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CERRI
Of course, I knew exactly where to find Tal.
And I hated that I did.
Rhoan and I changed into mortal clothes and stepped in-between to pay Lord Foxglove a visit. Rhoan wore a look of disgust. I jabbed him with my elbow and asked him to fix his face. He asked me what was wrong with it.
I floundered for a moment. Truth be told, there was absolutely nothing wrong with his face. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to pull it close and kiss it all over. I wanted to shower his bold cheekbones with love and nibble on his plump lower lip. The man was too damn pretty, and it was so distracting.
Instead, I reached up and smoothed the twisted corners of his lips. “There we go.”
Through the door, I could hear Foxglove’s low voice.
“She was never going to win, and we both know it. Beryl is a force that no one on this side of the seaboard can compete with. It would have taken a royal from an established court to dethrone her, not some child raised by wolves.”
I pinched my nose and shoved back the urge to kick Fox in the shin for bringing up my Pack family again. I wasn’t quite ready, but I pushed through the doors and strode into Foxglove’s home, nonetheless. Once I made my way to the living room, everything stopped.
Fox stood over the back of a luxury couch while Tal laid across it with one arm over his eyes. It looked as though we’d walked in on Fox trying to comfort Tal, but I knew what I’d heard.
Brows raised, I spread my arms wide as if to saywhat now, bastard?
Fox’s expression quickly changed from shocked to guarded. There was a fight on the horizon, but not a physical one. Fox had just gotten control over Tal again, and I’d returned to threaten it. He was going to find a way to undermine my presence.
Tal’s arm fell away from his face, and he sat up. If his jaw dropped any lower, it would have made athunksound on the floor. He quickly shot to his feet, but Fox threw out a hand to stop him. Tal glanced back at his ex-lover warily.
“Do not trust her,” Fox growled. “She’s an illusion, nothing more than one of Beryl’s glamours sent to cause you more distress. Do not believe this vision for a moment. Remember that you watched the true Cerridwen die right in front of your own eyes.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re irksome, dude. That was the real illusion. I’ve only died once so far.”
The corners of Tal’s lips lifted in a knowing smile.
Fox reached over the back of the couch and grabbed Tal’s sleeve. “Do you really think that Beryl wouldn’t know how to imitate her own niece? You must truly be naïve, fool of mine. Go back to our room and stay there while I tell whoever is behind this illusion to leave.”
Tal rocked on his heels. He fell back and dropped onto the couch again so he could bury his face in his hands.
“I saw your death with my own two eyes, Cerri. While we were in the middle of an important conversation, an assassin appeared from the shadows before I could react. He stabbed you through the heart and vanished.” He pulled his hands away from his face and stared at his palms as if they held the reason for his failure. “No matter what I did, I could not staunch your bleeding. It was like he’d used iron, though the blade had shone like silver in the moonlight.”
Rhoan snorted. “You know that Beryl has stabbed Cerri a number of times already, right? One stab isn’t enough to bring her down.”
Tal shook his head. He was truly distraught. His red-rimmed eyes refused to rise to me no matter how badly I wanted him to look at me.
“You’re dead. This can’t be. You’re dead. This can’t be.” He repeated the two lines over and over all while staring at his hands like they had my blood on them.
I turned my attention to Fox. Livid, I stormed over to him and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. I yanked him down to my level and sneered in his face.
“There is something wrong with Taliesin, and you’re being too selfish to pay attention.” I refused to let go of Fox’s shirt no matter how he struggled.
The doors behind him opened and a few footmen stepped out, but Rhoan appeared at my side and stared them down in challenge. He kept his hand on the pommel of the sword at his side like he couldn’t just summon one with the flick of his wrist. The sword at his hip did make him rather imposing, as did his leather biker jacket and steel-toed boots.
He was a modern warrior instead of the tunic-clad one from the fae realms. I had to admit, I liked this version better. As someone who was always the girl-next-door, I loved the bad-boy look far too much for my own good.
“He’s fine,” Fox hissed in my face.
I thought about slapping some sense into him, but now wasn’t the time. I needed to figure out where Beryl’s magic was coming from. She clearly had a foothold here, but I didn’t know how.
Gods, I was getting tired of her antics. She’d given up on fighting face to face and now used the most underhanded tactics to tear my powerbase apart. Was that how she stole the court from my fae parents? I knew that Tal had defected to survive for future generations, but there must have been others who left or lost their minds to Beryl’s manipulations.
I wouldn’t let her do that to my court.
