Chapter 15

15

Kyros dipped his head. “You will hear from us once I have discussed the matter with my father.”

I returned his gesture. “I look forward to it.”

The prince paused, then added, “My father hates your kind.”

“I look forward to changing his mind.”

“Good luck with that. Not that his hate is personal. You are our most formidable foe out of the main supernatural species.”

“Not demons?” They had magic also. Where magus and Luthers shared a link with nature at their roots, Vissimo and demons were similar in many ways too.

“He hates demons also.”

Then the Vissimo king would love dealing with a half magus and half demon supernatural. I’d keep that to myself.

The prince continued, “I anticipate my father will want the gates found immediately. He may wish for magus to search Bluff City for demon activity.”

There were magus around on the knolls again and ears on the conversation. Maybe it would be good for the coven to see how easily the supernaturals had accepted the possibility of demon infiltration via their games. “You can hear them, Prince Kyros. You do not require our help. Though if a map is supplied, we will happily give you our knowledge on where the gates could be.”

I was the only one who could sense demon gates in the coven. I couldn’t leave the coven unprotected.

Sascha joined us. “I should be able to locate any in Deception Valley. Can we send you a map too?”

“Of course.” I hesitated. “I suspect that there will be more gates around your territory. If I were the demon king, once I’d claimed the territory to the south, then I’d go after yours next.”

“As would I,” the Vissimo prince agreed.

Andie exhaled, hugging Sascha’s middle. “Thank you for the warning, High Esteemed. We’ve just got through one war. I don’t feel ready to face another so soon, but a surprise invasion would have been a worse fate by far.”

“We can figure it out,” Wild answered.

There was confidence to his words, and the sentiment echoed in me too. Vissimo, Luthers, and magus together…. If that didn’t save us, then nothing would.

“Pack Leader,” I addressed Sascha.

“Just Sascha, thanks,” he replied with an easy smile on his face.

I nodded. “I had Winona look into the deaths of the Luthers of your pack. She found a record of their discovery in our archives. Two Luthers were found, murdered, at the edges of our territory. The markings and wounds on them were unusual.”

“Like they’d been melted from within,” he said, his easiness gone.

“Yes,” I acknowledged, pulling a face. “Though possible for a magus to do, theoretically, it is not how we deal with a threat.”

“You don’t believe your people did it,” Andie said.

“My gut says no. The bodies were located in a ravine that is the location of a demon gate. This could be interference from demons to prevent any meeting between Luther and magus. However, there is a simple way for us to find out. I have instructed my strongest divination magus to undergo a retelling in the area. This will replay the past and allow us to see what occurred. If our ancestors were to blame for the deaths of your people, then you will receive a formal apology from this coven. If it wasn’t us, then watching the repeat may be confirmation for you that the demons have a more widespread plan than simply claiming magus territory.”

Sascha searched my face. “Thank you, High Esteemed. Knowing either way will bring my people closure. We do not lose many, and we always remember those we have.”

“In this, our people are the same.” I straightened. “I did not expect to feel such connection to any of you. For whatever reason that be due to, I am grateful for it. The coven looks forward to welcoming you again soon.”

Basilia hugged me first, and I heard the slight shock from the magus onlookers.

“Bit of culture never hurt anyone,” the princess said, pulling back. She touched her ear. “Thank you.”

Andie hugged me also.

I just never expected this. I returned her hug.

“We’ll talk soon,” she said to me, winking.

Kyros glanced after Basilia, who was wobbling to the waiting helicopter. “She was formidable either way,” he said to me after a beat. “But I am glad to see it gone.”

Her pain. “I was glad to do it.”

The Vissimo prince entered the helicopter after her.

Andie was stripping off, and Sascha shot me a quick look. “The repeat you mentioned. Can Luthers see it?”

“They can. And you’re welcome to watch it for yourself when you next return.”

The pack leader extended a hand. “Like the others, I have a good feeling.”

His hand was warm, and his grip purposefully kept loose enough not to crush my hand. Sascha’s power didn’t leak out everywhere as Kyros’s did, but the Luther had it in ample quantities. “Travel safe.”

Soon after, the helicopter was taking flight, and two Luthers were sprinting across the meadow toward the east.

There was a strange hollowness at their departure.

“I feel it too,” Wild said.

We’d never met others who had gone through a mating process. Perhaps that was to blame. But there seemed more to it. Rhona had said that fuckers like us worked fast, and I had to give the comment some credit. The six of us shared so many parallels. Each of us had been almost propelled into our current situations at the forefront of our peoples.

The stares and whispers of the watching magus snagged my attention. How many of the coven felt differently after sharing a meal with Vissimo and Luthers and seeing how open they could be? I smiled at the surrounding magus, truly proud of how the coven kept their shit together. That meeting could’ve gone wrong in a lot of ways, but we’d managed to pull it off.

I lifted a hand to the advisor pendant around my neck. “Better get everyone up to speed.”

We headed inside, walking slowly to the advisory chamber. Like me, I could tell Wild was deep in thought about where life could head next.

I’d known an alliance would be pivotal in the battle against the demons, but I’d underestimated how strong the potential shift for the culture of our coven could be. This could be momentous.

A person grabbed my arm, and I was hauled unceremoniously into an empty guest quarters.

I looked at Rooke. “Good morning.”

At her look, Wild cast a silence charm.

“We have a problem,” she said.

“A bigger one than the coven imploding or being slaughtered by demons?”

“I’d file it under coven implosion.”

I cast my mind back over the last day. What the hell happened? “Tell me.”

“People noticed Wild’s behavior yesterday. On the knolls and at dinner.”

Wild grimaced. “Fuck.”

“Everyone’s talking about the queen comment, but they’re drawing some serious parallels between you, the prince, and the pack alpha.”

“He’s not actually an alpha, did you know?” I asked her. “He’s a sigma. It’s like an alpha on steroids, but without a lot of the narcissistic shit of an alpha.”

Rooke stared.

“Sorry,” I said. “I just found that interesting.”

My cousin took a breath. “Tempest, they’re talking about dark magic use.”

Now that was a problem. “I see.”

“They’re wondering what hold you have over Wild,” she continued. “He hasn’t been himself since you arrived. He turned Bedwyr to stone. And then the way you healed him too. Maybe that wasn’t from the relics; maybe that was dark magic too.”

It had been chaos, which could have catapulted me into the use of dark magic along with Wild, but we’d found our ways back to ourselves. “How many?”

“Everyone is talking about it, aside from those who know you best—or your advisors. Although, Opal isn’t herself.”

Wild put in, “That could be because of the other supernaturals here, not my behavior.”

Could be.

“At the minimum, some members think you have some kinky queen-king bedroom fantasy going on. At the maximum, you’ve used dark magic to gain the relics, your position, an end to Caves, and Wild’s enslaved to you.”

My eyebrows had steadily risen. “That’s… a lot.”

And were they all that far off the mark? I knew more than I was letting on and hiding so much. They’d put everything together in the most logical way possible. A magus could embrace dark magic.

In place of that, I had a demon. A demon that allowed me to go through a mating ritual with Wild, which had led to gaining a fourth affinity.

Rooke swallowed. “Look, I’m only telling you this next part because I don’t want you to be blindsided by it. It’s fucking sick, what they’re saying, and you have no idea how much poison I want to use on Frond’s people.”

“There were more of them this morning,” Wild said quietly.

I’d noticed too. Kyros had been watching them also. “What are they saying?”

“They’re wondering if it’s a coincidence that you gained the divination affinity when your family died. They’ve heard that a car crash didn’t kill them. That you lied about that, but told Ty the truth the other day. Some are saying you might have killed your family to gain their magic.”

That was fucking preposterous. “How did they go from worrying about other supernaturals to thinking I’m some dark magic overbitch in twenty-four hours?”

Wild rubbed a hand through his brown hair. “It’s my fault.”

“You couldn’t do anything about it.”

Even he couldn’t argue with that.

“We need to decide how to approach this,” I thought aloud. “There must be another explanation for your behavior.”

I faced Rooke.

She looked back blankly. “Drug use?”

I couldn’t see them swallowing that one. Then again, they’d accepted I’d sold out to darkness pretty quickly. Wild was on a different pedestal to me, however. They’d known him longer. He was an Astar. I was a Corentine.

“What if you told them the truth,” Rooke offered.

Both Wild and I looked at her.

“The part you can. That you believe you might be in a mating ritual. That this mating ritual is what might have given you the fourth affinity.”

I sank into the nearest seat. “That could lead to a lot of uncomfortable questions.”

“Not doing so may lead to coven division worse than we saw in Caves,” she replied.

There was another problem. “Getting caught out like this is becoming a pattern. Me only offering them information when I get caught or put on the spot. I don’t want them to lose trust in me by coming out and acknowledging something else I’ve concealed.”

“Then let it come from me,” Wild said. “I was the one to screw this up. Why don’t I take some of the heat for a change?”

“Because they’ll think I forced you to do it because you’re my sex slave,” I said sarcastically.

Wild didn’t laugh. “This is something I’d like to handle, my queen.”

“For a start, less of the my queen would be good,” my cousin said. “But I’m with Wild here. Let him do this, Tempest. And maybe you could consider whether the coven should know the truth about how your family died.”

I immediately shook my head.

“You shouldn’t have to share anything you don’t want to,” she hurried to add. “But this could be an opportunity to counter that pattern you see forming in their minds—the one where you only tell them things when you’re caught out. Why not tell them that a demon killed your family? Why not tell them that’s why you know more about demons?”

My reply was dry. “Use some truth to tell another lie?”

“It’s not completely untrue. You learned what you were because of the journeys back to that memory and finding yourself by the north mountains. That unlocked knowledge of your heritage and everything else too.”

It was a stretch but not untrue. “That may do more harm than good. Frond could twist it.”

“He could, but the emotion when you speak of your family can’t be mistaken as being anything other than genuine.”

I rose, already weary at the thought of the day ahead. “We have a meeting to get to.” The other advisors would be waiting. “Rooke, thank you. That was hard for you to repeat, but I’m relieved I wasn’t hit with that unexpectedly.”

She hugged me tightly. “You don’t deserve to be spoken about like that.”

I half did. I couldn’t expect people to ignore their instincts. “Don’t poison anyone. We’ll do damage control best we can.”

“Sven is on the job too,” she said, and a frown marred her expression.

I said, “Tell him not to exhaust himself controlling the outbreak. We can help, too, and if the coven decides I shouldn’t sit where I am, then that’s their choice to make.”

“Helped by the demons’ magic,” she countered.

I’m sure it was, and I felt guilty for being the source of division when I was aware of the effect it would have against us in the end. “Wild, we need to run this by the advisors too. You know what to say?”

Wild had been part of the council for years. He also grew up in the lion’s den with his asshole parents. I had no qualms in him divulging too much or letting something slip. He was well-versed in reading the room. “I do. Will you tell them about your family too?”

He dropped the silence charm, and we left the room, Rooke hurrying the other way.

Would I relive the most painful memory I had to convince others I wasn’t a threat to them? Would I let them into my private emotions when they hadn’t earned the right to see them? People like Frond and Josie and Bedwyr included?

I sighed. “Some things should just be mine. Is that a bad decision?”

“There is no good or bad decision. There’s just your decision.”

“That’s something a slave would say.”

Wild laughed under his breath. “Do what feels right to you.”

Neither choice felt right.

That was the problem.