“No fucking way.” Luka’s steely gaze met mine. “I’m not separating from you when I just got you back. No fucking way.”
“Luka—” I didn’t disagree with him, I didn’t want to be separated from him, but if we needed to?—
“I don’t care if I’m being irrational. Find another fucking plan,” he argued.
“I don’t think splitting up us the right call either,” Nico interrupted. “We need to present a united front—a united court. Especially since you two are newly married and Luka is the newly crowned High King. There’s a better chance of courts responding better to the two of you—to all of us going together.” I rarely saw this side of Nico, but I could see it clearly now, why Luka chose him as his emissary. Why he’d been insistent he follow him to Alethens to be a part of our court. It wasn’t just because of his charisma, he knew what he was talking about.
“And it’s better safety-wise as well,” Declan added. “Just because Adreona is the queen consort doesn’t mean she’s going to stop coming for your head—for all of our heads.”
“So where do we go first? How do we decide which court we travel to first?” Kara asked.
“Here’s what we do—” Nico stood, more in his element than I’d ever seen him. “We send letters to each of the courts—explaining what we’ve found—detailing what we’re asking of them. We tell them if they’d like to talk in person, we can visit them. That way we’re giving everyone the information we need them to have in the most efficient way possible and we only have to visit the courts that request us.” Nico looked at me for approval.
I nodded, turning my attention to Luka. “I think it’s a sound plan.”
“Me too,” he agreed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here and back to Alethens so we can send the letters. We’ll reconvene once we’re there and ready the guard, we need to be prepared for whatever Adreona has planned next.”
31
LUKA
Less than a day after sending out our letters to the courts, we decided we couldn’t sit idle while we waited for a response. As a group, we decided we’d head out to the Aquatic Court instead. Lennox wanted to see the Aquatic Kings, Ceto and Alon, in person and talk strategy with them since they had already promised to aid us.
They agreed to our visit immediately.
I think we were all eager to meet with the kings and get an additional perspective on the shit storm that was our lives.
Luciana had been teaching Kara and Lennox the transportation spell in their spare time. She insisted they needed to learn some Ichor magic spells, whether they wanted to or not—she argued it would be a useful skill for whatever we came to face, specifically the transportation spell.
Today, Kara and Lennox would be put to the test. They had practiced transporting small distances, but never as far as the Aquatic Court.
Luciana would transport Declan, Zienna, and Nol to the Aquatic Court, to a beach outside the capital city of Salacia. Kara would transport Nico, and Lennox was taking me.
Lennox shook out her limbs before taking my hands in her own. She took a deep breath as Luce watched on.
“You can do this,” I told her softly. She blew out another breath and closed her eyes.
“I can do this,” she muttered under her breath.
Her hands squeezed mine as she began speaking the spell. The air moved around us, blowing her hair across her face.
Darkness closed in, the magic working as we tumbled through space.
Lennox and I stumbled out of the Ichor magic. She fell forward as she tried to orient herself. I tried to catch her, but tripped over a rock instead, pulling her with me.
We fell to the ground, I wrapped my arms around her, bracing her fall as we tumbled into the sand.
“I think I could use some more practice with the spell,” Lennox grumbled into my chest.
“You think?”
“Hey!” She pushed herself up off my chest, but I pulled her back against me.
“I’m kidding, you’re perfect.”
“You have to say that, you’re my mate.”
“Even so, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” I placed a kiss on her forehead. “Now, can you please get off me, there’s a rock pressing into my ass.”
