13. Raiden

13

RAIDEN

I feel like death. I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks, but the desire to find Adrianna is more pressing.

We’re no closer to figuring out a way to put ourselves one step ahead of Clementine before the situation gets out of hand, not without spooking her and triggering carnage beyond her murder of Bozelli and a couple guards. It’s exhausting. This entire situation is exhausting, but what causes the most pain is the distance that wedges itself between Adrianna and me. Well, all of us really, but we’re all grown-ass men, my priority is getting time with my little Troublemaker. The rest of them can figure it out themselves.

I left Beau in the office almost twenty minutes ago and I’ve been stumbling through the halls in a state of blind delirium ever since. I have yet to find where she’s tucked herself away, but I know she’s here somewhere, Arlo confirmed it, and there’s no way she would have sneaked out. I don’t think.

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I fight back a yawn as the sound of a door closing in the distance rings out. Rushing toward the sound, I fall short, heaving a sigh when I see it’s Nora and August returning from the dragon kingdom. Their general love for one another dances in the air around them at all times. It’s sickeningly sweet. Intoxicatingly wondrous. I hate it. I hate that those words are always associated with a romantical kind of love, but not with them. It’s in their bones, the core of their family.

Love.

“Have you seen Adrianna?” I blurt, opting to look at August instead of Nora. You would think anyone would prefer to look elsewhere than at the man who used to reign over this kingdom, but he’s a safer bet than Adrianna’s younger sister. She lives to break me, and not in the way that I like.

“What’s the matter, Fangs? Have you lost her?” she muses, and I cut a withering gaze in her direction. The amusement dissipates as she stares at me. “Raiden?”

Oh, so she does know my name?

“Don’t worry,” I grunt, turning away from them, but before I can take a single step, August speaks.

“Raiden, what’s going on?”

I sigh, slowly pivoting around to face him again. “I’ve been in a meeting with Beau since we got back,” I explain, scrubbing at the back of my neck nervously, which feels way too out of character for me, but I’m starting to feel a little nervous and there’s no denying it. “We called it quits a little while ago and I’ve been searching all of these damn halls for her ever since.”

“And she’s here?” he asks, slowly making his way toward me with Nora hot on his tail.

“Arlo says so. I’ve connected with our bond and I can feel her close, but I’ve opened every door, taken every corridor, but I keep coming up empty.”

“Do you think something is wrong?” Nora asks, her voice bleak in comparison to her usual chipperness when Adrianna is around.

I purse my lips. “I don’t think so. I don’t feel any panic or concern, but this is also Adrianna we’re talking about. She’s not the queen of the Floodborn Kingdom because she relies well on others,” I grumble, earning a half smile from her father.

“That’s accurate. A little insulting, but totally accurate,” he states, walking by me, and I feel compelled to follow him.

“Have you checked outside?” Nora asks, sidling up beside me, and I glare down at her.

“I haven’t, but that’s because the soldiers patrolling the perimeter confirmed they haven’t seen her.”

She nods, worrying her bottom lip as we follow her father into the kitchen. He stops in the middle of the room, tapping at his chin as he thinks.

“She wouldn’t have run off anywhere, none of us are in danger. That’s the only reason she would do anything reckless. If she was napping, she would be in her room and I’m going to assume you checked there, and if she was eating, she would be here,” he rattles off, spinning on the spot until he comes to a complete stop.

Five measured steps. Four clenches of his knuckles. Three short, sharp breaths. Two knees cracking as he crouches down. One curse word tumbling from his lips.

“Fuck.”

“Dad, did you just curse?” Nora says with a teasing gasp as her father droops his head. A moment passes and the short glimmer of amusement quickly fizzles out to nothing as she rushes toward her father. “Dad?”

He doesn’t say anything. He simply presses his palm flat against the panel of wood in front of him. It’s so quiet, you could hear a pin drop from the other end of the castle, so when the click of a lock echoes around the room it’s almost deafening.

“What’s that?” Nora asks, planting her hand on her father’s shoulder as I gape at the hole in the wall.

“Adrianna opened that… thing when we came here on a field trip,” I offer, my eyebrows bunching together when his gaze whips to mine.

“Did she go down there?”

I shake my head and he seems to sag with relief. “But that was then. What are the chances of her going down there now?” I ask, and pained eyes find mine once again.

“I can feel her magic in the walls.”

He doesn’t have to say anything else before I’m marching toward them. Darkness greets me as I swing the door open, but I don’t care. I blindly take the steps two at a time. I’m only aware of the company that follows me because of the soft glow that seems to flow with them.

I stumble to a halt at the bottom, gaping at the open door and what lies inside. Or who lies inside, more specifically.

Adrianna.

She’s slumped in the corner of the room inside some kind of play pen with a toy horse resting in her lap. Her cheeks are damp, tears trailing down her soft skin as her eyelids remain closed.

“Adrianna,” I rasp, emotion clogging my throat as I scurry toward her, clearing the fence that separates us before I ghost my thumb over her cheek.

I can see she’s breathing, I can hear her heartbeat.

“Is she sleeping?” Nora asks, curling her hands around the top of the iron bars that stand between us, and I shake my head.

“I don’t know.”

A beat passes, then I hear the annoying Reagan sister gulp. “What is this place?”

As if sensing the question, Adrianna gasps, eyes wide as she blinks up at me, and my heart pounds frantically in my chest. “Adrianna.” Her name tumbles from my lips again, but all she offers me is another blink before she latches on to something behind me.

“Dad.”

One word, a plea, riddled with pain.

I don’t want to tear my eyes away from her, but I have to, and when I see the pained expression on his face, anger boils in my veins.

“What do you remember, Addi?” he asks, head hung in a mixture of defeat and desperation.

“I saw a glimpse of a moment. I saw Mom in… and I was glowing again, and Nora was… fuck,” she croaks, her words nothing more than a scrambled mess. She takes a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed for the briefest moment before she opens them wide again. “Why was she restrained?” she asks, nodding toward the opposite corner, where I notice the dangling chains for the first time.

Nora frowns, folding her arms over her chest as Adrianna takes my offered hand and rises to her feet.

August clears his throat, staring at the corner as if he’s replaying the memory. “Before everything happened, there was a two week build up where everything was changing and nothing made sense.”

A bit like you right now.

Thankfully, I keep my thoughts to myself as Adrianna squeezes my hand. “What do you mean?” Her voice is soft, vulnerable almost.

“There was magic at play. Dark magic. And someone was controlling her, or her wolf, really. She wasn’t herself. She was scared of hurting one of you again, and I?—”

“Again?” Nora interjects, frowning at her father, and a sad smile tilts the corner of his lips.

“You have a scar on your right knee. She didn’t mean to. She loved you, or I thought she did. I don’t know anymore, but what I do know is the woman that was chained to these walls in a bid to protect you from herself was the mother who loved you dearly.”

“Who would do that? Who would make her wolf lash out at us like that?” Adrianna pushes, her knuckles white around mine as she vibrates.

“I never learned the truth. I always thought it was Kenner behind it, but now that I’ve seen Fairbourne take off with Clementine, I can’t help but wonder if it had something to do with them,” he admits, and I pinch the bridge of my nose as I take a deep breath.

It seems this family is not much better than mine.

Vampires, fae, wolves, shifters, mages, even humans. It doesn’t matter what origin you are. The pinnacle of your abilities, or lack thereof, is the only notable difference. Everything else is the same.

Somebody always wants more. Someone always gets hurt. Something always gets in the way.

We’re all flawed. Some more than others.

“What does any of this mean?” Nora asks, glancing between her sister and father, and I get a peek behind the humor and jovial defenses that she always has in place. That’s the difference between the two of them. Adrianna hides behind stone walls made of fierceness and tenacity. Nora hides behind lightheartedness and jokes. They’re both hiding all the same, both vulnerable to the core.

“It means that if it was Fairbourne, then there’s a chance he and Clementine could still be using dark magic,” I blurt, reading between the lines that have August drowning in defeat.

“Dark magic?” Nora pushes, and I shake my head.

“I have no fucking idea what it means either, Nora, but maybe we could figure it out somewhere else? I don’t think we need to be down here to discuss the matter,” I grumble, and Adrianna nods in agreement.

Nora’s lips twist like she wants to push back. Not at me specifically, but my answer is vague and it seems she’s all too used to being left in the dark. Now is her opportunity to be present and she doesn’t want to lose it.

Surprisingly, she keeps her protests to herself as the four of us make our way back upstairs. August leads the way, silent and somber, while Nora sulks behind him. I hold up the rear with Adrianna a step ahead of me, our fingers interlocked as we take the winding stairs back up.

The kitchen finally appears after what feels like an eternity and I grumble at the gathered group that’s now formed in our absence. Food is spread along the long table where Kryll, Brody, Cassian, Beau, Flora, and Arlo are seated. They all stare at us in surprise and my selfishness spikes.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Kryll asks, jumping to his feet, but I quickly dance around Adrianna to block his path.

“Nora will fill you in,” I state, nodding at the younger Reagan sister, who gapes at me in surprise for a second before she nods. She tilts her chin up, head back, and shoulders straight. A silent thank you flashing in her eyes as I edge toward the door.

Adrianna is right beside me, hand still in mine as Cassian calls out. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

“I just found our woman at the bottom of a secret passageway, slumped in a corner with tear marks down her face. She’s fine. Nora’s going to tell you that she’s fine, but I’m going all vamp and stealing her for myself for a minute. If you have an issue with it, I don’t give a fuck. Unless it’s you that has the problem,” I add, spinning to face Adrianna, who looks up at me with wide eyes as she shakes her head.

“Where are we going?”

I cock a brow at her, the rest of the room fading away. “Does it matter?”

She looks at me for a beat. Two. Before she shakes her head.

“I don’t suppose it does.”