back at us.
By the third time, she whispered something. The wind caught the sound, carrying it far from my ears. But the island rippled, the image blurring before settling once more.
Finally, when she looked back, her eyes were ringed in a soft pink glow.
“The wards are temporarily down to allow us in. Just walk straight and you’ll pass through the glamour.
We need to drag the boat in. From within the wards, you should be able to shadow jump.
I’ll show you how to close the glamour when we enter. ”
I could almost hear their thundering hearts, their thoughts too, as they jumped out of the boat and into the waves rolling across the sand. The mage holding Ivy handed her off to the vampire, who held her close as she walked up the sand towards the break in the glamour.
It was the Primal creature of the Old World, with help from the bear shifter and mages, who dragged the boat into the rippling image out of the storm.
First, the witch disappeared like she’d stepped into an entirely different world. Then the vampire holding our Queen.
And we followed soon after, entering the shimmering glamour and stepping into an entirely different landscape altogether.