CHAPTER 22

Nika

I launched myself atthe blue-haired, green-eyed beauty whom I'd missed with every fiber of my being—who I wasn't confident was alive until he answered our call.

Lev had donned the usual form-fitting outfit he wore to a fight, full of hidden pockets and weapons, but I nearly didn't recognize him. He seemed slimmer somehow. Still muscle-infused but thin. But the second our eyes connected from across the field, my longtime friend beamed like the sun was finally hitting him after nothing but months of night. Like he'd come to life again. The shadows overtaking him and the haunted expression etched into the lines of his face were gone in an instant. Like shedding a heavy coat of darkness, Lev glowed radiantly in the midday sun.

Squeezing him like the lifeline he was, I inhaled my friend's scent and imprinted the feeling of his bulky but lithe body into my memory. I wanted to hold onto everything I could. I wasn't sure when I'd get to see him again after this.

Lev laughed huskily in my ear and wrapped his arms around me. Then with an exuberant shout, he lifted me off the ground and spun me around for a second. I smiled down at him, not the least bit fazed.

Because if there was one thing that never changed about Lev, it was that he never stopped being the biggest personality in the room. It might break every rule I had about staying stoic and no-nonsense, but I couldn't help it. The always-smiling Fae royalty was the only reason I survived the brutality of the last sixty years. He saved me in so many ways. Even though it killed me to admit it, like Silas, I went a little softer around him.

The other Fae set me on my feet and pulled away to peer into my eyes, his soft hands cradling my face the way they always had, sure I wasn't the same girl he helped escape all those weeks ago.

Because I wasn't.

"There she is," my friend murmured with his lips slanting up finally. The Dark Fae's voice was filled with so much affection that tears bit at my eyes when he spoke his next words carefully, softly, painfully. "I'm just...I can't put into words what the last few weeks were like when I couldn't be sure you were okay."

"Ditto," I whispered, closing my eyes.

His thumbs caressed my cheeks. "I got word that your father..."

I swallowed the grieving sound bent on leaving my throat. "They found his body, then?"

Letting loose a mournful breath, Lev nodded. His eyes stayed with mine when I finally looked at him again. "The Brotherhood reported it to her, but we haven't heard another word since."

And they wouldn't because the Brotherhood was gone. Only Rilas remained.

Lev pressed his forehead to mine, exhaling another shaky breath. "Before you got in touch, things had been...weird. She's been unhinged. Well, more than usual. Something's up, and I know you know what that is. What happened out there? How did the Brotherhood kill your dad?" His words carried a note of fear to them. "They might be the best, but Bane's better. I don't believe for a second they killed him without some kind of out-of-myth-and-legend power."

It was crazy how intuitive Lev was. He knew my father was too powerful. None of them stood a chance, which was the entire reason Yuma could never get rid of him even should she want to—and she did. The Dark Fae falling all around her wasn't coincidence. This entire fucking thing wasn't coincidence, and my money was on Yuma dipping her toes into things she didn't understand to try to keep control over the Dark Fae Society. From the look Lev gave me, he thought the same.

"Hey there, lad," Silas called out, tearing our eyes away from each other and over to him. The mercenary strode over with his golden eyes cutting from Lev to me. "Looks like you got here without any nasty trouble following you."

My friend's eyes danced, amused but also a little insulted by the mercenary's insinuation. "I'm not the same kid you remember from all those decades ago, Silas. And if memory serves, it was me who got you out of a sticky pickle even when I was a kid."

My lips slid up, forever amused by Lev's choice of words. "Not really selling that whole I'm-not-a-kid schtick when you say things like sticky pickle, Lev," I teased.

My friend's eyes bounced over to me, trying and failing to scorn me with the glance for not being on his side. "Oh, sure. Like you haven't said shit like ‘Not my circus, not my monkeys' enough times for it to practically be your catchphrase."

Fuck. I'll get this asshole later for giving Silas fuel to tease and taunt me.

I glowered at Lev, and he shrugged—the universal Lev gesture for "you started it."

Silas's lips twitched, and he carded a hand through his hair, the muscles all over his torso doing an agitated dance under his fitted shirt.

From what I knew about the two, they didn't dislike each other. If anything, I thought Lev revered the deadly killer beside me. Silas seemed fond of my friend, too, based on the way he talked about when they met, regaling the tale of how Lev single-handedly saved him from "a stand-off with the sea wench."

I wasn't terribly surprised that Lev helped an assassin escape after killing that bastard Crux. Everyone hated Crux, even the outliers who never chose sides. But it did make me giggle without meaning to when the silver-haired Fae waggled his eyebrows and called the previous Dark Fae leader a "bippity-boppity-boo wanker with boyband hair and terrible style." Someone Silas then argued was better at talking than fighting, which was both the best and worst description of that ruthless killer I'd ever heard.

So, the tense air between Lev and Silas didn't make sense considering their clear admiration for one another. It gave me pause long enough to nearly miss what Silas muttered next.

"Oh aye, you did me a solid, lad. I hate to break up this little reunion you two are having, but the sooner we get to a safe place to speak, the better."

I wasn't aware I'd get to bring Lev back, and I turned with my wide eyes aimed at Silas. "He's coming back with us?"

Lev dropped an arm around my shoulder, grinning a little too cutely for a man who'd just met the traitor whose father nearly killed his mother. "There's no going back after this, rebel lady. You're stuck with me."

"But your mother—" I started.

Lev just shook his head. "That bitch was dead to me the minute she had you tortured and branded the rebel of our society. If I'm honest, she was dead to me a long time ago. Back when she made you a walking target for no other reason but the fact that your father was her rival."

The mercenary walking ahead of us grew stiffer in his movements. Rumbling angrily, Silas cranked his head from left to right and cracked his knuckles loudly. "Prissy woman-beating wankers...write each...silver..." was all I managed to catch him saying.

To be fair, half of what Silas mumbled in candid moments made little to no sense even when I caught everything he did say. But I couldn't hear everything, not without using magic. Still, it rumbled from deep within my companion's chest like an oncoming storm. Like hell was about to rain down. After spending enough time with Silas, I detected the rage building in his body in every movement he made.

Either my friend pretended not to notice or he was oblivious to the subtle changes in Silas. And really, it could go either way. As smart as Lev was, he didn't always know how to read a room—or a trained assassin—like I could.

Lev stopped and touched my face again. "I don't think there was a single day that went by where you didn't have a bruise or burn somewhere on your body. Where I didn't have to help you shower..."

Silas pivoted sharply, his golden eyes now an ominous silver. "Sorry, what?"

I swallowed, glaring at Lev. "I don't think we need to talk about that."

"Oi, what do you mean you helped her shower? Are we talking partial nudity or—"

I growled and pointed to where we were heading. "We're getting off track, so both of you shut the fuck up."

Lev was mindful enough to look sorry, but Silas didn't appear willing to drop the subject anytime soon. So my friend quickly added, "Anyway, I only stayed this long so I could do a little...reading."

Silas, who'd gone from rage to annoyance in a flash, his face forever twisted in on itself, was brought to a full halt with that little comment. "Reading?"

"You didn't really think I'd be twiddling my thumbs while you kept my favorite person safe, did you, oh great Shimmering Assassin?"

Silas caught my straying gaze, and I tried to hide a smile. The grumbling oaf's expression finally relaxed. The signature smirk was back when the mercenary finally skated his eyes back over to the guy whose arm was once more draped around my shoulders. And just like that, rage and annoyance joined forces in an emotional symphony all over Silas's face.

I honestly couldn't figure out what was making the oversized brute so agitated. He'd been beyond grumpy since Lev showed up, but it wasn't clear for what reason. He'd been cracking cute jokes and flirting right beforehand. If anything, I was the annoyed party up until my friend appeared. Maybe this was just a dude thing?

I'd have to ask Lev about it later.

"Don't suppose you brought any of that reading here...?" Silas asked searchingly.

My friend's eyes lit up with something akin to pride. Tapping his head where his short blue hair was in styled chaos, Lev's answering smirk was one I'd seen enough times to know he had already worked out a plan. "All in here, my friend. You probably don't know this, but I've got a photographic memory, and I can recreate all the text and diagrams perfectly without any trouble."

It wasn't something Yuma knew about Lev, either. He kept that part of himself under lock and key. It was how my only friend managed to help me escape that night without anyone knowing. Because it wasn't Lev's magic that made him deadly, it was his mind.

"How long have you known about everything?" Silas demanded under his breath, stealing a look at me. "About her?"

My breathing shuttered to a halt when I realized that if Lev had read the secrets kept about my family, he knew I'd one day...

Be this.

Yuma probably had everything written in the old language, but what she failed to realize was that Lev had been taught how to read the lost Dark Fae dialect from a young age. You know, being her goodly little predecessor and all. Her arrogance meant she never once thought he'd be the one to betray her.

Lev was impossibly good at keeping our relationship under wraps even after we connected the month after my mother was murdered. As far as anyone knew, he and I barely talked to each other—and that worked in our favor.

I planned to tell him everything, but the air in my lungs whooshed out of me thinking about what secrets—what lies—my only friend had uncovered about me and my family. I didn't believe for a second whatever had been recorded in those tomes wasn't laced with total fabrication. But did Lev know that? Did he see me differently now after reading what my power was? What my grandmother supposedly did? What my foretold fate was?

Lev's arm fell away, and he turned to look at me before taking strong hold of my face again, forcing our gazes to meet. What met my eyes wasn't the fear of a man convinced I'd one day kill him and everyone else. No, if anything, the fear living in his forest-green eyes was the same fear as the day he helped me escape. Lev was scared of losing me. He was scared that he couldn't save me. But from what, I wasn't entirely sure.

Emotion crowded my throat, making it impossible to swallow, but I didn't flee his hold like I wanted to. I stayed. Whatever Lev said next, I wanted to face it head-on. I promised myself that I'd go out fighting. Whatever it took, I'd do what I could to help the souls living inside my body find their much-deserved redemption.

"I didn't know anything about your family—about you—until recently, Nika. I promise. I wasn't even aware Mother kept secrets like yours. Your grandmother's. The fated prophecy. I thought she was just full of shit and wanted to target you because of who your father was. But it's...worse. So much worse."

Pulling out of his hold, I took a step back. My friend's words sunk into me like acid, corroding everything they touched, and I froze, ready to lay into him with endless questions. But Silas reached out and tangled his fingers with mine. His thumb grazed the top of my hand, the soothing caress grounding me, and I stopped myself from uttering a single one.

"Come on, love. It's not safe out here," was all the mercenary said, refusing to let go even when Lev's eyes dropped to our hands and his eyebrow rose in question.

"Silas is right," I whispered, leveling my gaze on Lev. His big body curled down and appeared smaller with it. I couldn't take it anymore. I reached out and touched my friend's face. "We can talk about it once we're no longer out in the open, okay?"

Lips twitching, Lev finally smirked. "You're right. Well, then again, you're always right."

"Those cute compliments only work once, Lev. You're not fooling anyone here," I rebuked, failing to hide my smile.

Silas scoffed and dragged me closer, a big damn pouty baby when I finally looked up at him. "Oi, it was me who said it first, lad. Don't get it twisted."

The tension eased in a second, and Lev huffed before grinning to himself. "Yeah, yeah."

I was thankful for the momentary reprieve as both men shared an adorable snarky look and finally acted as if they liked each other. It wasn't clear what caused the previous tension, but I had bigger issues to worry about.

Like what the fuck was written in those tomes...

I called out to the men in my head for the second time today, but only silence met my cries. They'd been quiet since my run-in with Rilas, and I'd grown increasingly worried he'd taken them from me. But I felt their presence somewhere in the distance of my mind. Even though I couldn't hear my father or the others, I could feel them. They weren't gone, so I held onto that like the hand presently wrapped around mine.

We finally made our way to the parked car Silas brought. It had confused me earlier when Silas chose to take a car instead of his preferred motorcycle, but now it all made sense. He'd always planned on bringing Lev back with us. I couldn't even be mad Silas hadn't mentioned a word of it to me because I was beyond elated to know I'd have Lev by my side. Except, that meant...

Lev's about to find out a whole lot about me I never planned to tell him. Fuck.

"Shotgun!" Lev shouted out of nowhere and stole the front seat.

"Lilith's tit..." the great big brute next to me cursed, growling. "Oi! What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing, you smarmy bastard?!"

I stared at Lev, the big child beaming a smile at me from the front passenger seat, clearly proud of himself, then quirked an eyebrow when Silas stomped over to the car and tried to drag my friend out of it by his legs.