She kept her attention averted from his nakedness as she stared at those knuckles before looking at the bodies. No one had considered that while they were working on making the corpses look real.
“You have to mark up their knuckles somehow, too,” she said in a voice far steadier than she anticipated. “The clones don’t look like they could have inflicted Cole’s injuries.”
“Good point,” Brokk said.
“Use the walls,” Cole said as he wiped away the blood trickling down from his bottom lip.
The bodies scraped against the floor as Varo and Orin dragged them over to one of the walls. Grasping the doppelganger’s wrists, Varo and Orin scoured their knuckles against the surface. Then they smeared more of their blood on the doppelganger’s hands.
Lexi tried to suppress the tremor making its way through her, but it wouldn’t stop as it rattled its way through her bones. Soon Cole would walk into the Lord’s palace with all those dragons and these magical bodies.
Soon, they would learn if this was good enough to trick the Lord. If it wasn’t, Cole would never return. She hugged herself to try to calm herself, but it was useless.
“I’ll take them now,” Cole said.
“I’ll carry Varo—”
“No,” Cole abruptly cut off Brokk. “You’re staying here.”
“You can’t go alone,” Brokk protested, and Lexi nodded her agreement.
“I can, and I am,” Cole said. “I saw what happened to father; if you think the Lord won’t kill you too just to make sure I have no family left, then you’re mistaken. You’re not walking into that hall to become dinner for those dragons.”
“Then I’ll go with you,” Lexi blurted.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“No,”Cole said at the same time her father said, “Absolutely not.”
Lexi restrained herself from rolling her eyes at their overprotective nature. “If the arach can control the dragons, then I’m thebestone to send in there.”
“Your powers are just awakening; we have no idea what you can do and no way of knowing if youcancontrol the dragons. You can’t walk down that hall, with its open ceiling, and through a field of dragons to stand before the Lord. He’ll know what you are before you make it two feet into the room.”
“So will the dragons,” she retorted. “And maybe they’ll turn against him.”
“Or maybe they won’t. It’s not a chance we can take. If it backfires on us, it will get us both killed.”
Lexi ground her teeth together as she tried to come up with another reason why she should go, but she had to admit he was right. That didn’t mean she was willing to relent on this.
“You can’t go alone,” she insisted.
“I’ll go with you,” Del offered. “We can tell the Lord your brothers were keeping me prisoner and you freed me.”
“No,” Cole said. “Anyone else I bring in there will be nothing but a target. He also knows Lexi is my mate and will see you as a threat. He’s aware you provided a lot of the military strategy that helped him win the war. If he thinks we have a tighter bond because of Lexi, he’ll have no problem killing you.”
“True,” Del admitted.
“Besides, it’s better if you remain dead,” Cole continued. “That way, Lexi, Orin, and Varo aren’t the only secrets we have against the Lord. Also, it’s daylight there too, and unless that somehow changed in prison, you can’t handle the sun.”
Del’s mouth quirked in a small smile. “True.”
Cole lifted Orin’s clone and hefted it over his shoulder. Lexi left the shadows of the tunnel behind as she stretched her hand toward him. “Cole—”
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “The Lord doesn’t want me dead. Or at least he doesn’t want me deadyet. He still has a use for me.”
“Which is?” Orin asked.
“Because of Lexi, he thinks he has a way to control me. He might not get so lucky or have that kind of leverage over the next dark fae king or the dark fae council. Right now, he mistakenly believes he has control over the Gloaming because of me.”
