Before Chloe could enter, Mira stopped her.“I’m afraid, Aegisseer, that you must stay here.”
“What?!” Why?” Chloe asked, more than a little upset.
“All will be revealed soon. For now, I need you to trust me.”Mira stared deep into her eyes.
Something Chloe saw in those deep pools of wisdom must have eased her because when she spoke, she was much calmer. “I do trust you.” She turned to Oliver. “Let’s train. I feel the need to work off some of this stress.”
The warehouse that the Hawthorne Faction was staying in was vast. Mira brought us to the lowest level, where all their vehicles were kept. They moved here shortly after Reverie was abducted. We needed a safe place for Adelaide to lie low while we made plans to rescue Reverie. To say she argued fiercely when her men refused her the chance to fight would be an understatement. She only relented when Damien explained the strategy he had devised to gain entrance into Aurathia.
Only Sly and John were present; no sign of Adelaide or Jesse.
Both men were standing in front of a table with a small box on it. The box was unremarkable to the eye—small, square, fashioned of pale wood rubbed smooth by careful hands. No carvings, no inlays, no lock. It could have been mistaken for a jewelry case left on a bedside table.
I couldn’t explain my sense of dread at seeing it. But nothing in me wanted them to open that box.
“What’s the emergency?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“This box was delivered to our condo this morning.” John’s expression was grim.
“It’s from Selene. We didn’t want Adelaide to know about it until we could determine what was inside." Sly rumbled, nottaking his eyes off the box. “She’s upstairs and Jesse is keeping her busy.”
“Do you think it has something to do with Reverie?” Nathan asked with obvious reluctance.
John nodded. “It actually says ‘from Reverie,’ but Sly recognized the box as Selene’s.”
“Fuck.” Zane began pacing but never took his eyes off the box, much like Sly.
Jet approached the box. He had arrived at the warehouse separately, brought by Pantar, when he was unable to contact the military’s spy. “Do you want me to open it?”
“I’ll do it,” Sly growled, then squeezed his eyes shut. “I know how evil Selene is. You need to prepare yourselves because nothing good resides inside this box.”
I nodded and prayed to every Ancestor I could think of, asking for the strength to endure whatever it was.
Zeke stepped beside Jet, and that seemed to be our cue. We each stepped up, so we were standing shoulder to shoulder, drawing strength from one another.
Sly slowly opened the box, and I wanted to yell at him to hurry it up. But I knew why he didn’t fling the lid back quickly. Once we saw what was inside, we couldn’tunseeit.
When he finally lifted the lid enough to gaze inside, his chest sank. “There’s something wrapped in black satin.” He frowned. “The note on top is addressed to Adelaide.”
“Adelaide is not opening that,” John stated emphatically.
“I can smell Reverie,” Zeke growled, pupils slitted.
Mira and Pantar began growling low from near the entrance to the warehouse. Clearly upset, not of Zeke’s Draxon, but from the smell of Reverie that shouldn’t be coming from such a small box.
We definitely weren’t dealing with Zeke anymore. Maybe we could use this. “What else do you smell?”
“I smell evil, and a bitch that I mean to kill.” Smoke came out of Zeke’s nostrils.
He’d have to wait his turn. If I ever got my hands on Selene, she’d beg me to use my abilities to kill her because I was planning to go old-fashioned on her ass and use my hands.
“He is correct. There is a smell of wrongness and evil coming from the box.”Pantar spoke in our heads in a voice filled with more rage than I’d ever heard from him.
“What’s going on down here?” Adelaide marched down the stairs with Jesse close on her heels.
“Nothing, angel, go back upstairs. We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Sly said, scowling at Jesse.
“Hell no. I can sense that you're all hiding something from me. I’m not stupid.” She stomped to the bottom of the stairs and pushed in between the two men. “Where did that box come from?” She leaned closer and gasped, “That’s my name on the letter in Selene’s handwriting.”
