Freedom.
Crisp,cool air filled my lungs, the smell of rain heavy on the wind, a touch of sulphur not too far behindit. In the distance, a storm raged along the horizon, churning the ocean into something dark and twisted.
If there were sirens nearby, they’d fled for shelter in deeper water or made their way to land. The creatures of the deep would have likely also fled whatever this storm was.
The bed the Fae prince lay upon floated in the air as I turned towards the trees. For a moment, I saw nothing but deep forest. Just thick trunks over a thousand years old and swirling clouds hanging low over the tree line.
My breath caught in my throat as a moment of panic washed over me, but when the wolf appeared behind a large tree, the breath escaped me in a huff.
“Took you long enough,” he grunted, picking up the unconscious wraith. The power he’d consumed to get us off the island had been too much, so once the wards went down, so had he. “We got everything we need?”
Beside me, the witch stalked towards the trees. “There’s a charm hidden on one of these trees that hides a boat. We need to get that first.”
The world turned quiet as the witch moved through her list of precautions the Luna prince created. His hidden boat, the wards, everything. There was only a deep, shared understanding that we had to get away and find safety for our Queen. Not even those new to our world fought us on our plans.
It took little time to find the boat, step aboard, and sail into the storming sea.
Waves lapped at the edges, crashing into the sides and threatening to take us down. Jumping through the shadows would have saved us time, likely been much easier than having to sail, but the witch said she wasn’t sure we would find the island otherwise.
Through the maze of small and large islands, we remained quiet. My wife slept in the arms of her charm mage mate, curled into his chest as he rested his chin on the top of her head. Any sign she was still trapped in her earlier nightmare was gone, replaced only with the exhaustion written clearly across her features. The fact that she slept without stirring hadme concerned, but it appeared as though she needed the rest desperately.
We had no idea what the false king put her through, the kind of torture she was forced to experience. If she could sleep through this storm and each harsh rock of the ship, then so be it.
Without speaking, the witch guided us to what appeared like a large sand dune. The Luna Prince’s warnings replayed in my mind, his story about the island becoming more clear. He’d warned us that he’d hidden it with wards and glamours, ensured it would be completely hidden away from any who passed it.
But the witch drove the boat into the sand, dark hair whipping around her. She didn’t look back as she pulled something from her duffel bag. No one spoke a word to ask her what she was doing, though I doubted the Queen’s mates really cared so long as this fortress the Fae prince promised us would truly be safe for her.
My eyes strayed to my sleeping Queen as the witch tossed what appeared to be a rune stone into the air. She threw it three times, each time catching it in the palm of her hand, never looking back at us.
By the third time, she whispered something. The wind caught the sound, carrying it far from my ears. But the island rippled, the image blurring before settling once more.
Finally, when she looked back, her eyes were ringed in a soft pink glow. “The wards are temporarily down to allow us in. Just walk straight and you’ll pass through the glamour. We need to drag the boat in. From within the wards, you should be able to shadow jump. I’ll show you how to close the glamour when we enter.”
I could almost hear their thundering hearts, their thoughts too, as they jumped out of the boat and into the waves rolling across the sand. The mage holding Ivy handed her off to the vampire, who held her close as she walked up the sand towards the break in the glamour.
It was the Primal creature of the Old World, with helpfrom the bear shifter and mages, who dragged the boat into the rippling image out of the storm.
First, the witch disappeared like she’d stepped into an entirely different world. Then the vampire holding our Queen.
And we followed soon after, entering the shimmering glamour and stepping into an entirely different landscape altogether.
58
Ivy
Ifelt myself slipping in and out of consciousness. Faintly, I heard the world around me; waves crashing against a shore, thunder rumbling in the distance, the steady beat of someone’s heart beneath my ear.
Cold air and sand whipped at my bare legs for only a moment before it all went oddly quiet.
“Holy shit,” someone whispered. “What the hell is this place?”
I recognised that voice almost immediately as Rowan’s. Tears burned my closed eyes, emotion thickening my throat. Slowly, everything came back to me; the tunnel, the hellhounds and the demon, freedom when we hit the beach, and then…
The Elysian demons. The old High Fae Palace.
And my mates finding me.
My breaths came faster as I tried to pry my eyes open. I wanted to see them, to see all of them again. I needed to prove to myself that they were real and that it all really happened.
