1
HUDSON
Adark little whisper nagged inside, making my wings twitch.
Something sure as shit ain’t right.
From my perch on the highest turret on the eastern side of Keradoc’s castle, I scanned the scene, looking for signs of trouble.
Seemed like the whole of Amaranth City had turned out for the Feast of the Beast, and the few whohadn’tshown up were most likely out casing houses and apartments, helping themselves to the revelers’ unattended loot.
Course, the thieves would most likely be tracked down and murdered within a day, but that was all part of the game. Real entertainment was scarce in Midnight; everyone had to make their own fun.
Bass thumped from the ground floor, the music even louder than the shouts and whoops of the drunken assholes in attendance, all of the noise making the stones beneath my feet vibrate. The place was so packed, half the guests had already been pushed out onto the grounds. Everywhere I looked, people were either fighting or fucking—sometimes both. All around the castle, the ground was muddy with spilled booze and puke and blood. I wondered whose sorry ass would be tasked with tomorrow’s cleanup.
Grateful for the relatively fresher air up on the turrets, I took a deep breath and dropped into a glide, circling the perimeter. I spotted three of Keradoc’s gargoyle guards making the rounds, but they looked to be about as drunk as the rest of the riffraff and were easily dodged.
Clearly, the warlord needed better security. Not that I was gonna dropthatlittle comment in the suggestion box.
Shitty security or not, I wasn’t about to let my guard down. Haley was counting on me. All of them were. And that voice inside me wasn’t getting any quieter.
Took me a while, but after my fourth loop around the property, I finally spotted them—Saint and Jax following Gem through the melee outside. They weren’t looking up at me, though. Too focused on their destination.
The hell they going?
I followed from above as they elbowed their way through the mass of sweaty bodies and headed for a back entrance—kitchens, most likely. Some servant or cook was standing outside the door, but Jax took him out.
Shit.
That whisper inside me grew to a shout. No way would Jax kill some random fae on a whim—not even one of Keradoc’s random fae. Way too risky, especially with Haley involved.
I was about to drop down and follow them into whatever shitstorm they were gearing up for, but a new threat buzzed through my blood—sharp and sudden and utterly unmistakable.
Haley.She was in trouble, and fucking scared. Thanks to the bond, her fear was so palpable, it may as well have been my own.
Leaving Jax and Saint to fight their own battles, I zoomed back up toward the fourth level, following the insistent pull of my connection to Haley. The pain. It felt like a fishing line reeling me in, a sharp hook right through the gut.
In seconds, I knewexactlywhere she was.
Throne room. I was intimately familiar with it. Centuries ago, before my life went to shit here and I was relegated to working private security gigs for Midnight’s drug and weapons dealers, I was head guardian to one of the Midnight noble families. They spent a lot of time hobnobbing at the castle, kissing the ass of a different ruler while Keradoc was still clawing his way to power. Keradoc was no different though—all them fae fuckers liked to keep my kind close. Gargoyles were better than fae at taking bullets and arrows.
But Haley certainly wasn’t there as an ass-kissing noble tonight. Or even as a spy.
She was a prisoner.
I saw her the second the windows came into view, bound to the throne on the dais.
The pain in my gut turned to raw fucking rage.
Hell no, asshole. Wrong fucking night, wrong fucking witch.
I tucked my wings close and arrowed straight for the windows, ready to smash through the glass, grab that purple-eyed fae fucker, and rip the spine from his body. But just before impact, a hot streak sizzled up my spine, tearing through me with an agony that left me gasping for air. My back twisted against the pain as my muscles seized up, sending me into a fucking tailspin.
I crashed to the ground behind the castle like a warplane shot out of the sky, sending up a wave of mud and debris.
My thick hide saved my bones from shattering, but it still fucking hurt like the devil. I had just enough strength to roll onto my back and wipe the muck from my eyes. I wasn’t far from where I’d seen Gem take Jax and Saint. The door they’d ducked into was mere feet away.
But it may as well have been a hundred miles for all the time I had to get there.
