Chapter Twenty-Four

Loki

G etting in here was a little bit dicey, but not as difficult as I had assumed. There appeared to be more spells and wards to prevent people from getting out than there were to prevent people from getting in, which seems a bit backward and suspicious to me, but from what Farren was telling us on the way over here I shouldn’t be surprised.

We haven’t encountered anyone yet, and we’re following the magic from the map, which means we’re on the third floor. It's slightly less opulent up here, but there’s not too much difference, and it’s over the top, to say the least. This fucker clearly loves himself; there’s a painting of himself at least every two metres, and I wish I were exaggerating.

“How much further?” I ask quietly, we haven’t seen anyone for a long time and there’s no sign of anyone on this floor anyway.

“It should be in the room at the end of the hall,” Mayhem replies, as he nods to the large door that is bigger than the rest of the ones in this hallway and clearly holding something important.

“The arrogance of this fucker is insane,” Farren mutters.

Zev shrugs, “People like him, who like to exploit others for their own gain, tend to be arrogant enough to think that they will never be on the receiving end of subterfuge or theft.”

“I couldn’t agree more. My father was the same way,” Farren replies.

I watch curiously as Zev and Farren share a knowing look. I know that he had a vision about her, and I’m starting to realise that he most likely saw some of her past, if not all of it.

“Who the fuck are you?” someone calls out, coming out of a room just ahead of us.

I don’t understand how it’s possible that none of us picked up that they were in there. They must have some kind of dampening spell on the room. Three more guys follow out after them, and Farren wastes no time at all in immediately decapitating a burly shifter. Zev throws a punch at the Fae male approaching him rapidly; the speed that he manages to do it is impressive, I'm not entirely convinced that he doesn’t have more magic than his visions, and I make a quick mental note to ask Rival and Grey to look into the Head Seers in the past and see if they had any other magic that they kept secret because I swear I just saw his eyes flash with literal flames and that’s not normal. Nor is the speed and force that he’s fighting with. It’s also clear that he is playing with the fucker, prolonging the fight to make it last longer. While Mayhem fights a magic user, utilising his own magic to take him on, I move my focus from watching Zev to the guy that is charging me, he’s a big mother fucker, and we really don’t have time for me to play with him like Zev is doing with his opponent, so using my vampiric speed, I dodge around him wrap my arm around his neck tilting his head to the side to give me better access to his throat. I feel my fangs elongate even more, and I have a brief moment of indecision, simply because Farren has never seen me like this before, and I’m not sure how she’s going to react to it. The last thing I want to do is scare her or make her wary of me. I can feel the fucker pinned to me building up his magic, no doubt readying a deadly spell.

I don’t have a choice, and it’s not like I can hide this side of myself from her forever, and I wouldn’t want to.

My teeth sink into his neck, and although I’m tempted to feed, we don’t have the time, and we have no idea whether these fuckers managed to warn anyone else that we were here, which means instead of feeding as I would like to do, I simply rip his throat out using my teeth and then, just to make doubly sure that he’s dead I twist his head from his shoulders, dropping it to the floor and letting it roll out of the way of his body. Some supernaturals have the uncanny ability to piece themselves back together even if they’ve been beheaded.

The hallway is silent, and I’m aware that Mayhem and Zev are moving the bodies back into the room that they came out of so we don’t attract any unwanted attention, but my eyes are too busy seeking out Farren to see what her reaction is to bother helping them. Her reaction is not what I thought it would be; she is watching me with interest and almost want, which doesn’t make much sense to me, but so long as she’s not looking at me in fear, then I don’t care.

Although her reaction does bring up other thoughts that I had been trying to squash ever since I first smelt her blood on that very first day. She smells better than anyone I have ever smelt before, and I bet her blood tastes even better than she smells. I am aware of what that means, but I’m not sure either of us is ready to deal with everything that will come along with that, which is why I haven’t told her what I suspect. I haven’t even told the guys, but that’s for a different reason. I’m reasonably confident that they have feelings for her and are drawn to her in the same way that I am, we all see how everyone else is feeling about her, including Grey and Zev, and yet we haven’t had a conversation about it, one that is becoming increasingly more important.

Taking blood from a willing donor that you don’t have to glamour and where there are feelings already is incredibly intense and can create a connection that wears off over time unless regularly triggered. However, it can also trigger a dangerously obsessive reaction in someone, and there are no signs beforehand that it will happen. You’ll often find that vamps in relationships don’t feed from their romantic partners and if they do, they only do it once a year to avoid the risk of triggering the obsessive side of giving a vampire blood. The only time when vamps feed regularly from their partners is when their partner is their mate. It strengthens the mate bond between them and the vamp won’t actually be able to actively feed off of anyone but their mate once they’ve found them and tasted their blood. It's incredibly rare, and you’re more likely to find what we call a true match pairing. It's not quite as intense as a mate bond, and the main difference is that the vampire in the pairing or group can still feed off other beings and creatures. It’s also possible to get a true match pairing with any kind of supernatural, however a true mate bond can only happen with another vampire. No one knows why; it just simply doesn’t trigger the mate bond with anyone but another vamp. I am reasonably sure that Farren is my true match pair, and that’s rare in itself a vampire only gets one in his lifetime.

As the small bit of blood that I ingested hits my stomach, I suddenly become aware that it’s been a long time since I fed properly, something that is more challenging than it should be and something I’m going to have to fix soon.

Really fucking soon. Shit.

Thankfully, Farren starts talking and momentarily distracts me from my hunger as she reminds me why we’re here.

“While you guys were finishing off your attackers, and Zev was playing,” Farren starts and gives a surprised looking Zev a proud and admiring look, “I checked the room. We can all go in the spell is on a book, and I scanned it quickly. It’s not sentient like Xerxes is, so we don’t need to worry.”

“Great, come on then,” Mayhem mutters as he heads toward the door, “we need to get this done as quickly as possible.”

“You’re right. We have no idea if there are more people behind these doors,” I add, following everyone through the door and then immediately stopping as it shuts behind me, “whoa, look at all this stuff.”

“I know, there’s some really rare fucking spells in here, not to mention all the gold and jewels,” Farren replies as she makes a beeline for a book that’s radiating dark magic.

“How do you know there are rare spells in here?” Zev asks with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

Farren pauses to give him a smirk of her own and replies, “What? I’m nosey and you guys had the situation outside handled. I thought I’d see if they had anything worth liberating while I was in here.”

Mayhem snorts, “And by liberating, you mean stealing.”

“Of course, now shush, it’s not easy to pull this complex of a spell apart. Guard my back,” she replies, becoming serious.

“Always,” all three of us promise at the same time, and I don’t miss her lips twitching up into a smile as her eyes soften before she turns back around.

While her magic fills the room as she works, the rest of us spread out through the space, facing the single window and the door, just in case we get caught. Meri, I assume, is still curled up underneath her hair, but Poca comes to stand next to me, his body growing slightly as he becomes alert, standing guard with the rest of us. I really hope that it’s going okay with the guys, I wouldn’t mind a fight right now, but if we want to stay as under the radar as we can, then we really shouldn’t be drawing attention to ourselves.

“All done,” Farren says sooner than I thought she would, “I’m going to let Kill know that we’re done; they need to get out now before shit hits the fan.”

“Double check that they gave the orders to the Fae horses that they used to pull the carriage, just in case we need to take a detour and grab them,” I suggest.

She nods and goes silent for a few seconds, I feel a buzz coming from the bond that connects me to Farren, but I can’t actually make out any words.

“The horses are taken care of, and he says that everyone has just suddenly dropped, so they’re getting out now, and they’ll meet us back at the castle.”

Rival nods, “Let’s get out of here then.”

Instead of heading toward the door that we came through, she heads toward the window, pauses for a moment as I feel her magic surge and then the web of spells that was covering the window glows for a second before disappearing completely.

“Judging from how quickly everyone lost their shit last time, I suggest that we take the plan b exit,” Farren explains as she opens the window and launches herself out of it.

All three of us rush toward the window irrational fear rushing through all of us that she’s hurt despite the fact that she’s highly skilled and supernatural. We get there just in time to see her slip into the Void while falling and then pop back out, landing in a crouch and looking up at us with an exhilarated smile, which I can’t help but return as I launch myself out of the window after her, doing a flip to show off and landing in a crouch next to her. I turn my head, intending to say something witty, but I’m instantly caught off guard when her lips land on mine in a quick but passionate kiss before she takes off again, blending in with the shadows as she darts between the surrounding trees, making her way to the wall and our escape out of here.

“Lucky bastard,” Zev chuckles before he takes off after her.

Mayhem slaps me on the shoulder on the way past, and I find myself the last one despite being the second out of the window. Using my vamp speed, I quickly catch up with them, reaching the place in the wall that we decided would be the best. I watch as Farren mutters a few words creating a hole in the wards, and then steps through the wall. Her magic fascinates me, and it does things that it’s not supposed to. She has never mentioned her mother before, but I’m beginning to wonder if she’s somehow gotten magic from both her mother and father, although that’s rare.

“Is that going to stay open for the others?” I double-check once we’ve all followed her through and are heading through the woods. The guys may be meeting us back at the castle, but we all have the same exit.

“Yeah, and I’ve spelled it to shut after they’ve gone through and not to let anyone else through either. The only problem is that I’ve never done it before, so I’m not entirely sure that it's going to work.” She replies, and I see her gnawing on her lip worriedly.

“I’m sure it will work. Your magic is pretty fucking amazing,” I tell her honestly.

When she still looks a bit worried, Zev chimes in, “They’ll get through fine, and no one will follow them.”

She glances at him and asks, “Vision?” when he nods, she smiles, “Thank you, that makes me feel less anxious.”

We’re nearly at the rendezvous place where we’re far enough away from Remiki’s stronghold that we can call the fae horse back to us to take us back to the castle when Meri suddenly launches himself from Farren’s shoulder, becoming bigger than I have ever seen him before and about the same size as Poca. Both Poca and Meri are instantly alert and focused back on where we came from. The rest of us freeze, sensing the danger now that they’ve both alerted us to it.

As the ground begins to shake beneath our feet, just a small tremor, Meri and Poca turn to look at each other; some sort of communication must be going on between them because Poca inclines his head to Meri and then turns, rushing back toward us and when we don’t move he huffs and snaps his teeth near Mayhem

Mayhem jumps back as he exclaims, “Whoa, what the fuck?”

“He wants us to back up against the tree although he could be more polite about it,” Farren explains, rolling her eyes and backing up against the tree.

When we all have our backs pressed up against the giant tree, Poca turns so his back is to us, guarding us against whatever it is that he and Meri have sensed. We all share a perplexed look, but the crunching of branches has our heads snapping in the direction that the creatures are looking in. It’s hard to describe what the fuck walks through the trees, bending the trunks and snapping them completely as it forces its way past. It’s fucking huge, almost reaching the tops of the trees and yet its steps are silent. It appears to have the ability to make its movements completely silent; even the trees that he’s crushing aren’t making a sound, and somehow that makes it a lot eerier than if it was making a sound. I think it's six legs and giant horse-like head with spikes covering the entirety of its body and face are probably not helping the ick factor at all.

Meri looks insignificant standing in front of that fucker, and I begin to question everything that we know about Maradrache. Maybe it's just a rumour that has been perpetrated to keep them safe.

“Fucking hell, that’s a freatrate,” Farren mutters under her breath, “I have never seen one anywhere but in the Underworld.”

“That’s not good,” Mayhem's concern about this latest development is evident in his voice. “Don’t they like playing with their victims before they eat them?”

“Technically, yes,” Farren replies.

“Technically?” I question because I feel like she’s not telling us, and when faced with this giant and terrifying beast, I’d rather know everything I can about it than be left in the dark, at least; I think I do.

Farren’s eyes stay glued to the beast, which is just watching us all, sizing us up to determine who it wants to eat first, no doubt. It gives me the creeps.

“It does like to play, chase and hide, terrify its victims, which is bad enough, but then once it catches them, it consumes them slowly, taking chunks out of them but still leaving them alive. It may even let the supe escape, only to catch them again and start the slow torturous death all over again.” She explains.

“Holy fuck,” Zev mutters in disgust, and we all freeze, falling silent as its eyes land on him and then move to the rest of us. A snake-like tongue slithers out of its mouth as it appears to taste the air, it’s eyes lighting up with anticipation as it seems to taste something that he likes.

The Underworld creature takes a step in our direction, seeming to completely disregard Meri standing almost ten meters in front of us. Neither Meri nor Poca like him advancing as they both let out terrifying growls and Poca becomes bigger, so much so that he now towers over all of us, as his fur becomes engulfed in blue and purple hellfire. He’s fucking massive, and it says a lot about his strength when even the Freatrate pauses in his advance and looks at him with a slight wariness, his tongue snakes out again to taste the air before his gaze lasers in on Farren, and he seems to forget all about Poca and the threat he poses in favour of the meal he sees that Farren offers will give him.