She shrugged. “That’s all I’ve ever done. All I know to do.” Action was her comfort zone, adrenaline rushing through her veins her most familiar status, swallowing her fears and throwing blades at them her favorite hobby.
A low knock at the door made both of them turn at the same time. Stevian waited at the doorway, his blue eyes so similar to Ciaran’s it was difficult to believe they hadn’t realized their connection before.
“Apologies for interrupting,” he said, approaching them with quiet but unfaltering steps. When he reached them, he took one of Hope’s hands in his right, and Ciaran’s biological one in his left. “I couldn’t let you go on such a mission without sending my prayers with you.”
Hope smiled, despite a strong, intense sadness filling her most sacred organ. “We’ll be back, Stevian.”
There was a twinkle in his eyes that she did not miss, and his hands pressed theirs firmly. “I expect no less, since you bear the strongest of all weapons.”
“The Fifth Power?” Hope asked, her brow furrowing. The power she had not yet experimented with, but was going to practice as much as she could until she mastered it.
“Love, my dearest, is the biggest strength that ever existed. Love is what saves us from a fatal ending, what moves souls, what brings worlds to life.”
Ciaran was silent, pursing his lips. Hope couldn’t take her eyes from Stevian to Ciaran, and back to Stevian.
“May Llunal’s darkness protect you from blinding light. May his stars illuminate your paths without hindering your shadows. May you always be blessed with his whispers and night.”
With his own shadows, Stevian traced a crescent shape on the skin of Hope and Ciaran’s hands, and he put both moons together. Hope felt a sudden rush of blackness from the tips of her toes to her ears, and the feeling and the marks vanished after a blink.
“Hope, look after my grandson,” Stevian begged.
“I will,” she promised, bowing her head. “I will do everything in my power to protect him.”
“Ciaran, look after your destiny,” his grandfather said.
His reply was a whisper intertwined with shadows. “Always.”
16
Lenna
In front of the mirror in her bedroom in the safehouse, Lenna opened her hands and Gave herself something she hadn’t used in a very long time. Not since before the Fifth Crusade.
Stripes of fire-red laces covered her torso, barely covering her nipples, yet holding the full weight of her breasts masterfully, like Jake’s hands used to. They continued interlacing against her waist, where they tied to a suspender. Underneath the suspender, a thong with transparencies revealed parts of her core. The clips of the suspenders held up a pair of black tights that reached her mid-thighs.
She looked at herself, trying to find the will and sass that used to drive her life forward. What she found instead was terrifying. There was nothing but hurt, rage, and fear. So much fear. Fear she was very much determined not to let win the battle of her future. She would learn to mold the fear, convert it into a tool she would use at her will.
She wanted her man back, and she was fucking going to get him. So, with a last glance at the fire burning in her golden eyes, she Gave herself a long, black coat that covered her lingerie-dressed skin from neck to ankles. A button around her throat, followed by a thick black belt around her waist, closed it up. Sharp black heels finished her outfit, then she inhaled sharply, and she was gone.
The moment she stopped spiraling in the void and landed on the outskirts of the East House in the East Petal, she let out a loud curse. If she had moured two feet to her right, she would be dead right now. The fence around the East House was like nothing she had ever seen before. If “fence” was even the word for this palace of torture.
Sharp, metal spears twice as tall as any mortal being covered the whole perimeter around the House. Spears that could have her bleeding if by some Cardinal-cursed miracle she hadn’t aimed properly. It took Lenna a while walking around the outside of the non-friendly fence to find anywhere that could remotely be an actual entrance and not just a wall formed by metallic weapons.
When she realized what she was looking at, Lenna’s first thoughts were that the bloody East Cardinal was indeed twisted, and so had to be the Rulers of her House to live in such a place. In front of her, at the height of her waist, was a ball full of broken glass shards. A ball that looked like a doorknob. A ball that she held in her palm as she squirmed, holding in a scream as theglass broke her skin and her blood fell inside the ball, where it bubbled as if welcoming it.
A second later, navy handwriting that she knew all too well appeared on her forearm:
Clever way for the Ruler of the House to be notified of any unwanted visitors. She sent her golden ink to Jake.
There was no further reply, however fifty metal spears were momentarily swallowed by the ground, and Lenna didn’t hesitate for a Fifth-damned moment before walking past and quickly inside the House, in case they reappeared and they speared her sorry ass.
The principal residence of the East House was at the other end of a black stone passage delimited by all sorts of roses. Especially full-of-thorns roses. From afar, the House appeared…wrong. It appeared to have pieces attached to it that were unnecessary and unexpected, but she was too far to identify exactly what they were.
She was not too far to recognize the black-haired man walking straight to her, though. Her heart beat faster than a drum, and the fear… Fucking hell, the fear was threatening to swallow her alive faster than the ground had swallowed those spears. Her jaw hurt from clenching it so hard.
Jake stopped in front of her, shaking his head, with a shine in his silver eyes that made Lenna wonder if she stood a chance, but his words when he opened his lips sliced Lenna’s heart.
“You should move on and forget me. This is over.”
