I sat up straighter. Fear crawled across my skin, making my hair rise.
“I like seeing your reactions because they're so genuine. So real.” He cupped his other cheek with his other hand and pouted. “Keep me company, please?”
Chapter 4
Alexander
Istoodatthecenter of The Happy Rooster. A lock of white slipped into my line of sight, and it took a beat to recognize it as my own. I’d traded sleep for magic for days, and my body was keeping score. I brushed it back and refocused before consequences could take shape.
I hadn’t planned on using the pub for my war room, but then, like everything in our castle, space was limited, and it wasn’t just Ezra’s five with me. Everly, with Hero always at her side, shifted uncomfortably, as if unsure why they were here. Chancellor Morgen, Professor Holiday, and Winston hovered at the back,while Cayden sat in the middle of all of us, dumping information into a growing pile of scrawl in front of him.
My lover subtly shifted, half in the room and half behind the bar, just a few steps from Horax’s office, where Quinn’s unconscious body rested.
Over the last two days, I’d tried everything to free her from the collar around her neck.
I’d never felt like such a failure before.
Another mentalist had made the collar, and the two men keyed to it were both dead with their final commands locked into place. Whatever Quinn’s Majekah had done to the metal, changed it. Where it should have shattered into its components, instead, the ring smoothed out, turning the clasp into one perfect silver loop. Even Rowan’s pure elemental heat couldn’t melt it off.
Quinn was trapped.
I couldn’t help her.
‘Breathe.’ My lover’s advice filled me, though he hadn’t spoken in my head. No matter what I struggled with, that was always the first thing he said. I took his advice, and my resolve strengthened.
Quinn, the woman who had taken up permanent residence in my heart, needed my undivided attention. But I couldn’t give it to her while three men still sat in my Alun.
Ashkar.
Emil.
Erick Adler Michelson.
The first two names were inconsequential. Emil was one of Cayden’s brothers. He’d been part of the trio that attempted to take Quinn on The Mile. From what I could see in his thoughts, he’d rallied the young men in his family who wanted more behind the Prophet’s back.
Ashkar was the leader of a mercenary group from down south. I found only pure greed between his ears. Both his and Emil’smen were now a pile of corpses sitting outside my gates. Two of Ashkar’s soldiers, one of Emil’s brothers, and the trainee who ran past me survived my fear. None of them would look at my castle again without pissing themselves.
Erick, however, was a problem I knew too well. Quinn’s roommate was the eleventh son of the Adler Michelsons. A powerful family down in London, now poised to take my castle and secure a second foothold here. But only if Erick succeeded in his plans.
Once again, my five began talking in circles, trying to find a way to fix this. Somehow, Erick had tapped into the power of the Alun, creating a shield of pure force around the entire Great Hall. We’d yet to find a way to breach it with magic or bodies.
However, my skills as a mentalist didn’t follow the same rules.
I let my officers’ conversations turn into white noise.
The Alun was a powerful tool for the amplification and dispersal of magic. One I’d come to rely on. Now, Emil attempted to use it to make a portal, which I could only assume connected to Erick’s allies in London.
Closing my eyes, I once again found the trio’s minds. I connected with Emil first this time, and his thoughts felt like slime under my fingers. My body swayed, and Rowan reached out, gripping my elbow to keep me standing.
My heart pounded. The muscle-bound elementalist hadn’t left my side for over forty-eight hours now.
‘I might not do it right, but I won’t leave you,’ Rowan had said those exact words to me, and he’d been true to them in every way. An implicit trust I hadn’t known I could feel for anyone but Ezra gave me strength.
Cayden’s younger brother hummed to himself. The portal to London was just a few layers from completion. The trio had no way to communicate with their forces outside the shield and wrongly assumed they held my people in check. However, Emilknew of his Prophet’s death because the tattoo on his wrist went silent. As the driving force behind the portal’s design, Emil’s progress ground to a momentary halt. Loss and confusion sat heavily on his mind.
For a brief moment, I hovered. A single flex of my power and all three men would forget how to breathe. But that wouldn’t bring down the shield. The memory of Rowan trembling as I unleashed mass fear on our attackers filled my mind. I needed my allies. For now, I had to follow my code, but that would be changing.
I pulled out of Emil’s mind, leaving him breathing and free to make his choices while I made mine.
