Chapter 83 Ivy
Ivy
My stomach gave a warning churn as I pulled on a pair of tights. I tried to ignore the way they felt tighter suddenly. In the mirror as I turned, I spied the one thing I’d been avoiding since my escape.
The scars on my back.
The sight had me almost heaving; they still looked new enough to hurt, but I’d stopped feeling them weeks ago.
Reaching behind me, I brushed my finger over the lowest rune.
It obscured Rowan’s mate mark completely, cutting off Maeve’s.
It would be hiding the newest marks from Damon and Hawk if they ever appeared.
A tingling sensation rushed down my spine, pain following it. I dropped my hand with a hiss, grabbed the last clean oversized t-shirt I had, making a mental note that we needed a washer and dryer here as soon as possible, because magic didn’t quite make these things feel clean enough.
“So, you did it?” Adrian asked, stepping into the closet, wearing his gear.
I frowned as I took in the clothing; the dark material pulled tight over his chest, the cargo-styled pants on his legs. And the heavy combat boots dragging mud into my perfectly clean bedroom.
“Why are you in gear?” I asked carefully, shoving my shoes into a pair of slippers. “Did something happen?”
Adrian shook his head, eyeing me carefully as he moved towards me. “I went out on patrol with Xerxes and Rhadamanthus,” he replied. “Trying to get along better. Work on the wards. Xerxes had some ideas for them so we went out to see if we could do it and Rhadamanthus joined.”
“‘Get along better’?” I clarified. “Interesting.”
“We haven’t had a chance to do one of those whole family date nights in a while,” he murmured, stopping in front of me, hands moving to my hips. Adrian rubbed circles against my stomach with his thumbs, the touch making me shiver. “And your mate circle will be complete soon.”
My stomach sank at the thought. The vision from after the palace attack flashed across my mind. Nine mates surrounding my cage, dead, reaching for me because they thought they could save me. But Dante had gotten to them first, and I…I hadn’t saved them.
A lump formed in my throat, making it almost hard to breathe as I nodded once. “Yeah,” I finally managed, trying to swallow. “It will be.”
A shadow passed over Adrian’s face as he watched me. “We’re going to have a meeting. About what comes next,” he said, voice low. “The blood moon is close.”
My stomach gave another warning churn, but I swallowed down the pressure building in my throat. “Okay,” I replied. “Yeah, we need to talk about it.”
My mate pressed his lips together, watching me warily for another moment before taking my hand and interlocking our fingers. “We’ll figure it out,” he said, though it didn’t sound like he believed those words any more than I did.
I allowed Adrian to guide me out of the closet. The bedroom was empty, the rest of the house quiet. The silence made the hairs on my arms prickle. Even the weather stopped its assault on the island. For a moment, I caught sight of the ocean, taking in the grey skies and still water.
It felt like an omen. The calm before the storm.
In a few days, we would either see the destruction of our world, or we would have ensured there was more time before he attacked again.
A deadline didn’t matter, not really. Especially not to Dante. If he had to force a full lunar eclipse, he would figure out a way to do it.
As we made our way down into the foyer, I heard my other mates; the gentle gruffness of Elias’s voice as he talked about something to do with an attack, Maeve’s careful calm as she read something aloud.
The uncertainty in Rowan’s as he asked about the timeline, Hawk’s stiff answers as Orion and Rhadamanthus spoke quietly about the island—how protected it was.
My heart pounded as Adrian and I stepped into the living room. All conversation ceased, eyes turning towards us.
And based on the looks they gave me, something was wrong. The lack of bonds made it difficult to read their expressions, but they were hiding something.
Thor, silent as always, rose from his perch by the back door, somehow maintaining a perfectly neutral expression.
The bear shifter, large and nimble, started towards me.
I’d come to pick up on the fact that he didn’t quite enjoy communicating with the others the same way he did me.
Touch seemed to be a struggle for him, almost like it was for Orion, though not the same—which I understood.
The bear shifter took my other hand, his palms rough and warm. But he didn’t say anything.
“What’s going on?” I asked, staring around the room, taking in my mates. “You guys look as if someone died.”
Maeve pressed her lips into a firm line.
She, Elias, Rhadamanthus, and Orion were seated at one end of the table like they were conducting a war council.
Laid out in front of them was a map of Avalon made from illusions; it detailed the large island—that was more like a small continent once you looked at it long enough—in vivid, clear detail.
The mountains bordering the palace and the small city on the other side of it that fed Oberon Academy.
Pack lands were marked with dotted lines, revealing the largest pack surrounded by the smaller ones.
Hidden in the north were the fortresses that housed vampires, scattered throughout thick forests and amongst more mountains.
The other smaller academies in Avalon were marked, the large cities a burning orange, smaller towns an ice blue. The islands we hid amongst were checked in yellow, our own hidden even on the map. That should have brought me some relief.
The rest of my mates were scattered; Hawk leaning against the fireplace, which sat empty and cold; Rowan at the other end of the table with his feet kicked up on a chair; Xerxes at the window, arms crossed, leaning against it as his gaze flickered between the table and the darkening sky.
My heart pounded as I moved towards the table, eyeing the map. As I approached, it appeared like there were flickers of light scattered across it. My earlier question went completely unanswered.
“What’s happening?” I asked quietly, staring at the flickering lights. “Are those attacks?”
The hesitation made me nauseous. But Elias nodded, releasing a harsh breath.
“These are reported attacks on officials who haven’t sided with Dante,” he replied, pointing to the twelve dots.
They were red, and each time the light flickered, I flinched.
“The Alpha of the second largest wolf pack. The Orianna witch coven of the south. The Hargrove vampires. The Vesper Bear pack and their council leader. He’s trying to pull as many of your supporters to his side. ”
“And is he succeeding?” I asked quietly, bile rising in my throat.
“Yes,” Maeve replied. “Without you there, he is winning.”
I collapsed into one of the chairs, heart thundering. A ringing started in my ears as I stared at the map. “They’re changing sides because I’m not there fighting for them.”
“Yes.” Damon sat back, and when I met his stare, he shook his head. “He knows you aren’t in the Underworld. He is trying to draw you out.”
“But he isn’t going to win them all,” Orion growled. “This is a ploy. He doesn’t want them—he doesn’t need them. Not for the new world he’s imagining. He’ll just kill them, so their shifting of alliance is weak.”
I shook my head slowly. “It doesn’t matter to them,” I replied. “They don’t know Dante’s true intentions. Right now, he’s out there. He’s making promises, he’s attacking and protecting. He’s showing himself. And I’m…” Hiding.
My words hung in the air for a long moment, but the silence only made me feel worse. I was hiding, not ruling.
I knew I’d be a terrible Queen, but I didn’t think it would be so obvious before I could ascend the throne and take the crown.
Dropping the hands of Thor and Adrian, I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling the dark strands back in frustration.
“He is doing everything he promised and more,” I murmured, watching as one of the lights in the north flickered out completely.
The nausea swirling in my stomach became even worse.
“Even if we somehow do succeed in taking him down and getting the skull back, who’s to say they’ll even want me as Queen? ”
“Ivy…” Adrian murmured, hand resting on my shoulder. “They will.”
“Out of obligation,” I glanced up at him, at the uncertainty playing in his green eyes. “Just like Pandora.”
“Pandora spent years getting the creatures of Nyx to respect her,” Damon said, drawing my attention back to him. “And I watched it all from Elysian. But she had it far easier than you did.”
“How? Before her, there were no Queens. No unified leaders. Right?” I dropped my head into my hands and groaned. “This isn’t helpful.”
“Pandora didn’t have an all-out war happening around her. That is the difference,” my mate said, his voice sharp. “Emris never got so far as to actually starting a war. He rallied troops, but once he was dead, Asael and Eryx went to Faery themselves and ensured they were disbanded.”
“Dante barely has much of an army, anyway,” Rowan added, speaking up for the first time.
I looked over at him, watching as he dropped his feet from the chair and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, no sign of the amused male I was used to.
“We know that much. For starters, we have a lot of his ranks in the dungeon of Elysian, and with our agents getting cleared of the poison, they’re going out more with other Elysian demons to capture his teams and are putting them away. ”
“Is that even going to work long term?” I asked. “Or are we just playing right into his hands?”
My mage pressed his lips together, the answer clear in his hazel eyes: he didn’t know. There was no way to be sure. Nyx and Sable had ensured we would always second guess every step because of their premonitions and vague warnings.
My hands trembled, stomach churning. “There are two things we need to do,” I started, staring at the hardwood table. “We need to get the collar off, and we need to find the skull.”
“Neither of those things we’ve made much progress on,” Elias said darkly, a growl deepening his voice.
“We’ve had a dozen or so agents try to get close to the palace now that he’s there, but they’ve all come back empty,” Maeve added, almost hesitant. “They can’t get close.”
Of course they had. Dante could be hiding it anywhere. A skull was a skull—it would be hard to explain away if he had it on him, but then again…
Then again, it was the source of his madness. He wouldn’t risk leaving it just anywhere, and the only place he would actually trust to keep it would be on himself.
“The skull isn’t really our main priority, though, is it?” Hawk said from the fireplace as he pushed off the wall. “Ivy and I completed our bond last night. She passed out again, but it was clear the completed bond did something.”
My fingers unintentionally went to the collar. The cool metal zapped my hand, the ancient magic that created it pushing against the power swelling within me. “Every bond I complete, I feel it,” I said, looking around the room. “I feel my magic getting closer.”
“But we don’t actually know if that’s helping,” Rowan said, worry flickering in his eyes. “We still might need the runes to get it off.”
From the window, Xerxes said, “I think it might work. From what I’ve learned about the Ivy’s power, it might be the only key.”
The last of my mates stared at me, the weight of their presences crushing.
Neither of them should be put on the spot and expected to do this.
It’d taken a lot longer for me to complete the bonds with mates I’d known since the start of this whole mess.
Xerxes and Thor had only known me a few weeks, and even after what we’d been through, I couldn’t expect this of them.
“You know what completing the bond would mean, don’t you?” I asked, glancing between the Primal and bear shifter standing across from one another. “It isn’t…simple.”
Xerxes blinked, but he stepped away from the window, taking a seat at the table. Beside me, Thor pulled out a chair and slid into it.
“Completing the bond could save your life—and all our worlds,” Xerxes said, sounding far too certain about something that was only guesswork.
“But could you actually accept being bonded to me for the rest of our lives?” I asked quietly.
“This isn’t just about screwing once, marking me, and then full power access.
The bond is a commitment. It took me a while to really grasp that before I started completing the bonds with my team, for some longer than others.
” My gaze flickered to Hawk, standing between Elias and Maeve, who watched us carefully.
“But for some of us, the choice was clear,” Adrian said, still standing behind me. “For some of us, we never had to think twice about it.”
My heart skipped a beat, racing as I looked back at him.
“I knew the second I saw you in the hotel, Ivy. And I never second guessed whether I would want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Adrian looked at both Xerxes and Thor then, features hardening. “You two need to be sure about what you want.”
Maybe it was too much to ask of them now, but when I looked back at the map, there was one less light.
I was too desperate, needed to end this all finally.
I needed my bonds back.