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The door flew open as the rest of our party flooded in and dealt with the two guards I couldn’t reach.
I expected more of a brouhaha that would then spill out into the royal chambers, alerting my father and the Shrouded Shriek we were there, but to my surprise, Darla launched herself forward and placed her hands on either side of the face of the guard I was grappling.
“You’re tired,” she said, her tone oh so gentle. “You have worked really hard, you know, and you deserve a break. Why don’t you just take a nap right now? It’ll be okay. You’ve earned it.”
The guard looked up at her with the epitome of a puppy dog look in his eyes before nodding drowsily. As I let go of my grip around his neck, he slumped to the floor anyway, beginning to snore peacefully.
Well, that was a lot easier than I’d expected.
I could tell Ayla wanted to say something—something like asking her best friend why her powers seemed to have escalated so much in recent history. I knew with my mate and me that it was our completed bond bolstering us, but something seemed to have changed in Darla as well. She wasn’t a shifter, but could it be what was going on between her and my best friend?
As for the other two guards, they were both unconscious as well. I didn’t know if it was Ayla who had knocked them out so quickly or somebody else. The important thing was that they were dealt with before raising any alarm.
Yet again, one step closer.
For a brief moment, I looked around the servants’ room we were in. It was full of supplies, dusters, trays, sewing needles—really anything the staff might need if called suddenly into the room. There was even a sink and a refrigerator, which I hadn’t expected. At least the servants didn’t have to run all the way down multiple flights of stairs to get the queen her cold water.
“Ready?” I mouthed to my companions.
There was a round of nods, and so I took a long, deep breath.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Chapter 25
Ayla
Kai and Oren strode forward into the royal chambers, and I couldn’t believe we were actually about to go into the most prestigious of royal quarters. Although I had never been in the place myself, Kai had made sure to brief us on the layout. There was the main sitting room, an office that the king used, a fitting room, the queen’s walk-in closet, two bathrooms, a balcony, and a lounging room.
When he’d first explained it, I’d been so surprised. When he’d first said we’d have to go into the king and queen’s personal rooms, I thought the space would just be, well, a bedroom. But no, it was its own whole massive apartment, which was how sixteen royal guards and our party of fourteen were going to fit into the space and still have enough room to fight.
It all seemed so surreal as I waited a few beats and then walked in with Darla and Felicity beside me. We were at an advantage, as it wasn’t entirely unusual for the king and queen to hear groups of servants enter, especially before or after mealtime. But as soon as they heard our footsteps approaching in the sitting room, where Kai said they were likely to be, they would know something was up.
Even though the situation was quite serious, I still had to look and wonder at the opulence around me. While it wasn’t my style, I was still gob smacked by the paintings, statues, brilliantly maintained tapestries, and everything else hanging around. I knew entire villages that could be fed off of the decorations in the single room we were standing in, let alone what was likely to be in the rooms we were about to go into.
But I did manage to wrest my attention away from the ornate details. It was for the better that I didn’t really take much inventory in them. The fight we were about to be embroiled in would leave most of the place looking like a burned and bloody battleground, anyway.
When I’d first told Kai I thought the Shriek was possessing his father, I’d expected more pushback. But my mate listened to what I had to say, and when Yvonne backed me up, he just nodded resolutely, and we made an entire plan around taking him out.
I knew the way we were doing things was definitely unorthodox. But Luci said it was so rare for the Shrouded Shriek to actually be injured that we needed to take advantage. Hopefully, the malevolent entity would still be licking his wounds, having forgotten what it was like to actually feel anything other than his insatiable need for more power.
With any luck, he would be scared. He could finally know what so many of his innocent victims felt when he raced through their homes and left nothing behind. It still wouldn’t compare to all that he deserved, but it would be a delicious start.
I managed to get my head in the game by the time we finished passing through what I thought was the sitting room, except there was no one in it. But then we entered the actual sitting room where, sure enough, the king, queen, and another woman were sitting at a table absolutely loaded with food. Most of it artisanal confections.
“What’s going on here?” the queen asked when we burst into the room at once, with Mad Dog and Oren running straight toward the guards at the entrance.
As for me, I flung out my hand, casting a shield over the main doors in the hopes no one would burst in. They definitely would be able to break through the wall if they were particularly determined, but that would take some time.
“Who are you? Leave our quarters at once. Nathaniel! What’s happening?” the queen continued to shriek while we completely ignored her.
The king didn’t answer. Instead, the door on the other side of the suite of rooms banged open, and a moment later, Yvonne and her group rushed in. I felt Yvonne’s spell rush over me as she protected the room the same way I did. Good. We could use all the protections we could get.
“Father!” the other girl cried, and I finally placed her face. It was Amelia, Kai’s middle sister. I knew he wasn’t overly fond of her, but she was another person I’d need to make sure I protected from any possible collateral damage. Hopefully, Yvonne would be more on top of that, as fighting even a wounded Shriek would demand all of my effort and attention. “Who are these people?”
Right, the glamours. Even though they were a vital part of our plan, I’d partially forgotten we were wearing them. But before any of us could do anything about them, King Nathaniel started to laugh.
And laugh.
