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Vento strode into the room, looking just as dour. “There are reports from the mountain. Merden was spotted. She’s gathered her nobles and possibly some gobbelins - they’re mobilizing.”
“Again with the fucking mobilizing,” I grumbled, scrubbing my hand through my hair. At this rate, I’d be a bald King when Kana returned.
“We’re ready,” Vento assured me, and I suppressed a groan.
“Do we have the numbers?” I asked them, and the beat of silence told me all I needed to know. The city had simply been too decimated.
“If Merden has gobbelins on her side - even if she coordinates her attack with theirs - we need to be prepared to retreat and fortify,” Blaise finally said. “The palace is locked down, though. We can do this, Kas. We can survive.”
Every instinct in me wanted to argue with her, that this was a fool’s mission and I was about to be the shortest-lived King in Saori Sang’s history. I wanted my people to be able to do more than survive.
“Any news of the fae working with the gobbelins?” I asked, because I was a glutton for bad news.
Vento’s eyes flashed. “Nothing new, but we know it’s a possibility. We refused to bring the fae to his mother, and there are reports that she’s been seen with them. But no other fae, as of yet.”
“As of yet,” I repeated, feeling a little hopeless.
“Hey. We’ve got this, man. We haven’t survived so much shit, just to have it all crash down in the end,” Blaise said, resting her palm on my shoulder.
I wanted to believe her, but she spoke from a pure blood noble’s point of view. She’d grown up with every advantage and plenty of luck.
I came from the countryside, where people’s lives very regularly came crashing down, no matter how much we hoped and prayed they wouldn’t.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
RUSH
“Are you certain Kana will approve of us?” I asked Cade when we had finished our fucking, lying breathless on my back.
He snickered. “She’ll want to watch. Our girl likes it dirty like that, trust me. And we both know we’d choose her over each other if she asked us to anyway. She just won’t ask.”
I decided to trust him. He’d known Kana longer, and I’d felt her energy spike before when the three of us were together. I just didn’t want to seem disloyal. Kana was my mate - my everything. Cade was simply fun.
“Is your energy good now?” he asked, giving me a teasing side-eye.
“You have quite literally fucked me back to life, Acadian,” I assured him, sitting up and heading to the bathroom to clean up our mess. I felt accomplished, knowing I’d properly cleansed away the fear that Merden’s presence had left behind, making a beautiful clean slate for my new mate to return to.
As I dressed again, I paused, tasting the energy in the air. Something else was different, and it wasn’t coming from what I’d done.
There was a chill in the air.
A scent of gobbelin blood. But something else, too, riding above it. There was a crackle of electricity in the air that I’d only ever associated with one thing.
“Khione,” I breathed, and Cade was by my side in an instant.
“What is it?”
“Find Kingston. Tell him the gobbelins are coming, but so isshe.” I searched his face for a brief moment, only turning away when he nodded. Pulling on the rest of my clothing, I hurried out of the palace without another word to anyone. I’d sensed a third magic layered deeper than the gobbelins’ ice, and I needed to see it for myself first.
Racing through the streets of Saori Sang, I felt the energy buzzing all around me, kissing my skin with the promise of battle and blood.
They were coming for us - all of them.
Merden. The gobbelins. And yes... there it was.
“Hello, mother,” I said, bursting through the front gates of the house I’d once lived in on Premier Street.
Julianna stood in the doorway, her golden and turquoise eyes glittering back at me, newly streaked with black.
