Chapter 53
Chapter fifty-three
YOU ARE MY ENEMY
Ornella
Iawakened for just long enough to see the Rot in Autumn finally healed, and then Caelan pardoned the Wild Hunt. Nuala’s curse was revoked, and the king may have even sanctioned Rian’s search for the other monarchs.
The rest of the day was foggy, but I could recall Sage carrying me and giving instructions about the wounded being taken to healers.
I heard him ask whether there was any information about his parents.
I vaguely remembered him helping me bathe and dressing me in one of his shirts.
He told Ciaran he could sleep by the fire, and then the last thing I knew with any real clarity was that my mate had crawled into our bed and wrapped me in his arms.
I recognized the silk sheets and the warm body next to me when I stirred awake in the night.
My heartbeat was elevated, as if I were in distress, but I was warm and safe in the arms of my mate.
The realization made me smile, groggy and content as I nuzzled closer to him.
I inhaled his scent and tried to ignore the nagging impression that something had awoken me. Probably just Ciaran.
I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep again, but the feeling that something was very wrong continued to grow until my mind sharpened enough to realize…
Someone else was in the room.
I screamed down the bond in the hopes of waking the other riders.
Then I shoved Sage across the mattress and away from whoever was looming behind me.
With my magic still weak, I whirled over with my claws extended and slashed blindly at the intruder.
I caught someone in the arm, which immediately soaked me with blood that smelled of crisp air and icy pines.
Winter Court fey?
There was a masculine roar of pain, and then more footsteps pounded through the room. I heard Sage yell my name and felt him grab my arm briefly before someone jumped on him from the bottom of the bed.
I spun toward the pained grunts and thrashing limbs to help my mate, but I was totally blind. My fey eyes had never failed me in the dark before, which meant this was some kind of magic. My mind went to Ciaran for help, but my heart dropped when I realized the bond with him was horribly silent…
A rough hand snatched a fistful of my shirt and then gripped my face to shove me back down on the bed hard, but it was not the insane strength that scared me. It was the taste of the powder that I’d just been forced to inhale, which I would know anywhere.
Panic consumed me, and I went completely feral in a last effort to protect myself and my mate.
My claws were useless on my assailant’s smooth breastplate, but I did manage to draw more blood from his arms. That wintery scent confused me!
I thought only my people created the chuka powder, but these strangers definitely did not smell like Summer dryads.
Then the familiar scent of honey and cedarwood began to permeate the air, and my heart nearly stopped.
“Sage!” I screamed, using our connection to reassure myself that it was just a cut on his arm. But he had also been forced to choke down the fucking chuka powder.
I was yanked up and out of the bed and half dragged across the floor by someone enormous and wildly strong. The scuffle continued on the bed as someone made quick work of binding my wrists behind me, and then pulled a linen bag over my head, which cinched around my neck.
“Stop or I will kill her,” warned the male behind me, and I felt a cold blade being pressed against my throat.
That accent. I definitely recognized it, but in my utter panic it was impossible to place it.
Sage could feel the blade pressing against my throat through our bond, and the fight ended instantly. I felt tears welling as I listened to them hauling him off the mattress and toward me. Then someone’s immense palm hit me between the shoulder blades and shoved me.
“Walk,” the big creature ordered, and I felt the brush of curtains on my face as we passed into the main room.
“Sage? Ornella?” called Ciaran, and the dread that had been brewing in my gut over his fate eased.
“We are here,” Sage replied behind me, which meant their connection was also being disrupted by the chuka. Thankfully, the bond with my anam was inherent and not fully magic in its nature. Similar to my shifting abilities, the chuka never fully repressed those either.
Any idea who they are? I asked Sage through our bond as the three of us were marched across the room.
No, he admitted as I felt him examining my thoughts concerning Summer dryads and chuka powder. But they are about to take us through a portal that feels like it was created by an Autumn fey, he added quickly.
There were spies within the army, I guessed in disgust. Where are the vargr?
Darragh took them all hunting. He followed the Fuath to ensure they returned promptly to Dulgune, Sage said, just as the heat of the portal kissed my skin.
Without any preamble, I was pushed through a warm barrier, which parted around me like silk and stumbled on the uneven ground on the other side.
I had enough sense remaining to recognize that we were still in Ahnnaòin.
Actually, I was pretty sure we had only been taken into the forest just beyond where the battle had taken place.
I was forced to my knees, and I felt Sage and Ciaran pushed down on either side of me as well. Then the bag was abruptly ripped off my head, and I winced from the sudden glare of firelight. At least whatever spell had been making me blind had finally been lifted.
I blinked watering eyes and squinted as I tried to see who had attacked us. But absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the face I saw glaring down at me.
“Riordan?” I gasped as shock momentarily overcame all sense of self-preservation.
I was briefly relieved to confirm it was not my people who had come for me. But the dread gradually returned as the Vale King’s thunderous expression darkened.
I glanced around and saw several Autumn fey who had undoubtedly come from the Vale to assist by portalling griffins around our encampment unseen.
But it was also highly likely that some of them had infiltrated our ranks in order to pass Riordan information.
I did not believe it was a coincidence that we had been attacked right after the battle whilst we were still weak.
There were also many stoic griffin warriors around us, including the two standing right behind Riordan who had been with Amira when we took her.
When she first woke up in our prison, she had been worried about three other people aside from Orion.
That meant the handsome male with the scarred face was probably Ares.
When I saw my claw marks on his bleeding arm, I knew he was also the one who had drugged me and dragged me out of my bed.
And the brawny female with the dark waist-length braid had to be either Sofia or Helena.
Ares pointed a knife at Ciaran that was likely the same one he had pressed against my throat to threaten Sage.
“That one dies by my hand,” he declared, but Ciaran merely raised his brows.
“Because I set your wings on fire? They look perfectly fine to me now,” the other rider pointed out with a smirk. “Or because of your pretty friend?”
Ares snarled and stepped forward like he would carry out his threat, but the dark-haired female put her hand on his golden breastplate and shoved him back again.
“You are here for Amira,” I interrupted with a glare at Ciaran before I turned my attention to Riordan.
“I have come for Amira and Orion,” he corrected.
His voice was clipped, and he was tense as if it were taking great effort to restrain his violence.
He had been so sweet and gentle with Amira in Uile Breithà that he did not even seem like the same male.
There was a palpable threat of savagery hanging in the air around him that let me know that one wrong move would be fatal.
I had to diffuse the situation quickly or a lot of people were going to get hurt. Starting with my mate and my friend.
“We have not hurt them. We only took them so you would not ally yourself with Queen Aoibheal and collapse our court like—”
“Do you think that was intentional?” snarled Riordan, his golden eyes flashing. And I suddenly became worried that he might be too angry to actually hear any logic.
“No,” I admitted honestly, my heart pounding harder with growing dread. “We needed to protect ourselves.”
Riordan stepped forward. Sage tried to put himself in front of me, but he was shoved to the ground by someone who then put their foot on his back to hold him.
I tried to soothe my mate with our bond so he stopped struggling, but the Griffin King grabbed me by the jaw.
I felt Ciaran being jerked away from me when he reacted defensively as well, but my attention remained on my friend’s mate.
Riordan gripped me painfully hard as he half dragged me up off my knees by my face.
“Amira never stopped fighting for you. Not even when you joined the enemy,” he rebuked me before he pushed me roughly back to the ground. He looked disgusted.
“Amira was not the one betrayed!” I shouted at him, unable to hold back when he exposed the raw insecurities that had plagued me before committing to the Wild Hunt. “How quickly you have forgotten that I was prepared to fucking die to protect the both of you.”
“But how long was it before you caved and told our enemies everything they wanted to know?” he scoffed.
“The Wild Hunt is not your enemy, Riordan! I did not forsake you. I found my mate. I found family and a home where my heart was finally safe and cherished!” I insisted as my tears blurred my eyes and streamed down my face.
Riordan was unmoved.
“You may not see me as your enemy, but you became mine when you came after my mates,” Riordan told me as he straightened. “And I cannot forgive you for it.”