“Enough!” Lazza booms, and his voice echoes around the room. “It’s time Treno sees the truth.”
“Yes, Syta,” she chirps.
With that, Loa reaches behind her and threads her fingers through the long black hair at the back of her head. She fumbles with something for a second and then pulls out what looks like a bobby pin with gnarly looking teeth. She throws it on the ground, and it goes skidding toward Treno’s feet. It stops about a yard away, and we all just stare at it. I wait to see if it’s magically going to morph into video surveillance of me with the Hidden, or maybe it’s some kind of voice recording device.
Nothing happens.
Lazza starts to speak, and the hair on the back of my neck and arms stands up. My head snaps in his direction, and fear runs a cold finger up my spine. He’s spewing out power words. I recognize the cadence of them immediately, and they wrap themselves around me like old friends to then run off to do whatever it is Lazza is telling them to do. I can practically see the magic pour out of his mouth and slither toward the clip Loa threw on the floor.
A black jewel glints in the light on one end of it as the magic wraps around the object. The jewel starts to smoke, and then all of a sudden like it was made of gun powder, there’s a pop and then it turns to ash. I’m still confused by what any of this means, but Loa gives a weird groan, and it pulls me from the whirlwind of questions circling through me.
I look over to find that Loa’s face looks wrong. I watch as slowly she morphs from a massive broad-shouldered female, with straight black hair, into a slightly more delicate female with light brown hair and gray eyes.
She looks triumphant as the magic in the room dissipates and the hair pin crumbles into dust on the ground. Treno squints at the revealed visage like he’s trying to put it all together.
“Raquel?” he asks hesitantly, his tone bewildered like he can’t believe his eyes.
Loa laughs and offers him a wide half-crazed smile that has Pigeon renewing her assault at my defenses.
“How?” Treno demands. “You’re dead.”
A low growl resonates through the room, and my head snaps in the direction of Ryn. He’s still on the ground, but his eyes are fixed on Loa, or Raquel, or whatever her fucking name is.
“Silence, brother, you only have yourself to blame for this,” she snaps, and my eyes widen as the connection snaps into place.
I look from Ryn to his sister, and it’s impossible now to miss the similarities in their face, hair, and eye color. Loa-Raquel is still too masculine to ever be called pretty, and even with a different face, I still want to rip her fucking guts out.
Treno looks at his brother and then back to Loa-Raquel. “You knew she was alive this whole time?” he asks incredulously.
Lazza rolls his eyes. “I had a chance early on to get someone on the inside. She volunteered, don’t look so offended. Things like this only work if you don’t tell anyone, so that’s exactly what I did. The information she’s supplied over the years has saved us and our people many times over. I trust her implicitly, and you should too,” he states evenly.
Lazza gestures from Loa-Raquel to Treno. Taking that as her signal to speak, Loa-Raquel opens her mouth and starts selling me out.
“Zeph found her wandering around the Amaranthine Mountains. He brought her back to the old castle that was abandoned outside of Vedan, because she had initiated a call to his gryphon.”
“Sound familiar, brother?” Lazza interrupts and asks Treno.
I wish I could leap across this room and punch him. Treno looks to me, and I have to work to keep my face empty. I want to beg him with my mouth and my eyes not to listen. I want to scream for him to wait for me to explain everything so it’s not tainted by manipulation and war, but I can’t say any of that without risking more than just me.
“Funny enough, he thought she was an Avowed spy. He ordered her cleansed and brought in his little mutt to test her. She passed, but you know Zeph, he doesn’t trust anyone except Ryn. He still mated her. From what I hear, she practically forced him to complete the bond. Then she set her sights on my brother. I put a stop to that, and she attacked me out of nowhere for it. Zeph stopped me from killing her, and then she up and went missing. When word trickled down that she had been spotted here, I knew that Zeph was trying to plant another spy,” she finishes, shooting me a triumphant look.
I want to roll my eyes at her version of events, but I don’t. Instead, I fix Treno with a steady stare. I’m tempted to deny everything, to claim I don’t know her. But the truth is, if I do make it out of this...Iwillhave to tell Treno the truth. I feel like denying anything now will just set him up to feel even more betrayed, so I say nothing.
“Lazza, I’ve had enough. Do what you want with Ryn, that’s between you and him and your secret spy, but I’m taking my mate and leaving. Raquel’s word doesn’t hold weight with me like it does with you.”
“Don’t touch her,” Lazza commands, and he stomps toward Treno. “You are not the leader of our people, and you do not give me orders. I am the Syta, and what I say goes. How can you be so shortsighted, Treno? If there’s even a small chance that she’s mated to Zeph, then we have him by the throat,” Lazza growls out.
“And if you’re wrong?” Treno counters.
“Then you get your mate back,” Lazza replies coolly.
“We both know what you’ll put her through to prove one way or another who she’s connected to. I can’t allow you to do that to her. And how could you want to do that to me? Do you not see my marks on her body? We’re bonded!”
Lazza snorts. “It’s early. Your gryphons haven’t solidified anything; this is what we’ve been looking for to end this war.Sheis the key. Sacrifices must be made!”
Treno’s mismatched eyes fill with rage and hurt.
“Not like this,” he snaps back, taking a threatening step toward his brother.
