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"Garret!" A shout echoed through the hall a second before the door to my suite slammed open and my brother raced in on a flurry of cold air. "Garret have you--"
He stalled at seeing Elliot sitting there, both of their faces falling from whatever eager excitement was there to a snarl. Damn it!
"What is he doing here?" Parris snapped, his eyes flashing red as his teeth descended.
I was up before Parris could move more than a step. By the blood moon, there was no way I was going to let these two get close to each other. The last time they had Parris had ended up with a snapped bone in his arm, and Elliot had been gone for nearly a month. The bone break shouldn’t have been a big problem for an immortal, but it was also something that should not have been possible.
There was not much that could hurt a Synian. A wood stake to the heart was one, but not just any wood: Cedar. Glass blessed by the witches was another. And finally, one of the Fae's creations. Which was what Elliot was, and why Parris hated him.
The Fae had taken away our ancestral lands. They had destroyed our families and our livelihood. I was probably the Synian least interested in declaring war on them, if only because I knew there was no way we would survive another attack. Revenge was not worth it if it ended in so many deaths.
War with the Fae was not worth it.
An idea, which Parris had told me on more than one occasion, should really strip me of my title. Synians were not meant to be pacifists.
But, it just didn't seem important. We may have lost our Omegas and become a society only of Alphas, but we had our Blood Maidens now that we had overtaken Sypani. We were surviving.
Why poke the bear if it would only lead to death?
"He is here because he is my lover," I answered Parris, careful to keep myself between the two of them. They were both snarling now, so close to me I could feel the cold and heat from either side. If I was a weather system this entire room would have turned into a hurricane.
"You finally made him your Maiden, did you? Is that why he has a tail?" Parris may be snarling, his eyes red, but his tone was light and playful, his usual arrogant self batting at flies like he always did.
I loved my brother, but he was a self-absorbed asshole on his best day.
"My lover, Parris, not my Maiden. And the tail--" Wait. Why the hell was I explaining myself to him? "What is it, Parris? Why are you barging into my room?"
"Because I have news," Parris began, snarling at Elliot in warning. Poor guy actually thought that would get him to leave. When it was clear Elliot wasn't going anywhere he continued. "A Synian was killed in the intake room."
"What?" I was instantly roaring, my mind soaring back to when we first invaded Sypani. The Betas fought against us and had been closer to driving us back to Syn than they knew. It had taken us three hundred years to break through the Covern Mountains and escape that hellscape into Sypani.
By the moon, we were not going back.
I was running through the schedule in my mind, trying to think of which Synian was on duty, and whose coven they were from. My coven had already lost too many after Theon's violent arrival a few months ago.
When he attacked us.
He may be a King, but he had betrayed us all.
I didn't think we could lose even one more member. But it wasn't my coven on duty today.
It was Parris's.
"You lost someone?" I asked and he nodded, but instead of the rage I expected, his face broke into a wide smile. "Why is that cause for celebration?"
If I had lost a member of my coven, especially to an attack from the Betas, I would be furious. An attack on any coven is an attack on all of us.
I was already bracing myself, there wasn't anything good that could come from this. Not after Theon.
"It was a Fae bastard who did it," Parris began, a bright light in his eyes flashing dangerously.
And then I understood.
Theon had been able to attack us because of the Blood Maiden he had taken. A powerful Fae hybrid he had plucked from the blood halls. A rare, and supposedly unique, creature. And now there was a second attack.
"The same one?" My every muscle was coiled, ready to rush to the hall and take him and Theon down. I may not be ready to run after the Fae in a rage, but I wouldn't let this house be torn apart. It had taken us too long to build it and I refused to let Theon rip it to shreds.
It was why Elliot and I had fought before. I couldn't leave. I thought I could. That I could just walk away. Maybe I could. I wanted to, but it was a frightening line to walk. I still wasn't sure if I could.
