by Lexi C. Foss
Every other avenue I’d tried had failed, and I finally figured out why—they all revolved around Aflora. So I was playing with a new path that Zakkai wouldn’t be able to sense. A path that wasn’t tied to him at all.
Another risk.
Another potentially horrid fate.
But I was running out of options.
A tug at my consciousness had me glancing at the bed again. Aflora was unweaving my block, her power seeming to have grown overnight.
Because of Zakkai.
I sighed. She was ahead of schedule. I expected it to take her at least another week to break my barriers. At least she would know how to throw them back up when the time came.
With a wave of my wand, I conjured my phone and shot a message off to Ajax, telling him I wanted to meet up later tonight. I had to handle this dream first, as well as visit with Chern—he expected me to show up in an hour to discuss methods of tracking Aflora—and then I could continue my exploration of the alternative plan.
Rest was for the weak.
And I didn’t have time for weakness.
So I lay down on the bed near Kols and shut my eyes, giving in to Aflora’s call.
Little rose, I said into her mind as I materialized beside her and Zakkai. Central Park is an interesting choice.
So you can hear me, she replied, her blue eyes glowing with power.
I can always hear you, I murmured, sliding my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Another interesting choice. We were all similarly dressed in casual attire, like we were preparing for a stroll around the park. If only it would be this easy. “Zakkai.”
“Shade,” he returned. “I need the rock from your Advanced Conjuring class.”
It was just like Zakkai to deliver a command with his greeting. In this case, it was an unexpected demand. “Are you talking about the one that sucked all the life out of Aflora? The one you gave her?”
“I didn’t give it to Aflora,” he replied, his brow furrowing. “And what do you mean, it sucked the life out of her?”
“She nearly passed out from the spell. And your essence was all over it.”
“You attacked the Death Blood building?” Kols asked, his tone holding a touch of that arrogant annoyance he favored.
Zakkai ignored him in favor of me. “Drop the rock in our usual place. I want to review the magic.”
“Sure. I’ll just add it to my growing to-do list,” I drawled.
The Quandary Blood arched a haughty white brow. “Today.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Why not?” I had no intention of sleeping, anyway. I shifted my focus to Aflora, her cerulean gaze guarded. “Is he treating you all right?”
“Do you care?” she countered.
“You know I do, little rose.” I reached out to tug on one of her loose strands of hair and gave her a half smile. It’s okay, Aflora. I can take your hatred.
I don’t hate you, Shade, she whispered back. But I’m not happy with you.
I can take that, too, I replied, my heart skipping a beat at the softness in her voice. I expected her ire, not her understanding.
She stepped away from Zakkai to wrap her arms around me. I’m still mad, she warned as I returned the hug. But you’re still my mate, Shade.
I kissed the top of her head and met Zeph’s surprised gaze. He clearly hadn’t expected this. And he confirmed that by narrowing his eyes at Zakkai. “Okay, now I know this is all bullshit. Why have you brought us here? To lull us into a false sense of comfort?”
Zakkai merely looked at him and walked over to slide down a tree trunk. A hum of energy told me he’d whispered something into Aflora’s mind. Whatever it was had her glancing over her shoulder at him.
Silence fell as they communicated, then she nodded slowly and turned in my arms to face Zeph.
“Kai wants to teach me more about Quandary magic,” she said slowly. “In exchange for my willing cooperation, he’ll let me dream of you all.”
Kai, I repeated to myself, glancing at the Quandary Blood. He’d worked much faster to unravel her reservations this time. Because I’d given her to him? Or because he was playing a new game?
He smirked at me, then closed his eyes as though to take a nap.
“I’m supposed to believe that?” Zeph asked, drawing my attention back to him. “Try again, Aflora.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she replied. “He wants me to cooperate. I demanded access to my mates in return for that cooperation. Is this really that hard to believe, Zeph? He won’t let me leave. You can’t visit. So I’m doing what I can to see you.”
“I’m finding it hard to believe that he would allow you to see us without a catch,” Zeph replied.
“There’s absolutely a catch,” I agreed. “But I suspect we don’t know what it is yet.”
Zakkai’s lips quirked up in response, his eyes still closed.
“He wants to kill Kols,” Zeph stressed.
“And the entire Nacht line,” Zakkai agreed, his tone soft and lazy. “Maybe I want to give Aflora the chance to say goodbye to her mate.”
“You’re not killing Kols,” she snapped.
Zakkai just spread his hands in response as though to say, It is what it is.
“As much fun as it is to discuss my impending doom—an experience I will be declining—I have a suggestion.” Kols had remained uncharacteristically quiet throughout the exchange.
I suspected it was because of the power circling around him in a cloud of protection, one meant to retaliate the moment Zakkai attempted anything. He was the future king, after all. The source naturally guarded him.
However, the source wasn’t actually his to command—a lesson he would eventually learn from Zakkai. Assuming it came to that. Again.
The Quandary Blood opened his eyes. “I enjoy suggestions.”
“Good. Because I think you’ll approve of this one,” Kols replied, his arrogance rivaling that of the Source Architect on the ground. “The Council and the Elders used Aflora as bait. Now they want to track her through Shade. I suspect you already knew that would happen and have safeguards in place to protect yourself and her. My suggestion is we work together to keep Aflora safe. With you. And we’ll use the nightly dreams to regroup with next steps.”
“So your suggestion is to maintain the status quo by allowing me to keep Aflora—a situation you have absolutely no control over anyway and can’t alter. Sure. That works for me.” Zakkai closed his eyes again.
“My suggestion is to accept where we are and not waste time fighting it,” Kols reiterated. “And to instead discuss a future resolution.”
I blinked, this twist of fate straightening my spine.
Aflora caught my movement because her back was pressed to my chest. What is it?
Kols has never offered to work with Zakkai before, I told her, unable to hide my shock. They usually just… fight.
The Quandary Blood’s eyelids lifted as he studied the Midnight Fae Prince. “Future resolution? And what would that look like for you, Nacht?”
“Well, for one, it would be a future where Aflora lives. Which is not what the Council or the Elders have in mind.” His tone held a note of irritation that he usually reserved for me. It was rather nice to hear it directed at someone else for a change. “I think we can all agree that some changes in the hierarchical structure are needed. I’m not sure what those should look like yet, as I’ve only recently become aware of the challenges, but I am open to discussing them.”
“And if I say the only way any of this will ever work is for the entire Nacht family line to die, you’ll agree?” Zakkai drawled, his eyebrow inching upward once more. He waited a beat before smiling and saying, “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”
“Death isn’t always the solution,” Aflora murmured. “Unless you want to take over the mantle of slaughtering and ending lives?”
Zakkai’s eyes shifted to our mate. “Retribution requires sacrifice.”
“So does reformation,” she countered. “Sometimes
we have to sacrifice our desire for revenge to find a more efficient path forward.”
My lips parted at her statement.
It sounded like something my grandmother would say.
Zakkai’s expression said he felt similarly. He snorted and went back to his nap. “Indulge your mates, Aflora. Then we need some sleep before your classes tomorrow. Your new headmaster won’t go easy on you.”
“Changing the subject doesn’t solve anything,” she muttered. “And what class are you talking about?”
“Quandary Magic 101,” he replied. “With me as your personal tutor.”
“What about her other courses?” Zeph asked. “She’s still learning defensive and offensive skills.”
“Use the dreams,” Zakkai said, yawning. “Or don’t. But I’m not letting you into the paradigm. Not while you’re tied to the Elite Blood.”
Kols and Zeph shared a long look. They couldn’t speak mentally, but I sensed they were conversing in another way. Perhaps via their eyes alone.
“Aflora will stay where she is,” Kols said. “We won’t fight about it but will instead help Shade conceal her location. This is for her personal safety more than anything else.”
“And we’ll train in the dreams,” Zeph added. “So she can better defend herself should something change or happen.”
“And we will discuss as a unit how to move forward,” Aflora said, her focus on Zakkai.
The Quandary Blood held her gaze.
And she held his back, standing before him like the queen she would one day become.
A tendril of hope curled around my heart, the notion that we might all work together a dream that had always been so far out of reach.
I allowed it to flourish for three seconds. Just long enough to spread a trickle of warmth through my veins.
Then I recalled all the histories where I’d failed.
I couldn’t afford to hope.
Not until the end.
“Okay, sweet star,” Zakkai said softly. “I’ll agree to those terms for now.”
His words sent a chill down my spine. Not because of the way he spoke them, but because of the implication behind them.
They’d just struck a deal.
One none of us could hear.
But I knew what she’d just agreed to.
The Blood Gala.
In ten days, our fates would be decided.
Again.
“I DON’T LIKE THIS.”
Zeph uttered a variation of those four words after every dream session with Aflora this week. I definitely preferred the fantasies where we all ended up naked. But that was impossible to do with Zakkai observing from the corner.
The Quandary Blood rarely spoke. However, his presence was absolutely felt.
This arrangement couldn’t last forever, as evidenced by Zeph pacing beside me.
“Come back to bed,” I told him. “There are still a few more hours before we need to leave. We should try to get some proper sleep.” While the dreams technically allowed our bodies to rest, it kept our minds vividly engaged. Which left us tired after endless lessons in Aflora’s head.
“How the hell am I supposed to sleep when that Quandary Blood has our mate?”
“He’s one of her mates, too,” I reminded him.
“And you’re okay with that?” Zeph demanded, spinning around to face me. “How are you not raging over this, Kols? You’ve been the epitome of calm, like this means nothing to you. I don’t get it.”
“Like it means nothing to me?” I repeated, arching a brow. “This means everything to me, Zeph.”
“Yet, you didn’t even react to the fact that Dakota is there. Did you miss the part about her attacking Aflora?”
Not this again. “What do you want me to do? Rant and rave? We both know I want to kill that power-hungry cunt. And I will if I ever see her again.” Not just because she’d apparently hurt Aflora, but also because of our past experience. She was like a fire gnat that just didn’t know how to bugger off.
“Then how the hell do you expect either of us to sleep? I can barely focus, let alone try to relax.” He resumed his pacing. “We’ve just accepted that he took our mate to a paradigm in some undisclosed location, surrounded by fae whom we don’t know, and Dakota is there. And we haven’t done a damn thing to fix it. Not to mention all the bullshit with the Council and the Elders.”
He ran his fingers through his dark hair, his torso flexing with the movement.
Zeph had logged a lot of hours at the gym this week, and it showed. He was already solid muscle. But now those muscles were all tensed and fired up.
“Are you even listening to me?” he demanded, his green eyes flaring with power.
“I’m listening,” I said. And admiring, I added to myself. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do. I don’t like the situation, but Aflora is safer with Zakkai at the moment. We can’t properly protect her with my father and Constantine breathing down my neck.”
As it was, we’d already been summoned for a visit with my father later tonight. He wanted to discuss the final preparations for the Blood Gala. And in a strange twist of fate, he’d required that Zeph travel back with me to Nacht Manor.
“Safer,” he drawled, his disdain coloring the word in a darker tone. “I’m not sure I agree with that assessment, given his track record at the Academy and in the village.”
“Aflora said that wasn’t him, but the Council setting a trap.” Considering everything else they’d done, I didn’t find that very difficult to believe.
“Yes, bringing us to an entirely different topic and issue—she seems to be buying into his bullshit, which has me seriously questioning her intelligence.”
I sighed. “You don’t really mean that.” We’d come too far for him to truly feel that way about Aflora. “You know she’s brilliant. You also know she’s not one to trust easily. She’s been burned too many times. By us.”
“Are you saying we deserve this?” he asked, green fire flickering along his fingertips. “That this is some sort of fucked-up punishment for all the errors we’ve made?”
“No, Zeph. I’m saying that we need to trust our mate.” I rolled off the bed and stepped into his path, forcing him to stop.
“Don’t.”
I touched him anyway, not afraid of his simmering temper. He could take it out on me however he wanted. We both could use a good sparring session. Or maybe a fuck.
“Look, we’ve already established that she can’t leave him without a fight, and we’ve also established that we don’t have a safe place for her here. The Council and the Elders plan to kill her once she proves unuseful. And from what I understand, Zakkai will track her down even if we manage to rescue her. So why not work with him to protect her while we figure out the larger issue, hmm?”
His jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth. “What makes you think Zakkai isn’t the larger issue?”
“I think he’ll become one eventually,” I admitted. “But the Council and the Elders are more pressing right now.” Case in point, the writhing power dancing up and down my arms. “I’m supposed to ascend a throne riddled with corruption.”
“You’ve known that for years.”
“Not the extent of it,” I replied as my hands drifted down his bare arms. “I’ve been blind to the larger issues, just accepting it all because there’s been no alternative. And now, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m partially mated to Aflora. Shade just bit me, too. I still have three ascension trials left, plus the one I’m currently failing. My grandfather wants to postpone my inheritance of the throne as a result, and I think my father is considering it, too. So what do I do, Zeph? Do I run? Do we run? Go hide in a paradigm?”
I shook my head and took a step back to sit on the bed again, my head in my hands.
“I have no idea who I am anymore.” Everything I thought I knew had been turned on its head since Aflora arrived. Part of me hated her for it. A smarter part of me acknowledged that it wasn’t her fault at all. She was j
ust the culminating event that turned my world upside down.
“You’re Prince Kolstov,” Zeph said.
“And what does that mean?” I asked him, my forearms falling to my thighs as I looked up at him through my mess of auburn strands. “We both know I can’t ascend. Not with my links to Aflora and Shade.”
“You think the source will reject you as king?”
“Not the source, no,” I muttered. “The Council. The Elders. All of Midnight Fae kind. They’ll all reject me.” I’d be lucky if they didn’t kill me for this.
And yet, I didn’t regret a moment of it.
“I’ve given up so much for them. My identity. My life. Every moment of every day has been about my future as the king. Yet they put me on trial for the Academy incident, all the while knowing it wasn’t me at all. They never apologized or even acknowledged the oversight. Meanwhile, they were busy attacking the village and framing Zakkai?” I phrased it as a question because we had no proof yet, other than what Zakkai had told Aflora. However, it was an easy accusation to believe given everything else.
“He could be lying,” Zeph pointed out. It’d been his immediate reaction the other night when Aflora told us what Zakkai had said about the village. He also apparently hadn’t left that rock for her in Advanced Conjuring class.
“He could be lying,” I repeated, agreeing with Zeph. “But why would he? What does he get out of it?”
“Aflora’s cooperation,” Zeph replied. “Which seems to be what he wants. Hence, the dreams.”
“Maybe, but he has to know she’ll hate him if she discovers he lied.”
“You assume her hatred would bother him.”
I considered it, frowning. “Wouldn’t it bother you? As her mate?”
“I’m not Zakkai.”
“No, you’re not,” I consented. “But given everything the Council and the Elders have been hiding, I find it reasonably easy to believe that they were behind it.” I also trusted Aflora’s instincts. She hadn’t elaborated on why she believed Zakkai, but I didn’t need her to.
And neither did Zeph.
It was just in his protective nature to question everything and everyone. My Guardian required control, and there was no aspect of this situation that he could own or manage. That was what had him upset.