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I knew if I lingered much longer I’d be endangering all of them, so I headed out of the hidden exit tucked into a tree and absolutely covered in snake-like vines. I could only hope that the spell to block our scent was still working , because I would hate to accidentally lead the enemy back to my injured mate’s hiding place.
It was so tempting to just stay behind and run back to my mate’s side. Healing her had been thoroughly awful in a way I hadn’t experienced before, and honestly, I never wanted to go through it again. Her screams of pain felt like they were tearing through my actual flesh, and knowing that I was the one who was hurting her made me want to rip my own skin off.
But we made it through. Despite everything, she was alive and recovering, with her contaminated flesh removed, and I was moving through the jungle back to the city.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t even get halfway back to Blath before I heard sounds of a fight. I shifted without a second thought, racing forward and bursting out of the trees a moment later.
Except I wasn’t needed. As soon as I landed, I saw four unconscious bodies strewn on the path while several fae hurried to tie them up. Naturally, they jumped when they saw me, and I realized they had no way of knowing I was their ally and not the largest wolf shifter they’d ever seen preparing to attack them.
I shifted back to my human form just as swiftly as I’d transformed into my wolf form, which was absolute murder on the joints. That turned out to be worth it, however, as a familiar voice called out for them to halt.
“Prince Nikolai?”
I blinked, and my mind supplied a name to go with the face just a few feet in front of me. “Herald?”
“Aye, it’s me. Can’t believe you remembered my name.” The fae smiled an unbelievably wide grin. “We were just handling some of these interlopers. Managed to get the drop on them.”
“Are you going to… execute them?” As much as the shifters were my enemy, they were also just guards following the king’s orders. How many times had I been forced to do something I didn’t want to all because of my father’s whims?
“What? No! That wouldn’t be right. How they go about it is up to the council, but they’ll be held as prisoners before being returned to the capital with some conditions.”
“Good to know. What’s the state of the rest of the island? Did they just outright attack?”
“No, nothing like that. They did try to go with the whole ruse of just being delegates at first, but strangely enough, two of them surrendered right away and told us about the several dozen guards waiting in the hold of the ship to rush through our town at night.”
“Wait. Two defected?”
“Yeah! Otherwise, we’re sure it would have been much worse. It was clear they expected us to be suspicious, so they were trying to lower our guard by biding their time. They were cursed to high hell with a room not too dissimilar from the smaller ones we use on our smuggling ships.”
I now felt a surge of hope at that particular revelation. If two Camdarian delegates turned on their constituents so quickly, that had to mean we had at least some support back home.
“So, the guards I’m seeing now?”
“Some managed to escape from our round up when we stormed the boat. Not bad considering how fast you suckers move.” Herald realized what he was saying, and a contrite expression passed over his features. “No offense meant, of course.”
“None taken,” I said, chuckling. “We wolf shifters are quite fast. But could you take me to meet these defectors? I have questions for them.”
“Of course. They’re pretty talkative as far as that goes. We’ll send some others to pick up this lot. Crayden, you stay behind to make sure no wild animals get too interested, all right?”
“Aye, I think that’s a good idea,” a fae said, with a thick accent I’d never quite heard before.
With that, we hurried down the path, passing two other scenes on our way to the main square of Blath. I wasn’t surprised to see a line of Camdarian delegates sitting with their hands tied in front of them and their feet looped to each other’s.
What most caught my attention was a pair sitting far from the rest of them on a bench, their heads lowered as they spoke quietly to each other.
But even from so far away, I recognized that scent and those hushed voices anywhere.
“Seraphina!” I blurted, running toward her. One of the figure’s heads snapped up and then she jumped to her feet too and sprinted over.
We collided with a hug before anyone seemed to be able to catch up with what was actually happening, and I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think I’d ever seen my sister in anything less than the finest clothing, so it was strange to see her dressed in a plain delegate’s uniform, but I was just grateful to see her.
“How are you even here?” I asked her once I let her go.
“It’s amazing what you can get away with if you have scent-blocking lotion and a can-do attitude,” she said, reminding me so much of Ayla and Darla whenever they got up to something. “Once I heard about our father sending a so called ‘peaceful delegation’ to multiple islands, we escaped after Halle managed to steal some guard uniforms. From there, it was easy to either buy or bluff our way into the delegation. It turns out there’s more than a couple of benefits to being a practically unspoken child of royalty. My father thought to protect our family by making it hard to know that I’m a DeLune, and it turns out he was right, but not in the way he thought.”
I was proud of her, I was, but I felt my big brother side take over. “Seraphina, that’s so dangerous. You could have been hurt!”
“Same goes for you,” she shot back confidently. Goodness, where was the uncertain little girl who was practically scared of her own shadow? She was growing up, that was for certain. Maybe until Ayla and I had children, I could name her as my heir apparent. I was getting way too far ahead of myself, but I thought it was better to think ahead when it came to matters of the kingdom.
