Chapter 11

11

S aoirse burst through the door, her dark hair floating around her shoulders as if she'd just been hit by a lightning bolt. Her eyes swirled around the room before landing on Lugh's unconscious form spread across the floor. Her body tensed, then relaxed. She twisted toward the door and flicked her fingers.

Several more supernaturals strode into the little hideaway. Two more fae, the ginger-haired warriors from the night of my trial, whose names I'd since learned were Warin and Boudica. They were twins.

A sorcerer edged into the safe room behind them. I sniffed, narrowing my eyes. I wasn't a big fan of sorcerers. Every time I went near one, something terrible tended to happen. They sucked in drama wherever they went, like some kind of tornado of problems .

I was pretty sure they liked it that way.

This guy, though, reminded me nothing of the sorcerers I'd met before. He was built like a tank, his hair buzzed short. It highlighted his thick neck covered in elaborate tattoos. Dark ink crept up the side of his face to his hairline. I drank in his clothes. He wore dark jeans ripped at the knees, black boots, and a heavy metal band t-shirt.

Sorcerers—unlike fae, vampires, and werewolves—were human. They just happened to be gifted with magical abilities from the power that had seeped into this realm from the fae realm. It didn't run in bloodlines, and it didn't matter where you lived. It just showed up, unexpectedly. Many sorcerers spent their entire lives never knowing what they were, just thinking they were freaks.

"Axel," Saoirse said, waving emphatically at the sorcerer. "Take care of Lugh's wound. You two," she said as she swivelled toward the warriors, "keep a look out in the close, just in case the attackers come back."

"I don't think they're coming back," I said quietly. "They got what they came for."

"We can't be too careful," she said in a snap.

"Hey now." I held up my hands. "Don't take this out on me. I'm only repeating what one of the attackers said. They wanted to take Lugh out, and they did."

Her expression softened. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried. He hardly ever leaves the castle without a spear, and so I've never seen him like this before."

She was scared, worried for him, just like I'd been. It was inexplicable for me, since I kind of hated the guy. He was a traitor and a cocky arsehole who was making my life miserable. I shouldn't have cared. I'd been wracking my brain while I'd waited for the others to arrive. Why had I fought so hard? Why had I gotten his literal blood on my hands trying to save his life?

It didn't make any sense. And yet, when I looked at him wounded on the floor, I felt that twinge deep down inside of me again. The urge to help. The desperation to keep him alive.

Maybe that was his power. Maybe it wasn't skill with a spear at all.

Maybe he was able to command unwavering loyalty and devotion in his subjects. It would explain why he'd made his own court.

"Axel, what are you thinking?" Saoirse asked the sorcerer, who had knelt beside Lugh to examine his wounds.

The sorcerer gave her a grim smile. "Unfortunately, Moira was right to be concerned. The weapon that cut him was doused in magic. It's preventing him from healing, so there's no way to stop the blood or close the wound."

My heart hammered against my ribcage. "So you can't fix him?"

"Oh, I can fix him," Axel grunted. "I can counter the magic with something of my own, so that he can begin to heal normally. But if you hadn't called me in..."

I glanced at Saoirse whose face had gone pale.

"Right," she whispered. "Do what you can for him, please."

"And I'll get my payment?"

"Of course." Her eyes flashed as she stared down at him. "Have we ever not paid you?"

He shrugged. "Nope, but I have to check. I've been stiffed by others enough lately that I can never be too sure."

Interesting. So this sorcerer took on a lot of work. "Did someone happen to hire you to make a blue smoke bomb thingy lately?"

He cocked his head in confusion.

"Sapphire," Saoirse added. "Moira got hit with one."

He grumbled. "No, I don't touch that shite. You're probably looking at Jezebel for that kind of thing."

Jezebel? Arching my brow, I turned back to Saoirse. If we could track down the sorcerer creating the smoke bombs, maybe she could lead us to the traitor inside the court.

Wait a minute. What was I thinking? I wasn't here to help the Court of Wraiths. I was here to take them down.

Who cared who made the damn Sapphire when that mysterious cauldron was out there, waiting to take down my queen?

Saoirse gave a quick shake of her head. "We already looked into that. Jezebel loves making Sapphire, but she'd never sell to a fae. She hates us."

With that, Axel snapped open a leather bag he'd brought along with him and extracted a grimoire. "Worry about your Sapphire problems later. I need to get to work."

While the sorcerer did his thing to Lugh's wounds, Saoirse dragged me down the hallway so that we could have some privacy. "Tell me what happened."

Deciding not to go into detail about the whole clothing situation—particularly since I'd made up a few white lies involving her, I explained that Lugh and I had taken a field trip into town. Eventually, he'd noticed someone tracking us. Everything became a whirlwind after that.

"I couldn't see their faces," I explained. "All of them were wearing cloaks and hoods and masks. One of them was a female fae. I think she was the leader. The others were male, I think. Not all of them spoke, so it was hard to tell."

Saoirse frowned. "You disobeyed his orders?"

Bollocks. Maybe I should have left out that part. It was going to come back to bite me in the ass, wasn't it?

"I'm a warrior at heart," I tried with a shrug. "Sometimes, my urge to fight takes over."

She cocked her head. "So you rushed in to help him fight these ten traitors."

"I guess," I said warily. "The important thing here is, who were they? Lugh didn't seem surprised to see them. He even mentioned something about—"

Saoirse pressed a finger to my lips. "Just in case."

I flicked my eyes down the hallway. The sorcerer wouldn't be able to hear us, but the fae might if they were really keen to listen in. But they were part of the warrior team.

"Wait a minute," I hissed. "You really think...?" I jerked my head down the hall, to indicate the two warriors keeping watch in the close.

A second later, Saoirse whisked her phone from her back pocket and typed a note. She flashed the screen my way.

Someone on the inside is working against us. We can't be too careful.

Frowning, I grabbed her phone and typed my own response.

If you suspect one of them, why not take them off the warrior team?

Sighing, she rolled her eyes and took back her phone. Another message.

We have no proof either one is involved in anything.

"Everything okay back there?" Axel called down the hallway.

Saoirse tapped delete on her words and slid her phone out of view. Conversation over. At least I finally had one answer, though it didn't really help my mission much. At the end of the day, whatever Warin and Boudica wanted to do to Lugh didn't matter when the king himself was plotting to tear down my Court.

Hell, maybe I'd been fighting on the wrong side tonight.

When we stepped back into the living room, the sorcerer was packing up his things, his impressive tattoos shining against the glow from the lamp. Lugh was still out of it, his expression peaceful for once. "The wound is closed now, so he's started to heal. Because of the magic involved, it might take him a little longer than usual to be back to his old self. Oh, and he's half-awake, but probably not for long." The sorcerer looked at me. "He was asking for you."

"Me?" I gargled.

Saoirse smirked. "I'll show Axel out and discuss with the others how to transport Lugh back to the castle safely. Be back in a moment."

She disappeared out the door before I could ask her to stay. Staring down at Lugh, I shifted on my feet. He didn't look awake. His breathing was steady, exposed chest rising and falling. The deep gash in his stomach still looked bruised and raw, but it no longer spilled a river of blood on his skin.

"You...aren't good...at following orders," he wheezed, his eyes still closed. "I asked for you. Why haven't you come?"

Wetting my lips, I crossed the room and sank to his side. My knees dug into the hardwood floor. "You looked asleep. I didn't want to disturb you."

"You should not have helped me," he whispered. "They could have killed you."

Yes, they could have. And they tried as hard as they could. Without my sword, I'd been pretty vulnerable. At the time, it had seemed like the only possible choice. Help Lugh fight his attackers. Don't let him die by their hand. That strange desperation had churned through me, making me act without even thinking. But sitting on the other side of it now, I didn't quite understand why I'd fought for his life.

He was my enemy. I was here, in Edinburgh, to stop him from going up against my queen.

Now that he was safe and alive—even if a little worse for wear—that aching desperation inside of me had vanished, like the attackers into the night.

My heart felt as sore as my bruised muscles.

He cracked open his shadowy eyes and peered up at me. "You aren't going to say anything?"

"Sure. You're welcome," I snarked. "I accept rewards in the form of swords, training, and unlocked doors."

I didn't know how else to answer but to joke. Something needed to break the tension in the room, and this was all I had. I didn't like the way he was looking at me, like he was seeing me for the very first time, and he wasn't sure what he thought of the truth.

"Done." His eyes slid shut again.

"That's it?" I blinked down at him, wondering if I'd heard him right. "You aren't going to scold me for disobeying orders?"

And I was actually going to get some freedom? It was too good to be true.

"Oh, I will definitely dole out some punishment for your disobedience," he growled, a slight smile twisting up the corners of his lips. "But I'm waiting until I'm back at full strength for that."

A shiver went through me. In his state, I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Probably more on the not side of things. Lugh didn't seem like the kind of king to take disobedience very lightly. That said, he was smiling. Was that because he enjoyed the idea of making me pay?

I shivered again.

Something to worry about later. Saoirse had opened the door again, and Lugh had fallen silent. He shut his eyes and sighed, and that strange ache tightened within me again. Even though the wound was closed and his healing had begun, he was in pain.

"We're taking an Uber up to the castle," Saoirse said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "It should be here in five. We need to get him ready."

"An Uber?" I asked incredulously, rising to my feet. "Doesn't the king of a bloody Court have a fleet of cars?"

Clark certainly did. And a whole hidden garage that no one knew about, other than a few of her closest advisors like me. I suspected Lugh had the same. If he didn't, he needed to get on that, stat. Situations like this were precisely when secret transportation was necessary.

"If we send for a castle car, word will spread fast that something has happened to him. We can take him through the back gate. No one will ever know a thing."

Unless, of course, Warin or Boudica out there were the traitors Saoirse feared they might be. Most members of the Court of Wraiths might never find out, but the fae they wanted to keep the information from certainly would—the attackers who had tried to kill Lugh tonight. She seemed to sense my thoughts, pursing her lips.

"We have no other choice," she said.

"I'm just surprised there's a back gate," I tried, flicking my eyes at the door. If the warriors were the bad guys, I didn't want to tip them off that we were on to them.

"There's a hidden tunnel that goes up through the cliff and through the northern battery. No one knows about it but Lugh, me, and the warrior team. And even then, not everyone knows exactly where the entrance is. "

And now me. I filed that information away for later use. That could come in handy.

A horn sounded outside. The taxi had arrived, and they must have offered double the rate, because the driver had reversed back into the close itself. Cars weren't typically allowed on these streets. Together, the four of us hauled Lugh to his feet and lifted him out the door and into the backseat of the car.

Saoirse turned to me and grasped my hands. "I'm sorry. There's only room for one more. Will you be okay getting back to the castle with Warin and Boudica?"

I understood what she was doing. Not everyone knew where the entrance to the hidden tunnels was, and she wanted to take Lugh through it alone. That meant Warin and Boudica were not in on the secret, and she wanted to keep it that way.

I squeezed her hands back and smiled. "I'll be fine. Those two will have my back, I'm sure."

She gave me an uneasy nod and slid into the front seat, waving goodbye. As soon as the car pulled out of the close, I started back to the castle with the warriors, my heart thumping with every step I took.

Even though no one had died here tonight, a heavy cloud of danger lurked over me. I still didn't understand the full truth of what was going on here, but I didn't need to. Whatever it was, it was pretty damn bad.

I'd fully stepped into the path of danger, and I was going to get hit by it if I didn't watch out. I glanced at the twin warriors. They were barely paying attention to me. This was my chance to leave, if I wanted.

But instead, I kept my feet turned in the direction of Castle Hill.