1
FAWN
I woke with a violent jolt,my heart hammering painfully against my ribcage. The remnants of who Matthieu truly was lingered in my mind. My chest tightened, constricted by an overwhelming wave of anxiety.
The last thing I could remember was Matthieu turning into a truly diabolical monster before I shared my magic with Casper to light-jump us out of there.
Disoriented and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, I sat upright with my breaths coming out in gasps. The weight of exhaustion heaved in my bones, and beads of sweat gathered on my forehead.
I clutched at the two bodies lying next to me, desperately trying to ground myself.
Casper and Jasper jerked up beside me, both grabbing my hands.
“What is it?” Cas shouted, waking Aimon, Bastian, and Silas who lay next to each other.
“Where the fuck are we?” Jasper rasped, blinking as he tried to wake himself up. “Are you okay, goddess?”
A servant I hadn’t noticed guarding the doorway blinked owlishly at us before rushing out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
“I’m fine,” I bit out, but a sense of panic persisted in my veins, relentlessly clawing at my mind. Images of Matthieu transforming into a terrible monster flashed in my head, intermingling with a disorienting sense of doom. “But whereare we?”
“We’re in the Lethium Empire,” Casper answered his brother with a croak. “I light-jumped us as far away from that fucking monster as I could.”
It had been centuries since I’d been in the Lethium Empire—even longer since I stepped foot in this fortress of a royal castle.
The bedroom had a contrasting ambiance of security and luxury. Thick stone walls, built to withstand an assault, surrounded the room. It was spacious, with high ceilings, and the walls were adorned with noble crests that made my skin crawl now that I knew the truth behind the empire’s slimy history.
Streams of sunlight filtered through tall, narrow windows equipped with iron bars and reinforced shutters.
The six of us had been piled into a four-poster bed that had been expanded to fit us all, crafted from mahogany and draped with velvet curtains. The mattress felt plush, with fine silk blankets and embroidered pillows.
A thick web of distress coated my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Hey, bug,” Aimon’s soothing voice whispered as the bed shifted. “Look at me.”
I forced my eyes open and saw Aimon had crawled in front of me and cupped my face in his hands. “Aimon?”
“We’re away from him,” he assured me softly. “We’re safe right now.”
“Matthieu didn’t look anything like the emperor who did this to me,” I rasped, my throat still tight. “I didn’t recognize him.”
“He’s a metamorphose mage, love,” Bastian murmured. “He took the image of the emperor to pose as him for years.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Silas added softly.
“There’s no way you would’ve,” Aimon stated sternly.
They were right. Matthieu had admitted himself that he took different forms to approach me through the years. It only made sense one of the forms he’d taken had been the one I met him in.
I sucked in a gulp of air as I nodded, my heart finally calming down as my spirit tugged at theirs, reassuring myself that they were with me. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
The twins’ grip on my hands tightened.
“We willalwaysbe here for you, sunshine,” Cas promised.
“Even if you don’t want us here,” Jas vowed.
