Jax and I exchange a glance.
“Fuck yeah,” I say with a shrug. “Clearly the last trial is not happening anytime soon, and I would love to do something else than be whipped by Kazh, verbally and physically, from sunrise to sundown.”
“Well, it’s good you offer,” Vera says slyly. “We have another huge rescue planned soon and could definitely use more hands.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
PHOENIX
The next day, Vera hosts a party at her studio for House Dzuni. Her apprentices are entertaining the nobles with intricate dances, beautiful songs, and exquisite music they play with drums, guitars, and flutes. The plum wine flows in rivers, and the most lavish dishes cover the large dining table where over a dozen nobles sit.
Thankfully, we don’t have to take part. Once the dinner is in full swing, Jax, Vera, and I sneak out through the side exit in the kitchen.
“Won’t they notice you’re not there?” Jax asks.
I snort. “Nobleman Uringi probably already noticed.”
Vera throws us an amused glance. “I ordered two extremely skilled girls to occupy Nobleman Uringi in my private bath chambers while we do this. We’ll be back before he even remembers I exist.”
Jax and I exchange a glance and chuckle.
The party is just a distraction. Vera’s taking us to the heart of her Savage King operations so we can meet the rest of her team and discuss the details of the upcoming rescue mission.
I’m surprised when we don’t go far.
We don’t even leave Bussek.
I recognize Ri’s house from a distance. Instead of going through the front door, though, Vera rounds the building and knocks on the wooden door on the side. It swings open to reveal an unfamiliar face.
We follow Vera into the narrow stairwell that leads us to the basement. It’s small and cramped. Definitely not the headquarters I expected. There’s nothing but old barrels and boxes, walls covered in mud, thick webs with fat spiders hanging above our heads.
“Is this where you run your operations from?”
I look around, making sure I duck low enough not to walk into one of the webs with my face.
“Of course not,” Vera says.
The girl that opened the door for us disappears behind the wall of old crates. Vera follows her. Hesitantly, I do, too. It’s tight here, but behind the crates is a narrow door. I squeeze through it and hold it open for Jax, who’s fighting for his life to remove a nasty spiderweb he walked into.
I try very hard not to laugh, but the faces he makes as he tries to shake the sticky white web off his fingers is hilarious.
Slowly, we shuffle through the dark, narrow corridor. It smells like mold and death. When I accidentally touch the wall, I almost gag. It’s sticky and moist.
“Vera, where the fuck are we going?” I whisper-yell.
“You’ll see.”
After another torturous five minutes of walking, the light at the end of the tunnel appears. Hinges creak as the door opens and we emerge in a room carved out of stone. My steps halt as I take in the space—the rounded stone ceiling, no windows, and the round table in the middle with barrels for chairs stacked around it.
Ri sits on one of the barrels.
“Finally,” she says and arches an eyebrow. “Took you long enough.”
“You know how it goes with these parties, Ri,” Vera says and takes a seat next to Ri.
Ri eyes me and Jax, still at the door. “You brought strangers. Your champion. Again.”
I can tell she’s less than pleased to see me and Jax. I can’t blame her. To keep Savage King a secret, they must be protective of it and be extremely selective about who they bring into their circle.
