Found and Forged

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Found and Forged Page 16

by Ivy Asher


  “Don’t forget when Port asked her if she would strip her marks rather than die with her Marked if that’s what the tribunal ruled,” Kallan grumbles.

  “What did she say?” Knox asks.

  “She said she would strip her marks.”

  “Can you even do that?” I ask, leaning forward.

  “I mean, they must have a way; otherwise, why ask that question?” Sabin responds.

  “So Port is the guy who was all glarey?” I ask, recalling the younger looking Sentinel from the throne room who didn’t look too happy to be there. He was the only other male on the tribunal aside from Sabin.

  “That’d be the one,” Becket confirms as he leans over and tries to steal a piece of cheese from Torrez’s plate. Torrez growls at him and slaps his hand away.

  “So what’s your Sentinel’s deal?” Bastien asks.

  I ignore the itchy dislike that crawls up the back of my neck when Suryn is referred to as my Shield’s Sentinel...again. I don’t like her, but Siah was right when he reminded us that trusting the magic is what’s most important. Her magic marked them, and like it or not, there’s fuck all I can do about that right now.

  “She’s twenty-three. Her dad, as we all know, is Sauriel, Adriel’s brother. But her mother used to be Sovereign over the Sentinels. She died when Suryn was nine. What’s interesting is that Suryn is supposed to be the Sovereign. I guess Sentinels are matriarchal. Leadership passes from mother to daughter unless there isn’t a daughter, in which case the people elect a new line for leadership.”

  “Huh,” I comment and lean back into Ryker, raptly listening as Enoch goes on.

  “Well, they thought Suryn was too young, so her aunt is filling in until Suryn comes of age after her awakening.”

  “So the current Sovereign is her aunt?” Siah asks, and Enoch nods.

  I shake my head and can’t fight the smile that breaks across my face. I put a hand over my mouth to hide it, but it doesn’t stop the giggle that leaks out.

  Enoch turns to me. “What?”

  His question makes me laugh a little harder, and I try to stop. “Nothing really, it’s just your dad is going to slip into a happiness-coma when he finds out you were marked by the next leader of the Sentinels. I can just picture his face now,” I tell him as I try to swallow down another giggle. “How many times do you think she’ll stab him the first time he tries to make her do something she doesn’t want to do?” I ask no one in particular, and then I completely lose it.

  Elder Cleary is a manipulative ass, and I can’t wait for him to meet his son’s new mate. Well, that’s if her people don’t sentence all of us to death first.

  Everyone bursts into laughter, including Enoch. He tries to hide it, but I catch the smile and shake of his shoulders before he gets a hand over his face and shakes his head. The fact that not even Enoch can deny his father’s thirsty ways amuses me to no end. As much as I dislike Suryn, I almost want to start rooting for her and them to work out just so I can sit back with a bowl of popcorn and watch the shit go down between her and the elders.

  “Well, I guess that explains Sauriel’s comment about the Sovereign condemning her own blood,” Ryker observes, and Enoch nods, still working to pull his features into a more stoic mien.

  “After the tribunal established her history, they asked to see her runes, and that was about it,” Enoch finishes.

  “What did they ask you guys?” Valen calls over his shoulder as he follows Torrez’s lead and fills up another plate of food.

  “Pretty much the same stuff,” Becket shrugs. “Where we were born, how we met, how we ended up here. They were more interested in you than they were in us really.”

  “How so?” I ask.

  “They asked all of us what we knew about you. How we met. How you met your Chosen and us. How you marked everyone. What your abilities were...shit like that.”

  “Did you tell them what she can do?” Bastien asks, the accusation in his tone clear.

  Becket and the others bristle.

  “What do you think?” he challenges.

  “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking,” Bastien grinds back.

  “We kept everything as basic as possible,” Enoch defends. “We didn’t make her vulnerable, Bastien. The truth is we don’t know everything Vinna can do. We stuck with what we know.”

  “Meaning?” Knox presses, and Enoch rolls his eyes and gives a frustrated huff.

  “Meaning we told them she has multiple branches of magic, but not how proficient she is in any of them. We told them about the weapons we have—and therefore know she has—but nothing about her runes beyond that. Like Enoch said, we didn’t leave her vulnerable,” Kallan snaps, and then he gets up and storms off into his room.

  We all watch him leave. No one speaks for a couple beats as the tension in the room settles a bit.

  “So what did you all end up doing today? Find any answers?” Nash asks innocently.

  And now it’s my time to get up and storm off into my room.

  “What happened?” I hear Torrez ask as I shut the door on that question and on this day. I stare at the mattresses on the ground for a minute, longing for the oblivion of sleep, but I’m too wired. A bath it is.

  19

  The steam soaks into my pores, the heat both cleansing and just on the cusp of overwhelming. I rest my hands on the lip of the tub that is built into the floor of the bathroom and let the coolness of the stone soak into my limbs to combat the heat of the water.

  I rest my head back and close my eyes. I try to settle into the relaxation I know I should feel, but my fight with Getta keeps playing on the inside of my closed eyelids like they’re a movie screen. Her question of whether I’m worthy is like some fucked up soundtrack to the whole thing, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t find an off or a mute button.

  I slip under the hot water and sit at the bottom of the deep tub, hoping it will somehow drown my memories of Getta and being bested. It doesn’t. The day still plays on a loop, like my mind is going all Groundhog Day until I see whatever the fuck it’s trying to show me.

  I focus on my brief conversation with Tawv, ruminating on what I learned about my mother instead of honing in on my epic fuck up. Enoch said that Suryn’s mom was the Sovereign before her sister stepped in. So was she who was in charge when my mom was sent out on a mission for new blood? Or did she rule after?

  Something about that feels important to me. Maybe it’s just that this place wasn’t always so anti-stranger or maybe it’s something else, but I file that away in my mind as something worth taking note of. A part of me chimes in with the thought that I must still have family here. Tawv said the people from where Grier came from were still holding out hope that she was alive. So someone here obviously still cared for her.

  My lungs burn, and reluctantly I push up from the bottom of the tub. I break the surface and gasp to pull air into my angry lungs. I roundhouse all thoughts of Sentinel family away, because even if it’s true they exist, it doesn’t mean shit for me. They cared about Grier, but I’m not her. I wipe water from my face and jump when Valen’s deep voice fills the bathroom.

  “I wondered for a second if I was going to have to pull you out,” he tells me, and I track his voice to where he’s leaning against a far wall.

  “Well, you’ll look for any excuse to give me mouth to mouth, so I’m sure you wouldn’t have been too put out,” I joke, but it sounds hollow.

  The corner of Valen’s full lips turns up slightly, but if I want one of his mind numbing smiles, I’ll need to do better than that.

  “May I join you, or were you hoping to continue waterboarding yourself alone?” he asks with a cheeky grin, and I snort.

  I don’t say anything, but I gesture toward the water in clear invitation. I sit back on the bench seat that circles the entire interior of the tub. Valen watches me for a second like he’s gauging what’s the right move here, then he pulls his shirt up over his head. He unwraps the hair tie from his hair, the thick wav
es falling around his shoulders as he brushes his fingers through them.

  “Your striptease game is on point,” I observe as I lean back and enjoy the show.

  “Thank you, I’ve been practicing,” Valen deadpans, and I chuckle.

  “Like in the mirror? Or are you and the guys starting an all-male review and just haven’t told me?” I ask amused.

  “We were waiting for the routine to be perfect,” he tells me casually as he slowly unlaces his black armored pants. “Well, that and for the bedazzled thongs we ordered to come in.”

  Valen gives me a roll of his hips, and I snort out a laugh.

  “Do you guys do spirit fingers, because nothing gets me going like well executed spirit fingers.”

  “Well then, you’re in luck, my love, because we give really gooood spirit fingers, and our shimmies will have you screaming for more.”

  Valen slips into the water, and I watch greedily as, inch-by-inch, his incredible body is swallowed up by the bath.

  My nipples go hard as he dips all the way under, wetting his hair. He comes back up dripping of water and sex, and I lick my lips and drink him in with my eyes.

  “Shimmies, you say?” I ask him, humor and lust dripping from every word.

  “And just wait until we get to the hair flips, Vinna, you are going to soak your panties.”

  I give an overexaggerated moan. “You do know how to get me all hot and bothered.”

  Valen chortles and gives me a wink, but his playful gaze suddenly turns a little sad. “I’ve noticed a lot of bothered lately, and I hate that. Need to talk it out, fuck it out, fight it out...all of the above?” he asks, his hazel gaze studying mine.

  I wipe my hands down my face and sigh. “I’ll be okay. It’s just all been a lot,” I confess. “From the minute I met Lachlan and the others until now, it’s just been one crazy thing after another. I don’t really even get time to process what the fuck just happened before the next thing is breathing down my neck.”

  Valen gives me a knowing nod.

  “I think that’s all this is,” I tell him, gesturing to myself. “Maybe all the emotion is catching up to me now. Or maybe I’m finally seeing that my future isn’t going to be the Sentinel sunshine and rainbows I secretly hoped it might be. Or maybe it’s all the above, but I’m figuring it out,” I reassure him.

  I sag back against the wall of the tub, as if my admission sapped all of my energy.

  “Anything the rest of us can do to help?” Valen asks as he sits down on the opposite side of the massive inground bath.

  I trace water droplets with my eyes as they move slowly down his cheeks and drip off his chin. Some of them dart sideways, daring to skim his full lips before tumbling from his face and dripping back into the tub of water.

  “Do you think a lot about the future?” I ask randomly, and I can tell the question takes him a little off guard.

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, Bastien and I have known we were going to be paladin since we were young. So when I think of the future, I think of that mostly; the next test we have to take or physical training we have to do at the academy. Sometimes I wonder about the assignments we might go on, things like that.”

  I nod and contemplate his words.

  “But what do you see now?” I ask, fidgeting with the ends of my wet hair.

  “Now that we won’t be paladin?” Valen clarifies.

  I nod again.

  “I’m not sure. Like you said, everything has happened pretty fast with Adriel and now this,” he tells me, gesturing to the castle walls surrounding us. “I know we’ll be together,” he offers, his tone radiating certainty. “I guess that’s all I really need to know right now.”

  I give Valen a small smile, but the question of now what seems to burrow deeper into my brain until it feels more demanding.

  “What do you think will happen with Silva?” Valen asks me, his gaze equally as contemplative as mine is now.

  I offer my patent shrug. “I honestly have no idea. You would know better than I would how the elders deal with shit like that.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. I just wish I understood what was happening with him,” Valen admits, and my heart aches for him. “Bas and I thought he had come to terms with what happened to our parents. I mean, Silva is a good guy, but to do the shit he was doing… It’s just hard to reconcile the uncle who raised me with the crazed man who attacked my mate.”

  Valen stares at the water, and I hate the haunted ring in his voice.

  “Hope is a bitch,” I admit after a couple beats.

  Valen looks up at me, confused.

  “I’m not saying what Silva did was okay, it fucking wasn’t, and he should face consequences for it. But I don’t think that it automatically tallies Silva in the bad guy column. I think finding me stoked hope in him. Maybe it was hope he didn’t even realize he had, but add a little Vinna exists kindling to it, and that flicker could be a bonfire in no time. He got hopeful, and then he got desperate.”

  “Yeah, I could see that,” Valen admits on a sad nod.

  “Some casters put themselves above the other supes,” I scoff humorlessly, realizing that Sentinels clearly do it too. “It’s easier to hurt others when you think of them as lesser. It’s not like the lamia, shifters and other supes exactly have their own paladin to protect them and call foul when shit goes down. Silva and the others looked at lamia like they were the enemy instead of looking at the enemy and realizing that some of them just so happened to be lamia. Aydin and Evrin will probably have consequences to face too, from the first lamia they tortured for information,” I state.

  “Actually, I don’t think they will,” Valen disagrees. “They were ordered to purge those lamia, they just worked them over for information beforehand. That technically doesn’t violate any of the rules. What Silva, Lachlan, and Keegan were doing was unsanctioned, and that is the big no-no.”

  I snort at the logic of it all. From what the guys have said, Silva will probably only get his title stripped, maybe not even that. He’ll probably just get reassigned to a different paladin coven, but with the deaths in his current coven, that was inevitable anyway.

  “Do you hate him?” Valen asks me, and I pause not sure how to answer that question.

  Do I hate him?

  “No,” I answer after a moment. “I don’t hate him, but I don’t respect him or like him all that much.”

  I worry that admitting that could create some kind of issue. Silva is the twins’ family, their only family.

  “I don’t expect you to feel the same way about him though,” I quickly explain. “My experience with Silva, Lachlan, and Keegan was obviously very different from your experience with them.”

  “Does it bug you when we talk about them?” he asks, and my worried gaze softens.

  “No. They’re your family. They raised you. I like hearing there are other sides to them than the ones I saw.”

  Valen nods simply, but I can see his shoulders rise like a weight was just lifted from them.

  “Did you think I’d be mad if you still cared about them?” I ask curious. It had never really dawned on me before that any of the guys could be worrying about this.

  “No, I didn’t think you’d be mad. I felt like I was betraying you somehow. We all did. We saw the way they treated you. That’s not who any of us thought they were.”

  “Valen, just because they didn’t want me doesn’t mean they didn’t want you,” I reassure him.

  Valen stares at me for a moment, his gaze tracing my face. I’m not sure what he’s looking for.

  “Come here,” he eventually says, his warm voice wrapping around me like a tether.

  “Why?” I ask, suddenly eyeing him warily.

  Valen chuckles. “Just come here, I want you to sit on my dick while I tell you a story.”

  I laugh, and butterflies flutter to life in my stomach. “Well, how could I resist such a flowery offer?” I snark, but I get up anyway and inch closer.

  When I’m within reachi
ng distance of Valen’s long corded arms, he snags me by the waist and pulls me toward him. I squeak at the manhandling, but spread my legs to straddle him as he pulls me chest to chest. Valen runs his hand down the runes on my spine, and I shiver, very aware of the erection nestled between my thighs. My breasts press against Valen’s wet muscled pecs. I love the feel of his naked body against mine.

  “I’ve wanted you from the moment you woke up in my arms, sitting on me just like this,” he tells me, rolling his hips up just like he did that first movie night when we woke up alone all twined together. “I realized how hard I was falling for you when you disappeared after we went dancing. I saw you in the back of that SUV, covered in ash and blood, tenderly and carefully taking care of your friend’s ashes, and I knew I was a goner. You were it.”

  Valen kisses me softly, and I try to swallow past the tightness in my throat.

  “Bastien wanted you from the first punch, Sabin from the first ‘fuck you.’ Ryker fell the day you came back after cliff diving and told us about what happened with the shifters. Knox wanted you from the first time he ever saw you. Siah knew you were it when you offered your blood like it wasn’t a big deal; you saw him for him and not the monster others had spent his whole life seeing. You had Torrez from the minute you broke his jaw. Do you see a pattern here?” Valen asks me, leaning back so he can stare intensely into my eyes.

  “That I kick a lot of your asses?” I joke, and Valen laughs.

  “No, that you have all of us. Hook, line and sinker, you have us. We want you. We love you, and we’re going to keep on doing that forever. I know you didn’t find what you were wanting to here or with Lachlan. But you do have it with us. You know that, right?”

  Valen’s eyes are beseeching. I run the tip of my nose against his and run my fingers through his wet hair. I lift up on my knees and position myself until I feel Valen’s hard length line up with my opening, and then I slowly sink down on top of it. Valen moans and grips my hips tighter.

 

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