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“News of the gobbelins?” I asked before any of them could berate Luca for ever signing a contract with Merden. He’d done that enough to himself - they didn’t need to rub it in.
“They’re beneath Ice Clover Lake,” Luca ground out, looking back at Rush. Slowly, the gaze between them grew feral, and Rush showed his teeth as Luca growled low in his chest.
“What am I missing here?” Kas interrupted, smoothly stepping between them and blocking their view to the other.
“His mother is with them,” Luca managed around his clenched teeth. Rush startled and looked at me with wild eyes, but Vento spoke up, holding up a hand to the fae but glancing back at me.
“Luca found them when he dove beneath the water. She requested her son return, and offered to call off the gobbelin attacks if he does.”
I hissed out a breath. “Absolutely not,” I said, shoving my words at Rush. I would not have him running off to try and save the day by sacrificing himself.
“I put it to a vote with my wolves. You should know they were evenly divided,” Vento offered.
I snarled at him, even though I appreciated his candidness. “Then half of them are against me. We do nottradepeople like hostages.”
“Kana...” Rush whispered, and my heart hammered. For a horrible second, I wondered if he wanted to go. If this had been planned all along, and everything he’d told me was a lie. If he was somehow a traitor... but no. I would sense it in his thoughts.
“Thank you,” he breathed to me as I skimmed his mind and found nothing. The storm cloud behind my eyes cleared. This was Rush - my Rush. And I knew him.
“I trust you,” I said to him, though the words were directed to the whole room. Then I turned to Luca, needing to see something with my own eyes, that I’d only guessed at. “And I trust you, too, Luca. Vento? Let the alpha bond drop.”
The room hushed in an artificial quiet. Then it exploded as each of the men in the room protested my request.
“Absolutely not, Kana. My loyalty is with Khione, and-”
I cut Vento off with another snarl, stalking toward him. “Khione is perfectly capable of caring for herself. But I need to see what I’m up against. You can’t be with him every second of the Trial.”
Vento looked like he wanted to contradict again, but I pressed my own sort of alpha magic at each of my men, drilling my ice magic into their minds to slow their heated actions. Slowly, Rush and Kassian stepped back against the walls, accepting my dominance. Luca whined a little under his breath, the sound growing to a growl as I wrapped his mind in ice, willing him to see me as more than the object of his contract.
“Drop it, Vento,” I whispered, my new icy blue eyes locked with Luca’s fiery golden ones.
I knew the split second the alpha wolf did what I’d asked. Every muscle in Luca’s body tensed and strained with the effort of containing himself.
His thoughts were wild, almost escaping the grip I had on his mind. Just as Vento had warned, Luca flipped between “kill Kana” and “protect Kana” from second to second, the chorus numbing in its intensity.
“Luca, you’re stronger than this,” I growled, stepping one foot closer to him as I cranked up the magic to Goddess level. I felt Khione’s power flooding through my limbs. She could end him in seconds with minimal effort. He was practically vibrating now, his entire body at war with the demands of the blood contract.
Then I dropped my magical hold, and he launched himself at me, teeth snapping and his wolf form exploding in midair.
Before his paws hit the floor, he was wrapped in vines and howling from blasts of icy mind magic and his alpha’s commands. I’d done nothing, but each of the men in the room - even Cade - had protected me without hesitation.
“I’m sorry, Luca,” I whispered down to him as he shifted back into a man, knowing the experiment had been cruel. “But I had to know.”
He panted, staring up at me with tremendous pain in his golden eyes. “Kana, no. I deserve it all. Just let Vento stay, and I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you, I fucking swear.” His words were strained and grating against the magical holds, and I nodded, waving to the others to let him go.
“I know you will. I love you, Luca,” I said, stepping back as Vento wrestled Luca’s mind back under his alpha command. I didn’t feel good about it, but I’d tested him.
And he’d failed, exactly the way I would need him to.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KANA
“Where are we going?” Rush asked me, trying to keep his voice light as I dressed for battle.
The mist had spoken, but without Merden at the palace to make a scene, the directions for the final Trial were a little hazy. But I felt the instinctive pull to a particular place, all the same.
“We’re going to where it began. The statue of the Original Sisters - the founders of Saori Sang.” I busied myself sheathing knife after knife on my belt and in hidden pockets around my dragon-scale armor. Luca and Kassian had left to get ready as well, and I’d warned them to prepare for anything they could. Just because the final Trial was always combat with a side of sacrifice, didn’t mean Merden might not serve up something unexpected.
