Chapter 27 #2
“What happened when he let you out?” Micah pressed, clearly the only one here fully capable of asking questions in a detached manner.
I shrugged, unsure of where to start. “He wanted to go after her, and I couldn’t allow it.
So I did the only thing I could think of that would work: I made myself valuable.
I… I devoted myself to him, body, mind, and soul.
I became the perfect female by his side and I did everything Silv wouldn’t.
I didn’t talk back or question him. I used my ice magic when he desired.
I killed his enemies when given the command.
I did everything I could to keep his eyes there, in the Court of Ice, with me, and not elsewhere on my sister.
Everything until you four showed up with Viktor. ”
Silvana’s brows pulled together and she stared at me. “What do you mean?”
Throat tightening, I stared at her. “Your mate killed one of the few people Keres cared about, Silv. He wanted you all dead. He’d ordered me to kill everyone there, including you, and I refused.
You never saw me again after dinner because I wasn’t there, and when I’d gotten out again, he was so angry that I did the only thing I could think to calm him and keep him on the castle grounds…
I gave him a prisoner with knowledge on you. A new toy to play with… violently.”
Every eye in the room turned to Cedar. All eyes, except Cedar, who I felt staring at me like I’d officially grown a second head. I felt the confusion radiating through the bond, his feelings and panic writhing through his mind.
“You gave me up—used me—so he wouldn’t go after Silvana?” He didn’t sound angry. No, he sounded broken, and I couldn’t make myself go there right now. I felt him reach for me, but I took a step back. The silence that ensued was deafening. Micah cleared his throat.
“That was why you didn’t let Keres kill him?” he asked.
I nodded, my eyes turning towards the blond vampire.
“I thought that if Keres believed he could make a more cohesive plan, if he could get information to aid him in finding success in bringing her back, he wouldn’t leave and I could make a better plan.
Cedar was just,” I let out a breath as I paused, “he was a means to an end. I just needed to keep my sister alive. That’s been the only thing I’ve been trying to do since our parents died. ”
Everyone in the room's eyes dug beneath my skin, wanting to see the inside of my soul, it felt.
“What motivates him? Power?” Bastian asked.
Silv had explained that Bastian was the leader of Raiden’s armies, so I wasn’t surprised that his only goal was to try to get inside the mind of Keres.
“Power. Glory. Greed.” I shrugged. “He wants it all for himself. Thinks it’s his right as the one true king’s offspring.”
Silvana’s eyes widened. “You know about that?”
A chuckle escaped my lips as I looked across the room at my sister, my own flesh and blood. “Males will drop a wealth of knowledge when they believe you’re only there to suck a cock and look pretty, Silv.”
The words came out snarkier than I intended, but she dropped the questions.
I didn’t want to talk about him and the things I’d done to ensure she remained safe and happy in life.
I didn’t want to lead some rebellion and save the less fortunate either.
I just wanted—even for a short time—to be free for the first time in my life.
I expected her to recoil, to roll her eyes. Something—anything other than walk across the room, away from her mate, and wrap her arms solidly around me.
“I never thanked you. I mean, I have. But not as much as what I should’ve,” she whispered, her face buried in my hair as her arms tightened around me.
Hesitantly, my arms wrapped around her. Unsure of what to do, I stood. Quietly.
When she finally released me, I glanced across the room as Cedar sat in a chair opposite of me, his elbows leaned forward against his knees, his eyes pensive and full of something more I couldn’t name.
“I don’t understand. If he’s a powerless fraud, why hasn’t anyone just killed him?” Cedar questioned.
“Easy. Loyalists,” Micah replied. “Keres has anyone close to him convinced that he is indeed the one that’ll save them.
The one who’ll bring them back to a time when vampires ruled and humans were nothing more than food.
They want that and they’ll do whatever it takes to achieve it when they believe he’s the heir to the original ruler of Kostbare.
The one who helped them feel powerful alongside him.
The one who allowed them to rule through mayhem and blood. ”
No one spoke for a moment while the reality of it sank in, but the silence didn’t last long.
Raiden cleared his throat before glancing over at Bastian and Micah. “I have something to confess, something not even Silvana knows at this point.”
“Excuse me?” she chimed in, her eyes wide as she openly glared at her mate.
“Bastian, Micah, Paine, and I have been working together to… remove citizens from the Court of Ice.” Raiden spoke so bluntly and without pause, that Silvana, Cedar, and I just stared. Allie, as normal, it seemed, didn’t seem shocked by this news at all.
“Removing like… killing?” I questioned carefully.
“Killing? No!” Bastian shot back, his eyes now wide as if he couldn’t believe anyone would think such a thing.
“No, not killing them, relocating them within small towns throughout the Court of Shadows and Ravens. For the last fifty years, give or take, we’ve been receiving survivors much like your family, Cora.
Families who’ve been killed and towns who’ve been burned to the ground by Keres and his madness.
Since Paine and I are court rulers, and Micah and Bastian are part of my inner circle, to go into his court and start killing people would be an act of treason.
It goes against the treaty drawn up between the four courts to act independently unless against a greater force.
So,” he shrugged, “we just send a few small groups over to rescue them when needed. Once they enter our courts, they’re ours to protect. ”
“I don’t understand, how do you know when they need you?” I asked.
Raiden smirked. “I have people there I can trust. People who’ve been wronged by Keres who knowingly go in and covertly fight for our cause. They send out messages or signals, we, my people, show up ready to take action when needed.”
Silence enveloped the room.
“That’s why you didn’t come for me until you did,” Cedar muttered quietly, his eyes all but glued to the floor. “You knew I was okay.”
“As okay as one could expect, Cedar. Cora did… well, Cora bought us time I didn’t think we had.
If we tried to get you out immediately, Keres would’ve fought it.
He would’ve seen you as the prize you are and fought to keep you.
Instead, I had to act as if you were nothing more than my mate’s friend.
When you gave him nothing, it made it all the more believable.
I had no true intention of letting him kill you, and Bastian and I had already come up with a multitude of options on getting you out before anything of the kind happened. ”
The anger I felt rose in my chest, but Silvana spoke before I could.
“You let my best friend be tortured for the entirety of winter, and didn’t even tell me he would make it out?”
His dark eyes rose to meet hers. “I told you many nights that he would be okay and I’d bring him home, my Ice Queen. Did I not?”
She shook her head, her eyes wide. “We’ll have words about this later. I don’t need any of your males coming to save you when I attempt a fatal blow, My Lord.”
My eyes found Cedar across the room, though he was now leaned back in his chair, his legs wide and his arms set on either side of the armrests.
He did nothing aside from stare at me, and I realized he was putting off an aura of calm.
As if he knew it would somehow tame down the anger rolling off of me in waves.
“Moving on, Cora, do you have any idea how Oren is?” Micah asked calmly.
A picture of the massive male meant to rule over the Court of Wolves emerged into my mind and my throat tightened. “He has good days and bad days,” I whispered.
“What does that mean?” Cedar questioned.
“Is there anything left there to save, Cora?” Raiden chimed in.
My eyes fell to the floor as my index finger drew small circles along my thigh, the words escaping me.
“Oren is… a special case. He doesn’t have magic the way Cedar does.
He can’t turn into a bird and fly through the window, so the shadow stone cuffs aren’t required for his imprisonment…
” I trailed off as my eyes met Raiden’s.
The Court of Shadows ruler had been around a great deal of time, ruling and learning alongside some of the eldest and most powerful vampires in all of Kostbare. He knew what I meant.
“He’s been shifting,” Cedar stated, staring at me wide-eyed as the truth of the matter sank in, and I nodded in confirmation.
When a vampire had a secondary animal form, like Cedar and Oren, I’d been told it was another side of their soul. More animal than anything else, and after talking with Cedar about how the magic worked, I knew that it was true. They were two separate entities connected through their magic.
“When Vega realized she could attempt her magic on him in any form, she didn’t care.
If they came in and he was in wolf form, they just injected him with more of the toxin like they did Cedar, to keep him calm and compliant.
He’s been kept alive simply because in wolf form, his only goal is to live, so he takes the blood no matter the smell and effects he knows will hit him.
Because of that… well, he’s alive, but he’s more wolf than male now. ”
Oren shifted to avoid the pain and betrayal he felt towards letting his people down. In doing so, I worried a slight shift may have taken place between his wolf and the male that Oren once was.
“I can’t and won’t say he’s gone completely, Raiden. Some days I’d take him a tonic and check on him and he’d be lucid. Other days he’d stay in wolf form for a full moon cycle. There is no way of knowing until he’s out and not locked in a box.”
Raiden nodded, his hands clasped beneath his chin as if he were in deep thought over the update I’d relayed.
“Bastian, call them in. I want to start coordinating with the coven leaders around the borders. Formulate a plan to covertly get him out without Keres being onto us. We have those inside to help aid our efforts, but we’ll have to pull them out at once, so use as few as possible,” Raiden said.
Bastian nodded and rose from his seat, walking out of the library, a look of grim determination on his face.
“Thank you, Cora. All of this has been an immense help.”
I nodded, unsure of what else to say on the matter when it wasn’t as if I had much of a choice in divulging my dark secrets and history.
Shaking off the uneasy feeling in my gut with Keres’s words still tumbling around in my head, I took my leave. Escorting myself back to my chambers without a second glance towards the raven shifter.
All my truths were out in the open now and he could do with it what he wished.