Ella
Dim lighting casts the space in a strange, unnerving glow.
I pace along the wall, running my fingers over the strange carvings that seem lost to time and make little sense to me, despite over two decades of learning every custom and legend about Eastonia and its dark history.
Even Amanda’s not sure what these murals and carvings mean or depict, but we’re in agreement that we’re deep underground in the ruins of some old temple to some lost god.
Amanda rushes out a breath and slumps into a dusty armchair, which looks out of place in the sitting room where we’ve spent the last two days. Maybe it’s been two days. I haven’t seen the sun since before the eclipse began and everything absolutely unraveled.
“I can’t shift,” she breathes, closing her eyes. “My powers are shot.”
“Me neither,” I grumble, tucking my filthy, dust covered fingers in the pockets of the simple dark cotton pants I’d been wearing the night of the festivities. I thank the Goddess I hadn’t yet changed into the massively extravagant ball gown I planned to wear to the party at the castle after the Rite.
Amanda, too, is dressed plainly. I recently braided her long, copper blonde hair into a neat-ish braid, but we’re both coated in dirt, blood, and the dust that seems to cling to everything in this room.
I lean against an antique desk and wonder, for the thousandth time, where the hell the Draven Coven got all of this antique furniture, and close my eyes.
I reach down my bond with Ryatt and tug hard.
“Anything?” Amanda whispers.
I shake my head and open one eye, fixing her with a look that conveys the fact that we are well and truly alone now.
I’d been able to mind-link with Ryatt, through our bond, up until a few hours ago, but now it’s eerily silent.
My powers, too, feel tired and useless.
I almost run my fingertips over the fine network of scarred symbols on my forehead but think better of it when I notice the dirt caked beneath my fingernails.
“You’d think they’d be dying to talk to me,” I shrug, kicking the corner of a faded crimson rug. “Being the queen, and all. I’m shocked my head isn’t on a spike yet.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Amanda scolds, frowning. “You promised me we’d make it home.”
“Consider this a needed break from the kids,” I grin, but Amanda shoots me a dirty look and crosses her legs, turning her head away from me.
“My idea of a break from the kids was a trip to Maatua with Granger and staying in your mother’s fancy guest house for a week.”
“Well, there’s still time for that. We just need to figure out what the hell these people want, first–”
The massive double doors at the entrance–the only way in, or out, of the room–burst open to reveal nothing but darkness beyond.
I don’t bother straightening. Food and drink have been brought in on a regular basis–good food. I was even offered a cup of coffee a few hours ago, which was my only hint that it’d been morning at the time.
Fresh cream and sugar, too.
So far, we haven’t been poisoned, neglected, or tortured.
But we also haven’t seen anyone but servants.
I watched a middle-aged man of considerable strength walk in, his glassy, nearly white hair tied back away from his face.
A cloak of all black shields his body, but his identity is unmistakable.
I’d remember him anywhere because his face is ingrained in my memory like a scar. He gave me a single shred of hope during one of the darkest times of my life while I was locked away, underground, just like I am now.
“Queen Ella,” Atticus says with a bow.
The doors shut behind him with a snap.
“What kind of game are you playing?” I edge toward him, my eyes shining with the last traces of my powers. “Where are we?”
“Underground near the Tarsian border,” he replies with hesitation. He sweeps a pale hand around the once-luxurious sitting room with a slight smirk on his lips. “This place once belonged to King Kane and was outfitted to his desires in the event he was ever overthrown from his seat as the King of Rifthold.”
Amanda snorts somewhere behind me.
“And now this is where your coven of mole-people are based?”
Atticus eyes me for a moment. His eyes are a pale shade of gray that seems slightly off and unnatural, so different from my mate and daughter, whose eyes are like a raging storm.
He looks like Petra, and it ties my stomach in knots to even look at him directly.
“I am not the leader of the Draven Coven. I never was and never will be.”
I cock my head. “That’s bullshit. You ordered an attack on Moonrise. You tried to kidnap my daughter and niece–”
He shakes his head and looks suddenly resigned. “I would never.” He takes a single step in my direction but stops short of where I’m now standing with my arms crossed. “I made you a promise two decades ago that nothing would happen to your child. I’ve kept that promise.”
“Like hell you have,” I snarl.
I glance over my shoulder. Amanda nods her agreement but stays silent.
“This is a precarious situation, and I have little control,” he grinds out. “I am trying to help you–”
“How?”
He holds my gaze, searching my eyes. “Gabriel is going to be an even bigger problem if he’s not stopped, and I don’t have the manpower or resources to stop him.”
“So you dragged us here for our help?” Amanda cackles. “Goddess above, I’ve officially heard it all.”
“Is this a game to you, fox?”
“Do not address her,” I seethe, and he slowly turns his eyes back to meet mine. “You have attacked my kingdom, threatened my family on both sides of our borders, and have now separated us from our children. What the fuck do you want?”
Atticus’s icy expression shatters as he crosses between us and sits down in an armchair. I glance at Amanda, wondering if she caught the shift in his demeanor as well.
I have to add that Amanda is an excellent mother with an uncanny ability to read the emotions of others. Her brow pinches in concern as she briefly throws me a look and edges toward Atticus, who drops his head in his hands and exhales deeply.
I’m used to Alphas playing tricks like this on me to pull at my heartstrings.
But if Amanda believes Atticus is in distress, he must be.
I raise my hand at Amanda in a motion to stop when she begins to reach for him.
Atticus slowly looks up at us. “You’d better sit down.”
Amanda settles herself back in her dusty chair, and I choose to perch on the desk, my arms still crossed tightly beneath my breasts. “Whatever you’re about to tell me, save your breath. I already know that you’re the son of Kane–”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
I look into his pleading eyes and feel what Amanda must have felt. This man is in trouble.
Maybe I hadn’t read him wrong twenty years ago, and I’d been right about that sliver of understanding between us when he’d led me to face his sister for what would be the last time.
“I am the son of Kane. He fathered me, and Petra and I were raised in Moonrise, but I was separated from Petra and my mother as a young child and… I trained under Kane. I’m not the only son he fathered. There were so many of us–witches, shifters of all kinds…. He put us through tests, weeding out the weakest, needing a new heir to replace Ryatt.” I square my shoulders at the mention of my mate, but Atticus continues, “I was a slave until you killed Kane and destroyed Rifthold, but I escaped and went home to my family because that’s what I thought I should do.”
Amanda chews her lip and meets my gaze. A chill runs up my spine.
“By then, Petra was on the run. There were enough unsettled loyalties for her to start to band a small coven together. At that point, I knew I wouldn’t be welcome in Moonrise, and the rest of the heirs of Kane either died in Rifthold or went into hiding, so I followed my sister into hell.” He grimaces and runs his fingers through his hair.
“You stood by and watched as she tortured those witches,” I snarl.
“I got many of them out,” he admits.
I glance at Amanda. She looks just as confused as I feel.
“Petra gave birth to a son, in secret, a year before you showed up,” he says. “I won’t go into detail about Gabriel’s father because I’m sure you already assume–”
“That you’re his father?”
Atticus slowly looks up at me, his face going a pale shade of green. “Are you out of your mind?”
I shrug. “I’ve heard the rumors that the two of you were… close.”
He makes to stand, but Amanda bares her teeth at him, her canines blazing sharp in the dull light surrounding us.
“Gabriel is not my son. I believe he might be Kane’s son, given the timeline. She would have been working with Kane at that point. But she wanted a daughter–needed a daughter–since the males born of witches possess no gifts, and sent Gabriel away. To where, I don’t know, but whoever raised him did so while placing a silver spoon in his mouth and telling him he was the future King of Eastonia when they tucked him into bed each night.”
“What rule do you play then? Are you saying Gabriel is in control of the coven?”
“I am his advisor,” he murmurs.
“So you–”
His eyes light on mine as he stands. “I must make one thing perfectly clear to you, Ella. Gabriel will succeed in his quest for control of Eastonia if he is not stopped. This isn’t a game.”
“Your inbred nephew is nothing compared to my mate and my daughter–”
“Your daughter has no idea how much danger she’s in,” he says softly, shaking his head. “Please–”
“You are complacent in this–”
“Gabriel wants my daughter,” he breathes, his shoulders going slack. He stumbles a step backward and falls back into the chair.
I arch a brow, looking at Amanda. She nods at me, taking an easy step toward Atticus. “Why?”
“For the same reason he wants the royal princesses,” he murmurs, meeting my eyes. “He has a relic, Ella. Like your crown. A scepter–and he uses it to draw the powers from others to increase his own.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” I say. I figured something like this was happening. Ryatt and I have been following the Draven Coven for years, putting shreds of information together to try to see the full picture of their movements and desires.
But I also thought it was Atticus at the helm, and this was some personal vendetta against me, not that his son was vying for what he believed is his rightful throne.
“Sasha,” he whispers like it pains him. His eyes cloud over with tears, but none of them fall from his lashes, like he’s spent years reckoning with her loss. “She was ten when I sent her over the border to get her away from him. He’d harvested her powers from her for the first time a week before I got her to safety.” He runs his fingers through his ashen hair and looks at me. “Her mother was a shifter. Lora, my mate. I kept them hidden from Gabriel and his cronies for as long as I could, but even as a twelve-year-old, he had so much sway. Lora died at the hands of his henchmen, and I was dragged back to hell with Sasha when she was only a few days old.”
“She’s in Crescent Falls?” I say, shocked. He nods, and suddenly everything starts clicking into place. “He’s looking for her, isn’t he? The breeder auctions, the balls, trying to kidnap the princesses? This is all connected.”
“Her powers are… immense. Like yours. But she’s just a wolf. Gods, I prayed for a son to spare her from this. There are so few women in the coven now. They’re considered precious, highly valuable. They all die so young because of his sick experiments. But Sasha, and woman like your daughter, and possibly your niece, can survive his torture and–” He stops himself like he’s telling me too much.
His gaze locks on mine as he continues. “He wants Sasha. He needs her to take the throne of Eastonia, but he has enough support now across the border to start a war with the Alpha King of Crescent Falls. We’re all in danger. This isn’t a game, Ella. The war has already begun.”
“How do we stop him?”