29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

The arguing—um, meeting—started after breakfast, though the news alerts and messages began pouring in before sunrise. The vampire attacks had left thousands of casualties across New Your, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and Hong Kong, with witnesses claiming the streets ran red with rivers of human blood. After I got over the enticing image of drinking from such a river like the kid in that candy factory movie who toppled into some fast-moving chocolate, I was suitably appalled.

There was one upside to the attacks. Ewan’s proposal to send pack enforcers and any fae willing into the human cities to keep the peace went over pretty well. No one argued against the idea altogether, just the logistics like which cities. Luckily, Walter had a semi-solution that I personally found suspicious, but as Ewan later pointed out, I found most things involving Walter suspicious.

All major world cities had a sizable supernatural population, most of whom had nothing to do with the Zodiac Councils and some who didn’t even know the system existed. Different well-known crime families controlled supernatural activity in each of these cities and with one call from Walter Stolly would mobilize to help us cover more ground.

No one loved the idea. A few people, including myself, openly questioned why Walter was even involved in the conversation since he hadn’t signed the accords. Still, we needed more boots on the ground or whatever and he was offering soldiers. Interestingly, no one doubted that Walter could convince the other families to go along with this plan, not even me, and I had met Lucca Guerra and knew about the feud between his family and Winter’s.

Between sleep and space to think, convincing the others that banishing Mat to another realm permanently wasn’t nearly as difficult as the previous day. Both groups of fae, Taurus and Gemini, were surprisingly vocal in their support of working with the human governments to facilitate a peaceful transition to this new reality where shifters, fae, and vampires existed. My brother and Drake were less receptive to the idea but willing to go along with it, while the Capricorn alpha argued we would never be able to trust the humans. Which, well, fair.

History had taught us to fear them as much as they feared us. Our ancestors had gone to great lengths to protect themselves, and their actions had only perpetuated the fear on both sides. The humans still outnumbered supernaturals significantly. Even with magic on our side, winning a war against their tanks and bombs and whatever else wasn’t guaranteed. The casualties would be great and the losses felt for centuries to come. I didn’t need a seer to tell me that.

So, after hours of back and forth, a lot of growling, two flying chalices and a candelabra, the alliance voted unanimously in favor of helping to restore order in the human cities and banishing Mat. Foolishly, I thought with the decision made, at least a few of us would be off to Traitor’s Hell before the moon was high overhead. But no. First, we needed to speak with Director Jones and Elder Verdes, which meant another trip to the diner.

The same human woman was on duty when we arrived. The suits were already seated with steaming mugs of coffee and plates of eggs and sausage that neither had touched. There weren’t any other customers, yet the woman had, like, a dozen hamburger patties on the grill and baskets of fries in the fryer.

Personally, I felt Director Jones and the fae council elder could have been a little more gracious when we agreed to help them. They were a tad entitled in my opinion and seemed to think that allowing the mortal eternals and protectors to continuing existing was somehow payment enough for our services.

“You need us, while we don’t need you,” Drake told the men with a barbed smile. “The Zodiac Councils turned on the Ophiuchus pack a long time ago, and we have thrived without your help. So, no Elder Verdes, the Ophiuchus will not agree to mere existence.”

“And we agree with Drake,” I said before Ewan could speak up.

“What is it you want?” Director Jones asked, directing his question to the entire group but looking at me.

I folded my hands on the table and met his gaze. “A guarantee. For us and our bloodlines. Come for us, any of us, and we will kill two of you. From the pool of high-ranking fae we want as hostages.”

“Wards,” Ewan corrected me. “The people traded as part of peace talks are called wards, not hostages.”

“Yeah, well, the women traded as part of marriage alliances are called mates, but they’re still hostages.” I shrugged. “Call them whatever you like. I want them. Some humans, too.”

“That might be harder,” Director Jones said. “I can guarantee you some human wards, probably not as many as you are thinking.”

Considering I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t see his caution as a concern.

The others asked for a varied range of additional things. The Capricorns wanted someone freed from the councils’ dungeons. Essie wanted her great-grandfather’s name cleared posthumously of some crime. Zach wanted the Gemini pack lands returned as well as the Virgo lands as compensation for Liam killing Gemini wolves. While I had already asked for something big, that didn’t stop me from asking for Liam’s head on a spike.

Okay, well, not literally. But I wanted him punished for his role in stripping my wolf. I wanted everyone to know that violence against eternals and protectors wouldn’t be tolerated going forward.

Within a few hours, we’d drawn up a loose agreement with Director Jones and Elder Verdes, outlining the general terms and conditions for all parties involved with the understanding that we’d hammer out the details once we dealt with Mat. Elder Verdes was ready to escort us to Traitor’s Hell before the ink was dry, but Essie insisted there were still logistical concerns like where we were going to get enough power to open the pocket dimension and free Demi. Ewan wanted to “tie up loose ends” before embarking on an endeavor that had every chance of ending badly.

“Midnight. Those going to Traitor’s Hell will meet you here, Elder Verdes,” Essie said. She turned to Ewan. “That’s about eighteen hours. Is that enough time?”

He nodded. “Plenty.”

“Don’t forget the food!” the waitress called as we all stood to leave. She pointed to the bags of takeout containers lining the countertop and three of the booths behind us.

Ewan smiled at her. “Thank you, Shirley. Charge it to the pack’s account, will you?”

“Of course, dear. Send the boys down when you need more.”

“Who is all of this for?” I asked, draping bags over my arms.

“There’s a group of strays in Bowl Canyon. They’ve been too scared to leave their area with everything happening. Birch has been running food to them. Shirley’s daughter is married to a one of them,” Ewan said.

“That’s really nice. You’re a very generous alpha,” I teased.

“Alphas aren’t generous by design, Zara.” Essie patted my shoulder as she shuffled past. “Only a true king provides for all his people.”

The mortals needed sleep, so everyone went their separate ways when returned from the diner. Winter opened a portal for Drake and Penn to the Snake Mountains so they could rest and then discuss everything with the Ophiuchus pack council before we all left for Traitor’s Hell. Because Ewan and I didn’t need sleep as often or regularly, we went with Birch to deliver the burgers to the strays.

Unlike our nice, cozy home with a fireplace and picture windows overlooking a picturesque town, all two dozen of the strays lived in one cold, decrepit house in the woods. They were excited, especially the children, when we arrived and seemed to know Birch and Ewan pretty well.

“Why don’t you invite them to join our pack?” I asked as we climbed on ATVs to head back home.

“I have. More than once. They aren’t interested,” Ewan said.

Birch rolled his eyes. “If you stopped feeding them, they might be more interested.”

Ewan shrugged. “Maybe. But they’d also starve, and they don’t bother anyone, so I’m not pressed.”

I tended to agree with him, though I understood Birch’s confusion over the situation. The strays were camped out on our borders, and most alphas wouldn’t have allowed it. Of course, Ewan wasn’t most alphas. Like Essie said, he wasn’t even really an alpha. He was a king. The king.

While sleep wasn’t necessary for me to function, I was desperately craving quiet time after almost twenty-four hours straight of listening to people talk at me. Ewan being super important and all didn’t have the luxury and headed off to meet with his pack council as soon as we returned to our mountains, while Birch escorted me home to unwind.

I was relaxing in the bath, trying to figure out the best way to tell Winter that our single dose of the cure wasn’t going to Lena, when I received my first incoming call on my new phone. Only two people had my number, and I had both their names and numbers programmed. Still, I hit accept on the unknown caller because I was curious.

“Hi, Zosia,” Mat’s familiar voice sang through the speaker. “Am I interrupting something? I hope so. You’ve always been very good at that. Interrupting. Since the day that you were born. As Zosia. Not Zara. Though you’ve caused disruptions in this cycle, too.”

I held the phone to my ear and turned off the speakerphone so Birch couldn’t overhear Mat’s side of the conversation. “Are you drunk?” I asked the eternal.

“Quite. Did you know mermaid blood has the second highest potency for vampires? When you come to Traitor’s Hell, I’ll buy you one.”

“What’s the first?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“In this realm, siren’s blood. Of the eight I’ve visited, mortal born banshee is the strongest. Not the tastiest. That would be fourth generation or older human blood from the Isle of Man. You should really ask Walter Stolly to get you a bottle.”

“Are you sure that’s a real place? It sounds made up,” I said.

Mat scoffed. “You lived in England in two separate lives.”

“I fail to see the relevancy of that.”

“Zosia was very well-educated. You should spend more time in her early memories.”

I made a face that he obviously couldn’t see. “Did you call just to offend me?”

“No. I had a reason, which seems to escape me. Oh! Wait. I remember now. The cure. That is why called.”

“Cure?” My super high and squeaky voice cracked on the single word.

“Just because you are uneducated does not mean you’re dumb, Zosia,” he said in a bored yet impatient voice.

“I’m not uneduc—”

“I saw Cassius. Don’t deny you have it. Enough for one vampire, yes? You must have originally thought you could use it on Kodak. Oh, sorry, Stavros, or does he still go by Ewan? His mind was very confused last I saw him.”

Mat was trying to make me mad, and it worked, but I held my tongue and refused him the satisfaction of knowing that his fangs were under my skin.

“Anyhow, seeing as you have both risen, I assume that is no longer your plan. Conveniently, I know someone very interested in taking it off your hands. Name your price. I want that cure.”

“It’s not for sale. We’re giving it to Lena. The friend of Winter’s you turned,” I lied.

His bark of laughter chilled my bathtub water through the phone. “The human so obsessed with the supernatural world that she agreed to spy on Winter for me in exchange for immortality—that Lena?”

“Liar,” I said, though I wasn’t so certain.

“Ask her when Walter Stolly’s men finally let you see her. Lena is very proud of the work she has done for me.”

I felt sick and dreaded having to explain any of this to Winter. “You mean, the attacks in the cities? Yes, I’ve seen her in action.”

“Three steps behind as always, Zosia. These attacks aren’t my doing. At one time, I had planned a takeover of the human world. Something much more organized than all this. You might want to look closer to home for the culprit. Three guess or should we circle back to the cure?”

I didn’t need three guesses, only three words. Walter. Fucking. Stolly.

“What changed your plan for world domination?” I asked him.

“You. See, until I realized that you and Stavros had been naughty little wolves, I thought Demi and I were another pair of soulmates. Which we are. But not the other pair. You see, what most don’t realize is that many fae are born Gaia-marked, their other halves just aren’t alive so they never know. Demi and I were born several hundred years apart. We should have never met, yet we did.”

I honestly didn’t know if any of that was true. In my head, it made sense, but Mat was drunk and might have been rationalizing. Not sure what it said about me that I followed his logic. What I didn’t understand was how any of this was relevant.

“Okay, so you are soulmates but not the soulmates. That’s Ewan and me, right? How does this change your world domination plans?”

He sighed loudly. “Because if we aren’t the other pair of soulmates, ruling the world isn’t my destiny.”

“Wow. You really gave up on that dream easily,” I said.

“You’re lucky I’ve had enough toad whiskey to find you funny.”

“Is that your plan now, soothe the loss of your life’s purpose with toad whiskey and banshee blood?”

“Only until you arrive.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“Nicasia opens Demi’s cell, and then a portal to the realm of my choosing. You give me the only dose of the cure, and you never see me or Demi again.”

“Why would I do this?” I asked, even though this was sort of my plan already. It worried me that Mat and I had the same plan and I started to doubt myself.

“Can you think of nothing you want from me?”

I considered it for a minute. “No. I mean, I have everything I want, including a dose of the cure.”

“Really? You aren’t, I don’t know, concerned about the bond your mate shares with me? You wouldn’t prefer I reject it? Takes both parties in this case.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What had Winter said? The protection bond could only be rejected, never severed.

“Think about it. Have your answer tonight when you arrive. Oh, and make sure there are eight of you. I have the other five covered. Until then, Zosia.”

I slowly lowered the phone from my ear and placed it on the edge of the bathtub before I crushed it. On the one hand, this was exactly what I wanted, which was the terrifying part. Mat knew I would make the trade. Why did he want me to, though? Aside from making sure we could never turn him and kill him like was sort of our plan.

As soon as Ewan returned to the house, I told him about the phone call over lunch blood.

“It’s the seer,” he said. “That must be how Mat knows we’re coming.”

“Or we have a mole,” I said.

He shook his head. “Much more likely it’s a seer. He said we needed to bring eight of us?”

“Yeah, and he’s got five covered. Whatever that means.”

“Five and eight is thirteen. I’m guessing he means eternals. That only way Winter opens a portal to another dimension is by channeling power. Without the comets or the fae stones, she’s going to need more than just you. If we can convince Tish and Lucca to come with us, we just need one more.”

“What about Archer? Ghosts have a fuck ton of power,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but Archer isn’t actually dead, so I don’t know if he has more, less, or the same amount of power as a normal ghost.”

“You know who would know? Winter.”

He finished his bottled blood. “You ready to tell her about Lena?”

“You ready to tell Walter that you want to bring Lucca Guerra to Traitor’s Hell?”

Ewan laughed. “I can’t wait to tell him. There is something I want to do first. It’s important to me, and I’m asking you to just go along with it, okay? Please?”

“Yeah, of course. What is it?”

“Bury Angelica and Kiernan’s parents. I don’t know what’s going to happen in Traitor’s Hell. So much could go wrong. I want to do this before we leave.”

“Okay,” I said. “Should I put on a nice dress or is this more of an informal affair?”

His relief was palpable in the bond. “Wear whatever you like.”

Because I was trying to be amenable, and my skin was impervious to the cold, I wore a sleeveless black dress to bury the woman who’d killed me and the others who’d tried. There were only a handful of invitees. Birch, Charlie, and Kilbi came. She and I didn’t speak, and she was too busy crying to shoot me dirty looks, so that was something.

Mrs. Wynn and Kiernan were the only others in attendance. She held him while he sobbed into her shoulder. My heart hurt for him, and I was glad that Ewan had decided to give his parents a proper burial. Kiernan thanked him, which I found to be the saddest part of the entire joint funeral. Sure, it was good manners and all, but Ewan had killed Kiernan’s parents, which just made the whole exchange feel wrong.

Ewan’s mom had everyone back to her house for dinner. He and I sat and talked with his friends while they ate, and we waited for confirmation from Tish that she and Lucca would meet us in Traitor’s Hell. It was nice. Even Kilbi laughed and smiled, making her much less unpleasant to be around.

With only a few hours until we were due to meet Elder Verdes at the diner, we headed up to see Winter and her family. I still had mixed feelings about telling the Sables and Walter about the cure, and Ewan was totally against the idea. But we didn’t really have a choice since Mat knew we had it. Plus, well, I was a coward, and I thought maybe Essie and Colleen could convince Winter that Lena wasn’t the best use of our one dose, and then I wouldn’t have to tell her that her friend was an asshole who’d never been her friend at all.

Essie had already worked out that Winter would need to channel power to open the portal but had been uncertain of the amount, though she’d thought less than the thirteen eternals Mat ordered. Personally, I thought he just liked the symbolism of it all. This was when we divulged our first secret, about Tish and Lucca.

Walter was not pleased that we’d gone to see them and even less happy that we’d asked them to meet us in Traitor’s Hell. Good thing I didn’t give a damn how he felt, otherwise we would have be short a pair of eternals for Demi’s release party.

Announcing we had the cure and wanted to give it to Mat went over better than our visit to Tish, except where Winter was concerned. She was vehement that Lena deserved it.

“Would you like to tell her?” I asked Walter, secretly hoping he would because her tears were already breaking my heart.

We locked eyes, an understanding passing between us. He knew that I knew that he had his fingers all up in the vampire attacks. “Yeah, we caught her late last night. I’m afraid she was always working for Mat.”

“What? No. You’re lying. Zara, say he’s lying.” Her green eyes filled with tears. “That can’t be true. Zara? Did you hear her say that? I thought you said Zara could talk to her when you caught her?” Winter glared at Walter as if he was the one who’d turned Lena.

“Yeah. Well, the alpha got growly about his mate leaving the mountains without a chaperone, so I gave my people the go ahead to question her. Mat told Zara about Lena.”

“Was the category things that didn’t happen for two-thousand?” Ewan muttered only loud enough for me to hear.

“I’m sorry, Winter. I know you cared a lot about her,” I said, the words of comfort sounding awkward coming from me.

Colleen rubbed her back. “She fooled me, too. I never found her suspicious.” To me, she said, “Did it sound like Mat wanted the cure to use on himself or so you couldn’t use it on him?”

“I assume the second one. Why? Do you think he wants to be mortal?” I asked.

It was Essie who responded. “I’ve been alive a lot less time than Mat, and when my time comes, I’m ready to go. Imagine having spent centuries alone, with no mate and no friends. Only your anger. That’s a sad existence, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but he could end it,” I pointed out. “He has options if he’s really that unhappy.”

“Death won’t make him happy. He knows that,” Essie said. “A normal life with Demi might. Either way, I would advise against telling anyone outside of this room about the cure. Let everyone else believe he left this realm immortal.”

Ewan and I had already agreed that the secret would never go any farther than the Sables and Walter, so Essie’s advice was easy to accept. He and I returned home to drink blood before we needed to leave, giving Winter a chance to get her emotions under control and Essie time to pack a bag of potions and whatnot that we might need in Traitor’s Hell.

Walter escorted us to the door. “Why didn’t you get her the truth about the attacks?” he asked me.

I smiled at him sweetly. “Because I’m not doing your dirty work. Be a man and tell her yourself.”