It was the longest twenty minutes of my life, but the closer we got the stronger my mate bond grew. I knew she was near.

The streets started to look familiar, though I hadn’t been here before. They hadn’t blindfolded Isay, which was a stupid move on their part. Soon, we discarded the navigation and I was giving the directions. A few minutes later, we pulled off by the warehouse I’d gotten a glimpse of.

From outside, it looked abandoned, although several parked SUVs crowded the entrance. The windows from this side were all dark, and a side door was properly barred up with wooden boards. My mate bond told me Isay was inside.

I was burning to get to her. Without waiting for the motor to still, I jumped out of the car and made my way to where the SUVs were parked. A main entrance was likely close by.

The rest of the warriors followed suit, cursing my tight ass. Regar’s words, not mine. I wished he’d stayed in the closet, because I was in no mood to humour him.

Not giving any of them a warning I barged through the door I’d found, leaving them either to hurry the fuck up or lose sight of me.

Three heads perked up from what looked like an office area. They carried no swords. Oh no, their hands went straight for their guns. The first bullet went stray, but the second barely missed my chin. My knife, however, was point on when I sent it flying, and one of the shooters dropped dead.

My backup arrived after I’d stormed the second one and confiscated his gun. Sinister’s throwing star ended the third fae’s very short run for escape.

“Let’s make one thing very straight, Kar,” Hiko growled. “From here on out, we’ll stick together. You will not run off without us. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” I grunted out, not entirely pleased with the verdict.

He nodded, pulled a gun off one of the dead men while I pulled my knife out of the other.

When we entered the hallway outside of the office, I immediately felt the fae in the other rooms. Their life prickling at my senses, their emotions wild after they’d heard the shots. A proof of that was a door at the end of the hallway slamming open with five fae storming out, guns pointed at us.

I didn’t think, just acted, and before anyone could shoot, their life forces were at my fingertips.

I pulled, and all five of them disintegrated. I kept moving, my warriors flanking me. Nobody questioned what I’d just done; we had no time for that, not now.

Down several hallways, I stopped in my tracks. There was a dead end in front of us, but Isay was somewhere to the left of me. We backtracked to another hallway, and I followed my instincts.

She was so close I could feel my heart warming up at her nearness. It also thumped rapidly in my chest trying to break through my flesh to lead the way faster than my feet could carry us. After the initial surge of pain, my ankle was now only throbbing slightly. It was easy to ignore through the anger of finding another dead end. I hated this godforsaken building. I needed to reach her.

“Kar, relax, she’s here somewhere.”

I couldn’t relax no matter what Regar said. He didn’t understand what it was like to be this close to someone you loved, yet so far away.

I rushed back down the hallway we’d come from, running head first into another dispatched fae troop. This group was faster to shoot at us than my newfound ability could kick in, and Hiko sent bullets flying at them until his borrowed gun ran empty, at which point we all resumed with hand-to-hand combat.

I was repeatedly stabbing my knife into one of the bastards, sending blood splattering over my clothes and the floor, when a familiar voice spoke up down the hall.

“If it isn’t the Quaffer.”

I let go of my victim, who was dead seven times over, to face my number one enemy now that Ferro was gloriously dead.

“Lord Terwyl, I can’t say it’s been a pleasure,” I spat with more than an inkling of venom.

He’d taken the potion. I knew it because he looked just as cocky as Ferro had just before I’d drained him anyway. We had guns, we had swords and throwing stars.

He had to be completely bonkers if he thought none of it could hurt him. Or he had to think he was invincible.

The potion didn’t give superpowers. It didn’t hold off bullets. It most certainly didn’t hold off a life fae’s ability to detect ecos without restraint, and once I had my hold on it, it wasn’t difficult to switch to my death touch without actually touching him and draw out a good portion of it. His hair turned silver as his face crumpled up.

Crazed eyes couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but I wanted him to know. I needed him to know before he died what a terrible, terrible mistake he had made.

“I told you not to take what was mine,” I growled just before I drew the rest of his ecos from him.

Chapter 38

SIYA

I DID THE RIGHT THING. FOR ME AND FOR ISAY, HAVING VINDICA’S fiercest warriors out of the prison and searching for her was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do, only thing I could do for my daughter.

It was my fault she was in this mess to begin with, indirectly of course. I had subjected Isay to this world of horrors. Not everything was bad here, however. I was loved. She was loved, too, whether she knew it or not.

In a way, we belonged to Vindica more than we ever did in Elverstone. Promise of love kept me grounded in that cabin longer than I expected. I would have waited for it for eternity had Grath not given me more than promises. His love set me free from my past.

I took careful steps into the study where Grath hovered over a stack of official-looking papers. A letter in his hands had recently arrived, and he frowned reading it over for who knows how many times already.

The rest of the study was neatly arranged to match his impeccable taste. Wooden masterfully carved bookshelves were as much of a display as the works they held. High panelling matching the dark oak reached half-way to my hip while the rest of the walls were painted warm grey. The man behind his massive desk, however, was far from being warm. Not right now, at least.

Grath’s black hair hid his eyes from my sight, but the curve of his lips stopped me from walking in any further. He hadn’t looked up from the letter even though I knew he heard me come in.

I did not blame him. He was mad at me for releasing Karmuth and Regar. I’d gone against his orders. I’d also indirectly encouraged several more of his subjects to defy direct commands. Someone was going to pay for my actions. I just hoped it wasn’t going to invoke a death sentence.

It didn’t please him to see me hurting. I knew he cared for Isay, too. Being a leader meant he was stuck making decisions based on the benefit of many. I’d taken that opportunity from him when I set war loose on Felroth. They’d been asking for it, and, I hoped every one of them burned to ashes.

“Siya, my dear.” Grath’s deep voice vibrated through me every single time he addressed me this way. His tone always softened when he spoke to me, as if he was holding back the authority he’d been born with. He also gave me a tight smile, not managing a real one.

I’d thought I’d never feel loved again after Nefari, after he’d… left me to raise Isay on my own. He had no space in my heart any longer; I would not let him. I was done waiting for his return, and I’d given myself over to another male, a good male. His love was my freedom.

“My heart and soul,” I replied.

“I owe you an apology,” Grath said. Finally dropping the paper, he rounded the table and joined me where I’d stopped in the middle of the study. “I should have heeded your pleas. We’d have Isay back by now had I not delayed the rescue.”

I swallowed the worry for my daughter down, keeping a strong and confident front even before Grath.

What I feared the most? That Grath had been wrong, and they’d hurt her irreversibly. That the warriors would come back emptyhanded, either not finding my girl or reaching her too late.

What if Grath’s delay had cost Isay’s life?

Could I forgive him, could I look him in the eyes and forgive him if the worst was to come to pass?

I did not know if my love for him was strong enough to survive the devastation losing Isay would put me through. I could not lose Isay.

If all was lost, I’d have only Grath to lean on. I mustn’t loathe him for his verdicts. He’d been under constant pressure longer than I’d been in court. His fae were starving, growing weaker every day that their feeding grounds stayed restricted.

I could share my ecos with the court, but I was only one fae and couldn’t generate barely as quickly as I’d hoped to. Isay could do more, and she had already done more for the court than I. Nefari’s bloodline ran deeper than I’d ever suspected.

No one could know… No one could find out from where her power originated. She would remain off-limits, safe. Once she was back... if she’d be back.