She seemed to consider my question. “If you can find them, there will be no quarrel with me or my council, but you might have an issue with whatever rules they have set up. We do not all run the same.”
That was interesting. So each magic city had different rules? What if “kill all outsiders on sight” was a rule? I guess we were about to find out. Because we would need all the help we could get if we were to bring down the breeder camps in each city.
After thanking the witch and bowing awkwardly to the council, which I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to do, I left and met Luka in the hallway.
He was smiling, standing super close to the door. “Went well?”
“You eavesdropped?” I assumed.
“Yep,” he admitted.
A grin pulled at my face. I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck. “Luka, what if I put my mom and Maple in charge of wedding planning and we take a trip to LA? Meet with the vampires there and see if they can help us.”
Luka’s eyebrows raised. “Other magic cities are not like ours. Los Angeles might be a war zone with vampires as slaves for all we know. We could be walking into a death trap.”
I nodded. He was king, he had to worry about leaving his people without a leader. “I understand. I’ll take Liv, we can be back in two days—”
He looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Are you crazy? I’m not letting you go alone.”
“Luka, there are at least six other breeding programs throughout the United States. We need help taking them all down at once so they can’t rebuild. These other magic cities might not even know about them—women and children in slavery.”
He sighed. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”
“Eeeeee,” I squealed, and popped on my tiptoes to press my lips to his. When we parted, his tongue stroked mine and a delicious heat shot down my body. Luka’s hands grasped my hips and squeezed as a low moan rumbled in my throat.
Pulling away, he looked down at me with hungry eyes. “So, a month? Are we setting a date?”
My head tipped backward and laughter pealed out of me. I think Luka was having a little problem with my saving myself for marriage. “A month from today. I’d like to find a holy person to marry us—”
“I’ve got that covered.” He brushed me off. “It will be your dream wedding. Just have your mom and Maple work on decorations with my new assistant, Austin.”
I smiled, beaming ear to ear. I could feel my old self returning, the emotional instability and inner turmoil receding. “I love you, Luka Drake.”
“And I you, Aspen soon to be Drake. Or Rose. Whatever you want.”
“Aspen Drake has a nice ring to it,” I admitted.
With that, we walked hand in hand out into the garden to plan our trip to Los Angeles.
* * *
“Bro, this is crazy.”Sawyer rubbed the scruff at his chin. The big alpha was standing next to his wife, who nodded in agreement. We were all in Luka’s wing of the castle, standing in the giant living room. I still got lost in the palace. It would take me time to get used to it.
“The vampires in Los Angeles could be cannibals for all you know,” Demi warned.
I snickered. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. Besides, there are women and children trapped there. I have it on good authority.”
Ruby had intel on LA, New York City, New Orleans, Austin, Chicago, and Minneapolis. All six of the magical enclaves there were wiring money to some faction of the society. Fifty grand at a time. Since Los Angeles was the closest city, we figured we could start there and put out some feelers.
Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, no offense, but no one present grew up here but me.” He gestured to Demi, Luka, and me. “My dad told me some horror stories about the other enclaves. Some of them aren’t segregated between the magical races. They constantly brawl in the streets over race wars. He even said there was a rumor that the fey rule most of the enclaves in other cities and the vampires and werewolves pay a tax to them to be allowed to remain living there.”
Luka, Demi and I gasped at the same time.
“So you’re saying our people could be enslaved in one of these other cities as well? Are there Paladin wolves there?” Demi asked.
Sawyer looked like he regretted saying so much. “I dunno, babe. I was like eight years old when he told me this. He had a map—”
“A map you say?” I moved closer to Sawyer with one eyebrow raised and Demi grinned for a second before her face fell. “You still have that map? Or was it lost when the house was destroyed in the war?”
