Page 72 of Mage Massacres

“Holy shit,” Briggs said suddenly.

York jumped to attention. “What? What is it?”

“Did you say there was a van and people waiting at the first location you went to?” Cyprus green eyes bounced between my fae and me.

“Yeah,” Vaughn hesitantly agreed. “Why?”

“Oh,” I whispered, before getting louder. “Oh, shit.”

“Spit it out,” Novak urged. “We’re waiting.”

I rolled my eyes at his impatient tone. “When we were leaving the cafe, Briggs and I were listening to the couple talking a few tables away. They mentioned that two mages have gone missing in four days, and seven—”

“Eight,” Briggs corrected.

I sighed. “Eight mages went missing last week.”

“Why hasn’t the guild notified us of that?” Palmer asked.

“That’s a great question. Why haven’t they notified us about the destruction that was left or the missing records either?” I countered. “But that’s not the point right now.”

He squinted at me. “What is the point then?”

I scrubbed my hands over my face. “We walked through a wall. Annette was summoned to a heavily trafficked area, but she wasn’t looking for me or us... She felt a mage walk into her trap.”

Briggs nodded, continuing my train of thought. “I’d bet that she was waiting between those buildings so that she could sneak up behind said mage and grab them. But you guys stopped, and Sloane saw her standing there.”

“Yep. She knew who we were, but she wasn’t expecting it to be us who walked into her trap. She also didn’t think I would grab her when she ran. That’s why she went to the first location. That would have been where she dropped her latest catch.”

Vaughn nodded along. “All right, but why is she taking them?”

I leaned back, lying flat on the rock. “I don’t know.”

“I haven’t heard anything either,” Palmer murmured, still stuck on the guild question as he rubbed his jaw. “The council members are supposed to inform the Kings and me when something like this is happening. Why haven’t they contacted us?”

I couldn’t answer that. I’d tried to stay as far away from the guild as possible while I was growing up. They insisted on comparing me to Amelia, and I had always hated that I didn’t live up to their expectations.

“Do you think this is connected to the power farm?” York softly asked, his gaze lost to the tranquil horizon.

“Yes,” I admitted, knowing the words were true as soon as they passed my lips. “I do. There’s just one piece of information that’s not lining up right now. Kelvin said the fae-mage hybrid was male, and there’s been a few other times where we’ve been sure it’s a man too. Annette is female.”

“It’s glamor,” Stone advised.

“I’m sure it is,” Vaughn agreed. “Worst case scenario, we could be looking for two different fae-mage hybrids.”

Briggs frowned. “Would Kelvin have been able to lie to you about the fae-mage being male, though? You compelled him, didn’t you?”

“He could have,” Novak answered. “Depending on how he last saw the fae-mage, he could have been telling the truth at the time.”

I shook my head. “No. I refuse to believe there are two of these motherfuckers. Nope. The universe has enough spawns of Alric Moore running around. I don’t want to think about another one.”

York conveyed our collective thoughts in one sentence. “It’s better to be prepared for that outcome than being caught off guard by the sudden appearance of another.”

“Godsdamnit. That man has been running around for centuries, wetting his dick in anything with a pulse. How many kids do you think he has?” I ranted, irritated and confused.

“That’s not quite the right question, Kitten,” Stone remarked. “How many kids does he have that he speaks to? He had some kind of relationship with Kelvin and Kadence. Clearly, he has some contact with Annette as well. And either he or Annette was pulling strings in the Underworld and within Charlie’s pack to help Raguel.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I muttered. “That’s a lot of bullshit surrounding the King family.”