Chapter 17 #2
Shadows darkened the room beyond him, and the air chilled as they formed a wall between him and the wood-burning stove.
“It is not. Let me go in there for you. I know the male. I can slip in unnoticed. I know this is important to you. If you desire it, I will bring the male to you. There is no need for a fight.”
Gods, it was tempting.
“You heard what Beau said. Seelie wanted me too. Lucas might know why. I could get information out of him.” I wasn’t sure I could, but it was worth a shot. It was better we knew what we were up against in case those seelie came after us.
“I saw the seelie with my own eyes. I saw him flee the second he felt me summoning my power. But if you want to question Lucas about something, we question him when I bring him to you,” he growled.
“There is no good reason to put yourself in danger, Saphi. No good reason other than some misguided desire to redeem yourself because you feel responsible for the situation your pack are in, when you are not the one responsible. The prick of an alpha is.”
That hit too close to the mark and I couldn’t stop myself from flinching.
Because he was right.
I wasn’t hurling myself into danger because I felt I could take down Lucas without raising the alarm. I was doing it because I needed to save my pack, and I felt responsible for the situation they were in, and some part of me did feel the need to exchange myself for them. To sacrifice myself.
What was wrong with me?
Kaeleron was right. It was stupid to go to the Hunt Pack and think I could take down Lucas alone. It was suicide.
“Then what do we do?” I lifted my gaze to meet his, my brow furrowing as I thought about my pack. My family. My friends. “I have to do something, Kael.”
His eyes softened and he raised his hand and brushed his knuckles across the back of my cheek as he looked at me with so much emotion in his eyes that I felt as if I was drowning in it, the world fading away as I lost myself in him.
“I need to save them,” I whispered, heart aching at just the thought of them spending another day in captivity, at the thought of what Lucas’s men might be doing to the females of my pack, and frustration coiling tight inside me as I felt powerless to stop their suffering.
“I know, my little wolf.” He slowly shook his head, causing the braids that hung behind his pointed ears to brush his strong neck. “This is not the way though. Let me bring men. If not men, let me bring Malachi. We shall follow your every command, only cutting down the wolves you set as a target.”
“But the Shadow Court—”
“Is in good hands,” he interjected. “Jenavyr and Riordan will remain there with the army, and Rhyn’s men are still with him and his brother, Fallow. Oberon remains too.”
Morden stiffened.
Kaeleron did too when I glanced at my friend to check on him.
He murmured low, “You know.”
“Morden told me. As you love to say, there will be a reckoning. But you’re not the one to blame.” I searched his eyes, reassuring myself that I was right about that, and the flicker of guilt in them confirmed it for me.
“He has been well scolded for his actions. He meant only to protect the Shadow Court, but that does not excuse his behaviour, and when we return to Falkyr, I will have him brought before you.”
When we return to Falkyr.
We.
I nodded, silently letting him know that I wanted that, but also letting him know that he was right and that he wouldn’t be returning to the Shadow Court alone.
Morden watched me closely, something I couldn’t decipher in his eyes, but it looked a lot like disappointment, or maybe just disbelief.
I knew he wouldn’t understand my decision, even if I explained my reasons to him.
Falkyr was home.
It was home in a way my pack had never been.
I belonged there.
I felt that deep in my soul.
And it wasn’t only because the male who was stealing my heart a little more each day lived there.
“I will bring Malachi here. Do not move from this spot.” Kaeleron dropped a kiss on my brow and then he was gone.
Morden barely waited for the black star-flecked mist to dissipate before he was before me, scowling at me as he whispered, “You aren’t staying.”
I shook my head. “I don’t belong here.”
“You’re in love with him.”
A statement rather than a question, one voiced in a matter-of-fact tone that demanded a response from me.
So I gave him one.
I smiled.
“I am.”
I stiffened as Kaeleron reappeared in the exact spot he had disappeared from, Malachi looming beside him like a dark shadow dressed in tight black leather.
“Fucking gods.” Morden reared back, almost leaping out of his skin. “You have to just appear like that?”
“It is how teleporting works, wolf,” Kaeleron drawled as Malachi stomped away from him, checking every window and door as if it were an instinct and he had to obey it. “The perimeter is quite safe, Malachi.”
The big onyx-haired demon grunted as his pitch-black eyes landed on Kaeleron, and his enormous bat-like wings shifted as he shrugged. “Never can tell who or what is a danger.”
The dark abyss of his irises gained a purple-red glow as he shot Morden a pointed look.
So Kaeleron had informed his spymaster of what had happened then. This was going to go swimmingly. Another anti-Morden member added to our rag-tag crew.
“Hi, Mal.” I stepped forwards, a smile curling my lips as I gained his attention, and a very formal nod in greeting that made the light from the log burner glint off the gold tips of the black horns that curved from behind his pointed ears.
“As spymaster, your job is to report everything clearly, concisely and truthfully, yes?”
He nodded again. “It is.”
Kaeleron studied me closely, a dour look on his face. He knew what I was up to.
“Then you can tell me… how is the Shadow Court? Is everything really fine there or is that just something his royal highness is telling me to placate me and make me not send him home?”
“The Shadow Court is no longer in danger. Ereborne dispatched soldiers rather than scribes to assist us, together with the royal warlocks. With a force of two thousand men, our combined courts were able to eradicate the seelie invaders while the warlocks successfully closed the portal permanently.” He bowed, his left arm coming across his waist. “That is my report, my lady.”
I scoffed. “I’m not a lady. Just a wolf.”
“Just a wolf,” Kaeleron muttered, reminding me of our time in the Shadow Court and that storm he had been caught up in, and how he had made me strip him and where that had led, and my cheeks heated at the memory and the way he looked at me, so intense, so hungry, as if he wanted to re-enact that moment right now.
Despite our present company.
I cleared my throat. “A wolf who is going to need your help kicking some serious ass.”
“I live to serve.” Malachi dipped his head.
“So now we’re four. I don’t really see how that’s going to help us much,” Morden put in and leaned his hip against the back of the couch as he folded his arms across his chest. “Unless you’re planning on listening to reason and letting the fae grab Lucas and maybe Braxton too.
We take those two out and we’ll have little trouble getting the rest of the pack to back down. ”
It was a good plan.
One Kaeleron and Malachi were already nodding in agreement with as Morden stared at me, his grey eyes cold and dark, and hungry for violence. He wanted Lucas to pay too, wanted to take his own shot at the alpha.
Lucas was mine.
“Fine. We switch things up. We’ll scout the pack, get the positions of as many of our pack as possible, and if we see Lucas and Braxton, we grab them.
” I paced away from Kaeleron, staring at the wooden floor as I did my best to consider all the angles and things that might happen.
“Once we’re happy everyone knows who not to kill if a fight breaks out, Kael will take Malachi and hunt down Lucas. ”
I growled, the low rumbling snarl slipping from me before I could hold it back.
Because I wanted to hunt the bastard.
Kaeleron’s softening gaze tracked me.
It slowly hardened and darkened, bright blood red ringing his irises as his wicked mouth curved into a vicious smile.
“Malachi will hunt with Morden,” he purred.
Kaeleron stepped towards me, his gaze fixed on me, stealing my breath as shadows twined around his fingers to form sharp talons over them, and he held his hand out to me.
Midnight branching from his eyes as his skin paled towards moonlight.
My dark, beautiful Shadow King.
I slipped my hand into his and he pulled me up against him, his other arm banding around my back.
And snarled the most bewitching words I had ever heard.
“We hunt the alpha together.”