“You’re something else.” Jared shook his head.
“Yes I am. I’m better. Now get us in the air.”
“Yes, Ma’am. You better hold on tight.” He put his arms around me.
“No, that’s your job.”
“What if I let go?” He teased.
“Then you’re going to be in some serious trouble when you see Casey again.”
“Very good point. I won’t drop you from too far up.” With that he took off.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Toby
Casey was nervous. You could always tell by the way she played with her hair. The more nervous she was, the more she twirled pieces of hair around her fingers. I was surprised Casey still had the energy to move her fingers after all the twirling she’d been doing.
“We don’t have to do this.” I felt like I was always saying stuff like that to Casey, but it’s because we were constantly being forced into uncomfortable situations that had no right or wrong answer. In theory, the twins were right. Leaving and getting to New Orleans was the goal, Casey would be safer and we’d have more answers the sooner we got there.
“We do have to. I just hate leaving my mom.”
“Then why not tell her?” Hailey paced the room. That was probably her equivalent of the Casey hair twirl.
“What if she tried to stop us?” Casey asked. “It could ruin everything.”
“Or it could help.” I decided to play the devil’s advocate. There was always the need. “If she agrees, she could make leaving much easier.”
“He has a point.” Eric stood up from his seat on the couch. “If Taliana is okay with it, she can help smooth things over with Gareth afterward and she could make our exit that much smoother.”
“All right, I’ll tell her.” Casey hopped up. “I’ll feel better that way.”
“Want me to come with you?” I asked knowing full well what her answer would be.
“No, but thanks for offering.”
I smiled. Sometimes Casey was so easy to read. Other times, not so much.
“She looks so much better.” Eric watched as Casey disappeared through the door leaving the rest of us waiting in the sitting room. That room seemed to be the center of everything in Gareth’s house.
“I know. It’s great.” I grinned. At least something was going right.
“And you even got out of watching other men petition to be her mate. It looks like it’s your day.”
“We can call it my day if we make it out of here.”
“We’ll make it out.” Hailey looped a finger through her belt loop. “We’re Pterons.”
“Yes, we are.”
“What about me?” Eric asked. “I can’t exactly just fly there.”
“I can fly you again, but it’s going to be a long flight.” Hailey got a mischievous glint in her eye.
“I’m guessing that means you didn’t enjoy your flight, Eric?”
“Bears are not supposed to fly.” He crossed his arm. “It’s not natural.”
“You can always meet us there.” He’d proven his worth already, so if he wanted to stay involved that was fine with me.
“Or he can stay here,” Taliana’s voice had all three of us turning. “I’ll make sure he’s not in any trouble, and he may be of help, especially if we need to contact other ursus clans.”
“You okay with that?” I asked.
“Sure. Taliana has a good point about my contacts.”
“In other words he’s afraid to fly with me.” Hailey laughed.
“That too, but I’m going to focus on the contacts part.” Eric smiled.
“So obviously my mom took the news well.” Casey nodded toward her mom.
“I see.” I gave Taliana a polite smile.
“I want Casey safe, and this makes more sense.”
“Have you talked to the twins? Do you know the plan?”
“The plan is we tell Gareth,” Taliana said right away. “He’s not going to argue with logic.”
“Are you serious?” Casey asked. “What if he says no?”
“I made the mistake of failing to confide in him once before. I’m not making it again.” Her face was completely solemn as she spoke.
“When are you going to tell him?” Casey asked.
“I’m not.”
We all stared at her. She wasn’t making any sense.
“Casey is.”
“What?” I asked. “But he’s your mate.”
“And he just openly accepted Casey as his daughter. He’ll listen to her.” She smiled just a sliver.
Casey nodded. “Will you go with me at least? He’s nice and all, but I don’t really want to confront him alone.”
“I’ll do one better. I’ll bring him here. That way you have everyone with you.” Taliana looked at me. I was the “everyone” she was referring to.
“Okay, that works.” Casey sat down on the arm of the couch.
“I’ll be right back.” Taliana disappeared through the doorway.
“Are you guys all okay with this?” Casey asked. “We didn’t exactly take a vote.”
“If he gets weird, we just go with the original plan.” Hailey nodded like she was trying to reassure herself.
“But now he’ll be suspicious. It’s going to be more difficult.” Eric cracked his knuckles.
“So be it.” The decision had been made, so there was no sense doubting it. “Let’s just hope he says yes.”
True to her word, Taliana returned with Gareth a few minutes later. He took in all of us before walking fully into the room.
“What is it that you need to discuss with me?” Gareth sat down in a chair across from Casey. “I’ll listen to anything you say.”
“We need to leave.” Casey cut right to the chase.
“I see.” Gareth paused as though he was thinking it over. “And what is your plan then?”
“To go down to New Orleans. It’s safe, and I need to speak with my grandmother. We need to see if anyone’s heard from our other friends and my sister.”
“Or the king.” Gareth added.
“Exactly.”
“We’ll create a distraction. You can slip out. I’ll have my men accompany you as far as you’ll let them.”
“Thank you for the offer, but we are going to fly the whole way.”
Gareth smiled. “I assumed that.” He turned to Eric. “And you? How will you get there?”
“Actually, I think I’ll stay.”
Gareth stood up. “Absolutely, we can use every strong body we can find.”
Taliana looped her arm through his. “And Eric can contact other clans. If we’re going to do this, we should do this right.”
Gareth nodded. “Good idea. You know I took you for my mate because of your brains.”
Taliana raised an eyebrow. “I thought it was for my sparkling personality.”
“That too, and your beauty.”
Taliana blushed, and Casey looked uncomfortable.
“We need to go tonight. We can’t risk flying when the sun is up.” Hailey eyed the door. She was revving to go and I didn’t blame her.
Gareth nodded again. “Let’s get everything ready.”
***
We waited until the dead of night to leave the Island. We were never invisible, but the darkness at least gave us a chance to travel undetected. After some hurried goodbyes, we took off and flew higher than usual. It was harder to stay that high where the air was thin, but we weren’t taking any chances. Hailey and I flanked Casey so that if trouble came, we’d be in a better position to protect her.
Returning to New Orleans always brought a mix of emotions with it. Between everything with Allie, and more recently Casey, I was always a little bit nervous heading down to the Crescent City. This time was no exception.
“We should go right over to the hotel,” Casey called as we got close to New Orleans.
“Yeah, it’s the safest place in the city.” I wanted safe for Casey. I had some confidence in Gareth’s abil
ities, but there was still a chance Tiffany would get wind that Casey had left and come after us.
We flew into the city just before sunrise. We landed in the shadows along the side of the hotel and retracted our wings. No one said anything as we walked through the lobby and straight to the elevator. I had a brief period of worry realizing I didn’t have the key to take us down to the basement, but Hailey took care of that problem. “Allie insists that I carry one.”
“Make sure to thank Allie when we see her.” Casey smiled. Despite everything, she seemed so much more like herself again. It made everything else seem manageable.
“You can do it yourself.” Hailey was trying really hard to act unaffected, but every once in a while her façade fell, and her fears came to light. She was worried about Allie, and until she saw her friend again, no one was going to convince her not to be. And no one should have. We had no idea what was going on. I was all about helping people keep their confidence, but I wasn’t a proponent of false hope. It usually only hurt you in the end.
The elevator moved down exasperatingly slow. We were all silent, but my hunch was we were all thinking about the same things. Finally the doors opened, and we stepped out into the dark. The loud voices were the first hint that something was wrong. We all exchanged glances before heading down the corridor.
“Find her! Find her and bring her here now. And find Robert, he can’t really be gone.” Georgina’s distinctive voice made us all tense.
“Georgina?” Casey called before taking off down the hall.
“Casey!” Georgina took the corridor at a pace I wouldn’t have thought possible for a woman her age. She pulled Casey into her arms. “Thank goodness.”
“What is it?” Casey stepped back and took in Georgina’s tear stained face.
Hailey and I exchanged looks. What the hell was going on?
Georgina clutched a small flashlight in her hands, a reminder that she was only human and couldn’t see in the dark. “You are our only hope.” She took Casey’s arm. Then she glanced at us. “Hailey, I’m going to need your help too.”
“What’s going on?” Hailey looked panicked. “Have you heard anything? Are Allie and Levi on their way back?”
Georgina shook her head before stumbling toward the wall.
“What do you mean? What’s going on?” Hailey wrapped her arms around herself protectively.
Georgina started sobbing uncontrollably.
“No. You don’t mean. No.” Hailey shook her head.
Casey returned to my side, and for once it was her pulling me into her arms.
Georgina nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“But. No.” Hailey kept shaking her head. “Not possible.”
Casey released me and walked over to Hailey.
Hailey shrugged her off. “No. It’s all a mistake. It has to be.”
“I wish it were,” Georgina said stoically. “I’d do anything for it to be, but your brother is the one who told me himself. They found the island destroyed.”
“Where’s she going?” Georgina asked.
I turned around. Casey was gone. How had that happened?
“I’ll find her.” I hurried off down the corridor. Was she so upset by the news that she wanted to be alone? I was still in a state of shock. Levi and Allie gone?
I caught up with her in what must have been an old office. From the dust on the desk, it couldn’t have been used recently.
“Casey?”
She turned. “It’s all my fault.”
“How is any of this your fault?”
“All of it is. Tiffany wouldn’t have… she wouldn’t have hurt them if it weren’t for me.”
“What?” I wrapped my arms around her waist. “That makes no sense. “
“If I weren’t around she wouldn’t have done it.”
“Yes she would have. She’d have found another way.”
She sighed. “None of this really makes sense. She went through so much effort.”
“I think I understand what her original plan was. This was just plan C.”
“What was it?” She hopped up onto the desk.
I sat down beside her. “If the king steps out on his mate he loses the crown, right?”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“Her first plan was to take the crown from Robert by making him disloyal.”
“But that didn’t work,” she said softly.
“Right. It wasn’t that simple. Robert didn’t magically lose his position. The punishment occurred for the next generation. An enchantress, Allie was born.”
“She was born at almost the same time I was.”
“Exactly.”
“In theory that should have been enough. She just needed Allie to pick another heir.”
“Like you.” Casey frowned slightly.
“I’m half convinced she set all that up too. I mean I moved to Allie’s school because Dad got some terrific job opportunity. She was an enchantress. All I had to do was meet her to get hooked.”
“Do you really believe all of your attraction to her was because of that?”
I shrugged, and that caused my shoulder to brush against hers. “Some of it. It’s impossible to know, but I probably would have had a crush on her anyway.”
Casey smiled lightly. “Yeah, I’d think so.” I noticed that Casey’s tone had no hint of jealousy. There was however a sadness there. She hadn’t known Allie nearly as well as I had, but she felt the loss.
“But what I was getting at is that after Allie chose Levi, Tiffany had to come up with another plan. Do you think it’s a coincidence that she came after you now?”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
“I’m glad you agree, but does that put your guilt to rest? I’ll ask you again, how is any of this your fault?”
“I feel guilty anyway.”
I hopped down and stood in front of her. I put my hands on either side of her face. “You shouldn’t.”
She shrugged. “Now what? Now what happens?”
“I don’t exactly know, but my guess is Georgina does.”
“But who takes power? You?”
“Me?” I held a hand to my chest. “Not exactly.”
“Then who?”
I paused before answering her question. I hoped she was ready for the answer. “You. You become queen.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Casey
“Me?” I choked the word out. “I’m in charge?”
“Yes, and I expect you to take your place without complaint.” Georgina walked into the office. She was no longer crying, and she was all business.
“There has to be another way. I can’t be queen. I know nothing about The Society. I shouldn’t even be here.”
“You are a Laurent. You will take your place. You will declare Toby as your intended mate. That will quell the hysteria over Lev—the king. Two of the strongest Pteron families united should let people know who’s in charge.” Georgina’s inability to say her grandson’s name was the first hint that she wasn’t as okay as she wanted us to believe.
“I can’t become queen,” I repeated. I couldn’t even think about the mate part. Become queen? Was she crazy?
Georgina stepped in front of Toby to get to me. He quickly stepped back. He probably knew that getting in Georgina’s way after the news she’d been given wouldn’t be a good idea. She took my face in her hands. “You are a Laurent. You will step up and take your place. You will represent your family and lead The Society. We all need you.”
“But how? I know nothing about leading.” Tears poured down my face out of a mix of shock, grief, and overwhelming fear. I’d just met my half-brother and now he was gone. How was The Society going to survive without his leadership? I couldn’t do half as good a job as he could.
“You won’t be alone. You will have advisors, your mate, and you’ll have me. You can and will do this.”
“Not yet. What if the information you have is wrong? What if they’re okay?�
�� I still held onto the glimmer of hope that the information was wrong.
Georgina shook her head. “I refuse to let delusions and false hope derail us. This Tiffany character wants us to panic. She wants us to get lost in grief and let everything fall apart. We have a duty to our people to maintain decorum. We will do that. We will get everything in place, and only when we have taken care of The Society will we allow ourselves time to grieve.”
“I can’t imagine how horrible all of this is for you. Is Robert—is my father back?”
Georgina shook her head. “Helen is in a complete state of shock and denial. I need to get back to her, but my first priority is getting you ready. That is where Hailey will come in when she pulls herself together.”
“With all due respect, the girl just lost her best friend.” Toby seemed to regret the words immediately, but they were out. He couldn’t take them back.
“I lost my grandson, a child that is like a granddaughter, and very likely my son. Yet here I am taking care of business. Hailey took an oath as Allie’s chief advisor. Levi’s chief advisor is off with the so-called head of security somewhere. Those of us here need to do our part.”
“Do you really think Robert’s…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I don’t know what to think. It’s like he disappeared into thin air when we needed him most.”
“I’m sure there’s an explanation,” I started. I refused to believe he was gone too. If they actually expected me to take a leadership role, I was going to need all the support I could get.
“Stop looking for explanations. That’s just another word for an excuse. You’re not getting any right now. Pull yourself together. You are a Laurent, and you will act like one.”
I took a few deep breaths. I needed to pretend to be okay, even if only for Georgina’s sake. She must have been so broken, but she refused to let that get in the way of what needed to be done. I needed to do my part. “So what do we do?”
“Right now you get cleaned up, changed, and prepared to make a public statement.”
“Where should I do that?” I didn’t have a place in New Orleans unless Georgina had gotten me one without telling me.
“There’s a suite for you upstairs.” She turned to Toby. “There’s stuff for you up there too. I guessed on your measurements, but it should be close enough.”
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