by Ann Denton
Daggler grumbled. "If you’re off to go coddle that mentee of yours, don’t bother." He stood. "I've been saying for months that boy has a personal agenda and he shouldn’t have been trusted to take back that college."
I nodded. "I saw him lose four fae fighters without lifting a finger to help them."
I pretended to play along with Daggler’s line of thinking but really, as my eyes slid along the table, I used my peripheral vision to see how the guard holding me had reacted. Brendan stiffened, his grip tightening slightly on my arm.
Citrine rolled her eyes at Daggler. "Don't we all have personal agendas? But so long as his personal agenda coincides with our—"
Daggler interrupted. "You mean coincides with your personal vendetta against dragons—"
Citrine stood sharply, eyes flickering toward the winter fae who flanked me. "Gentlemen, you have permission to move." She then addressed the fae on my right, the one who’d grown stiff. "Brendan, can you send someone else up here to watch our esteemed..."
I had to hold in a smile as Citrine tried to decide if she should call me a witness or a prisoner. Decisions decisions.
I lowered my eyes respectfully, pretending she was in charge. But I was pretty certain she'd seen how I'd directed things. I was topping from the bottom. I knew she was furious and was already planning out a way for me to pay for it later—painfully.
I didn't care.
So long as Triton showed the fuck up, I would be fine with nearly any damn outcome.
The door opened and shut behind me as the winter fae left to do Citrine’s bidding without her having to make that awkward decision on what to call me.
I hardly noticed the scuffing sound of the door because I was worried about more important things. Like Trite, the acid-throwing ex best friend. Where was he? Hadn't Citrine called to summon him? I was almost certain she had. Who else would she have been dialing?
Fear chewed a hole in my stomach and crawled inside at the thought that maybe she hadn't called him to come here but warned him away.
No. Goddamn it, no!
I needed him here. I needed to look that sick, twisted fuck in the eyes…
But my hope faded to despair when the Mage Councilors stepped back from the table and started smashing Portal Potions against the ground. Colored smoke filled the room and crawled along the ceiling until I started to cough.
Next to me, Martin, who had stayed behind to guard me, started to cough too. He was allowed to move because of Citrine's orders, so he stepped away from me. I heard the hall door open as he got fresh air for himself.
I ended up closing my watering eyes and pounding on my chest. That's why I didn't notice when a new puff of smoke appeared. I only looked up when I heard a familiar, shocked voice.
"Aubry?" Triton's British lilt rang out.
He wore a collared black shirt and grey suit jacket today, not completely buttoned, like he’d gotten ready in a hurry—like he hadn’t been expecting Citrine’s summons. The necklace from his parents gleamed around his neck. I tried not to stare but I noticed that tiny glimmer of yellow again. Not from the chain… From a scratch on the stone.
"Trite!" My eyes popped open and the relief in my tone was completely genuine. I was so fucking relieved to see him. So goddamned fucking relieved.
He was the entire reason I was here.
His heart might’ve been full of hate, but he held the key to peace. Mayor Triton-fucking-Vale, with the key to the kingdom of Peace-ville draped around his neck.
I let the smoke-induced tears stream down my face as I stared at him, opening my arms like I wanted a hug.
"You stood with that dragon shit!" he shook his head, his tone scathing.
"If I hadn’t distracted him, you really think you’d still be alive?" I taunted.
"I had him!" Trite’s fury drove him around the table.
"You’ve been in two damn fights in your life! He was playing you!" I scoffed, furrowing my brows.
"Bollocks!"
"I fucking saved your ass even after you left mine on the street. Admit it, Trite. You were never even there to rescue me!" I let all the fury and hatred and emotion drip into my tone and out my eyes. "You only found me in Skid Row because of that dragon. You left me then. You left me on that college rooftop. You don’t give a shit about me!"
Trite shook his head as he walked toward me, avoiding the three-foot-wide glowing turquoise circle that surrounded me. "Please, Aubry. Your melodramatics are pathetic."
I shook my head. "Yeah. Yeah they are. But they were good enough to make Citrine and the council question whether or not they trust you."
That brought him right up to the edge of the circle at my side. Trite stood between me and the door. I couldn’t even see Martin because my former best friend leaned in with a sneer on his handsome face. "They won’t believe anything out of that whore mouth of yours."
"They already did."
"What did you tell them?"
I pulled a Drake move and turned away without answering.
That did it.
Trite, in his fury, stepped into the circle on my left side, slightly behind me and yanked my shoulder. "What the fuck did you tell them?"
I glanced up into his face. It was turning a putrid shade of red. He was shaking in anger.
I had to swallow down the victory I felt tap dancing in my chest. I wasn’t done yet. And unlike I had when Trite had attacked Mag-Sorgin, I couldn’t lose focus.
I stared up at him. "I just said you seemed to care more about Drake than any of the fae you brought with you. You didn’t even lift a finger to help them. You used them as bait to lure the others away. You’re willing to sacrifice other magicals for your personal vendetta without even trying to do what you promised the council."
Triton hit me. His hand smacked my face so hard I saw red. My eyes watered and my knees bent as I reeled from the impact, but I couldn’t fall thanks to the damn restriction spell gluing my feet to the floor.
It was perfect. It gave me the chance to bend and cup my face.
My hand slid up to my ear and I undid an earring—one of the ones Easton had made me. I turned the back and carefully poured out the Growth Potion. The blade flashed in my hand and grew. I didn’t even wait for it to reach full size before I stood and shoved it under Triton’s ribs, up toward his heart.
I stabbed my best friend.
I struggled to shove down the ghosts that instantly sprung up to haunt me. Memories of biking on highway 101 along the coast with the ocean sighing in our ears. Memories of bad karaoke nights with him and other students. Memories of Trite tucking a drunken me into bed.
Those memories were years old. Outdated.
I shoved them back by pulling up Suzie’s empty face. Mariana’s mother—who needed a stranger to give her a moment to cry and mourn the son Triton had killed. The library and all those dazed shifters. That bottle of acid he’d thrown without giving a goddamn if it hit me.
I lifted my other hand to cover Trite’s mouth and block his screams as I twisted the knife. I watched his eyes. They were wide in shock. His noises grew louder, more frantic, so I yelled to cover the sound in the hope that Martin wouldn’t come rushing over.
"You hit a damn woman, you stupid bottle-throwing, baby-ass fuck! That’s a goddamned coward’s move! You just wait until I get outta here. It’s called karma, Trite, and it’s pronounced, ‘fuck you!’"
The light started to fade from Trite’s eyes. As his body slackened and started to slump, I moved my hand from his mouth to his neck, holding his full weight up with one arm.
From out of nowhere, I heard a loud boom near the doorway. My eyes went wide and my heart dropped out, like a beam tumbling from the grasp of a crane. Because that sound? It wasn’t Martin slamming the door. No, what I’d heard… was a gunshot.
24
Drake
I was a goddamned idiot with a death wish.
But then, so was Aubry.
Larry—the righteous old fuck—had apparentl
y agreed to help her on her suicidal quest. But after the plan went into motion, he’d then waffled about the fact that she told him to go to our old hideout and leave some stuff—but not everything—behind.
"I don’t feel comfortable going through your things without you knowing," Larry had mumbled, shaking that frizzled salt and pepper head of his. And the whole story had come tumbling out.
That was why I was currently breaking into the damned MP precinct, like a fucking shifter lemming, following this wasp off a cliff.
Ugh.
My dragon growled at me. He didn’t like the wasp reference anymore. I told him to shove it where the sun didn’t shine, but his slitted glare told me he didn’t give a shit what I threatened him with. Stupid overgrown lizard.
God, now I even sounded like her.
My eyes scanned the roof one last time before I turned and used my fire to melt a top story window. With it, I liquified the alarm set to trigger upon break in. No alarm, no problem. So far, so good. I squelched my fire and climbed through.
The room I entered was an empty office. The silence ate at me, ringing maddeningly in my ears. My nerve endings felt like live wires hanging from a downed electric pole, just sizzling and sparking on the ground.
A fire formed in my hand unbidden. Damn it. Nerves hadn’t gotten to me this badly since my first time as a dom.
I closed my eyes and tried to get rid of the stupid, conspicuous flame, but I couldn’t. The little bastard was resilient. So I went over to a computer, found the electrical cord, and sent that fire sizzling into the wall. Hopefully it would reach a circuit somewhere below and start a little hot patch of fun for the MP. That might distract them for a minute or two, if the human grenade I’d just left in the parking lot didn’t do the trick.
Boom.
I grinned as I heard the satisfying sound of some MP’s car exploding as I made my way through the office and over to the door.
I slid into the hallway, gun cocked. This top floor looked like it housed servers and old random shit. One room had a couple of broken desks. Another held an empty meeting room. But the nervous expectation and anticipation that filled me before I checked every single room, nearly gave me a heart attack.
Damn it to fucking hell. I was getting too old for this shit.
Why the fuck hadn’t Aubry taken her mates as backup?
Even as I asked myself that question, I knew why. They’d never have let her leave. And just as I hadn’t taken them as backup myself, I knew Aubry wouldn’t want them getting hurt, or going down with her if this plan didn’t work.
The goddamn MP had been there, waiting for her, ready to pounce the moment she stepped outside the university’s restriction circle. Citrine fucking Pierce had been there, eyeing the campus. And then eyeing my Aubry.
I glared and let out a sigh, finally allowing the possessive tendencies I’d been fighting off to have free rein. She was mine. Just as much as the guys’. Mine. It was strange what a near-death experience and a suicide mission could do to a person. It forced all of my feelings to float to the surface, gasping for breath.
I had to stifle my dragon’s possessive roar of approval.
Why was she doing it though? I could have done this fucking shit. I came at the MP and the stupid council all the damn time. Stupid woman and her martyr complex. Just like when she’d climbed that building during the Skid Row fire when she was in no fit state to save anyone.
She’s an idiot. A goddamned perfect idiot. Selfless. Beautiful. Fierce.
And I was gonna fucking find her and get her the hell out of here.
Somehow.
I went down the emergency stairs, slowly descending to the sixth floor. I had barely cracked the door when I let it fall shut softly again. It sounded like a room full of secretaries or paralegals or clerks. Gossipy women. Probably not the floor the council was on, then.
I went down another flight, and as I reached the landing, I froze. I didn’t even have to open the door and peer inside. I just knew. My chest thrummed. This was it. She was here. Her spirit was so huge it cast out this forcefield and drew me in whether I wanted to go or not.
I carefully pushed through the door. And instantly, I saw one of those winged snowflake fucks who’d flown off with Aubry.
He barely had time to look at me and reach for the gun at his belt, before I put a bullet in his brain. I checked the hall to make sure it was clear—it was, but it probably wouldn’t be for long—then I made my way over to where his body propped open a door.
Inside the room, I saw Aubry’s beautiful wings marred by ice. And worse, in front of her stood the asshole who’d been trying to kill me all this time—Triton Vale. It looked like she was hugging him.
It felt like a semi-truck smashing through me.
No. Hell fucking no.
"Drake?" Aubry’s tone was breathless, surprised.
I gave her a hard grin. "Have to admit, Dollface, this wasn’t exactly what I expected to see. You, cozying up—"
She shoved Triton backward and his body bent at an unnatural angle as his feet stayed in place and the rest of him swung backward in a broken bridge pose. A huge silver knife with an engraved handle protruded from his chest.
Instantly, my heart shifted gears. It went from wanting to slam into reverse and peel out of the room, straight to flooring the gas, zero to sixty in less than a second.
My jaw dropped open. I couldn’t fucking help it; I was too damn stunned. I looked up to see my sweet fae covered in that sick fuck’s blood. "You killed him?"
She nodded, and I swore to fucking Christ that I heard choirs singing in my ears.
But then she glanced at the body at my feet. The stupid MP fae. "Martin pressed his alarm button. We have a minute, at most, before guards and enforcers start flooding the place. You have to get out of here."
Less than a minute? In this mess? At the precinct? I’d been lucky enough to sneak in at all, let alone get this far without being caught. Getting out would be ten times harder. With any luck, some of the enforcers would still be dealing with the grenade and short circuit issues I’d caused. But even still, with an alarm going off? I had no doubt escape would now be… impossible.
I stared at Aubry. At her beautiful face. At her poor, broken, ice-covered wingtips. And sadness and longing swirled around in my gut. She couldn’t fly. But she could escape. She knew this building better than me. She could make it.
If she had some help.
If I stayed behind and caused a distraction.
A boulder lodged in my throat as I stared at her. I memorized those gorgeous fucking eyes. I wanted them to be the last thing I thought about before I went down.
"Gimme a pout, Princess, then get the fuck outta here."
She stared at me, confused as she toyed with one of Easton’s earrings. "What?"
"I’ll stay. I’ll keep them off you. I’ll take the fall." Damn. That fucking boulder made it hard to talk. I shoved the words around it, anyway. "You basically just stole this kill from me, anyway."
I took a couple steps toward her, careful not to step inside the glowing turquoise circle.
She gave a bitter fucking laugh and ripped a necklace off Triton’s neck. "No. I’m not going. You are."
"Not up for debate," I growled, but the gravelly sound didn’t hold any weight or anger like it usually did, just sheer determination.
The thought of leaving her behind was intolerable. A buzzsaw ripped through my ribs at that thought. There was no fucking way I was going to do that. None.
"Oh really?" She dragged a nail across the black stone in her palm, the necklace chain dangling between her fingers. The blackness chipped and flecked off, revealing a glowing yellow stone beneath.
My mind shot straight into outer space. There was no fucking air. Hope, fear, joy, and terror swam around like sharks in the pit of my stomach at the sight. "A mage jewel?"
She gave a cocky little grin. "Didn’t recognize it during our rooftop fight? Guess it must have been too cold for
your lizard brain."
"Guess so," I said with a tiny half-smile.
I couldn’t help it. Against my better judgement, I reached out to take the stone. I had to hold it, just once. It was hard to believe that something so tiny would solve our problems. I scratched a nail over the black enamel on the stone, revealing a tiny bit more of its yellow glow.
"How?"
Aubry smirked. "I was thinking about ghosts. Bodie kept saying Trite was a ghost. It didn’t make sense. Why couldn’t your best assassin, with a damn shifter nose, find a mere human?"
Her words sank in as realization dawned on me. That’s why Bodie couldn’t find him…
"Trite’s worn that thing for the past year," she said, crossing her arms. "Told me it came from his parents. But that didn’t really make sense, either. Considering he was never quite so sentimental in college."
I shook my head at the irony. Mage jewels had the power to hide things—entire communities, if need be—but also… people. Bodie couldn’t track Triton because he’d been wearing this jewel nonstop. The very thing we needed had been concealing the one person hellbent on stopping us from saving the shifters.
I held the glowing yellow jewel out to Aubry, shocked, grateful, just so damn glad she was a Nancy fucking Drew. "Take this and go," I ordered her.
But she was too busy shoving a tiny glass bulb into my hand.
"Larry switched out the Growth Potion on one of my earring backs with a Portal Potion—the first one he’d finished from the collection at Mag-Sorgin. Take it. Go."
She was so adorable when she tried to give orders.
I already knew all that—thanks to Larry spilling his guts—but when I’d asked the old mage if he had any for me, he’d shaken his head sadly. Said he’d only finished the one, then used a Shrinking Spell so it would fit into her earring.
But I didn’t give a damn. The MP hadn’t confiscated the potion from her like I’d feared. She could get away easy now. I pushed the bottle back towards her. "No. You go."
My alpha power blasted out without thought.