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I glared at the grass, kicking a few blades free. "Something in my gut tells me he wasn't there. I felt sick and disgusted the whole time I was at the training hall, and I put it down to the copious amounts of blood, guts, and sexual fluids everywhere, but maybe it washim."
"Maybe," Taj echoed. "You don't sound so sure, pretty killer."
"I thought you were on my side, dickwad," I growled, stalking up the slope and ignoring the knots in my stomach.
I couldn't explain the deep, gut feeling I was having, but no way was I about to dismiss it. "What ifDevwas the one who moved it? What if he knew Eidolon would do something like this, and he hid it somewhere else, somewhere onlyheknew where to find it?"
"And didn't tell me?" Taj scoffed, trudging up the slope after me.
"Not if you were in Orchid Vale at the time," Arkan mused, his hands in his pockets and his shadows fading as he fell into step beside me. "What if he moved it while we searched for Eidolon on Earth?"
"We need Dev to wake up," I said quietly, too afraid to say it louder—in case the universe heard me and decided to give me a swift kick to the vagina and take him from me instead. For my whole life, the universe had been kicking me; why stop now?
"We need a fuckinglotof things," Taj muttered, his bare shoulders hunched. "Weneededan easy way out of Herallan. Weneededto not have to scale a building by our fingernails and punch through a stone wall. Which didn't evenwork."
"I told you that was a bad idea," Arkan muttered under his breath.
"Weneeded—"Taj went on, the words exploding from him.
"Ooookay," I murmured, catching Taj's hand and squeezing it. "You're making yourself angrier, and you need to stay calm so you can heal. You're lucky we let you go to Herallan in the first place; punching a hole through a self-healing, cursed wall wasn't part of the plan."
He muttered and whined under his breath, so annoyed he became childish. I smirked and rubbed his knuckles with my thumb.
"Do I need to remind you—" Arkan began, fully on board with my Let's Chide Taj, Who's Deathly Injured plan.
"I got cut apart, and my insides don't particularly want to stay inside because they keep trying to get out?" Taj finished shortly. "No, you donotneed to remind me, thank you very much, Arkan Ellery."
I snorted.
Taj's tantrum was lifting my mood. At least until reality came crashing down like a cartoon piano on an unsuspecting person. The sceptre was missing, and if I was right Dev had moved it somewhere—which meant Eidolon was still waiting for us to bring it. If Arkan was right in holding onto hope about X, if I was wrong about him being—gone, we'd screwed up our only chance of saving him.
It felt like I’d lost X all over again.
"What are we gonna do?" I cried, interrupting Taj's tirade. My bottom lip wobbled pathetically, emotions on a wild rampage through my chest.
"Oh, princess," Arkan murmured, sweeping me into his side and hugging me close to him. "We'll find the sceptre. We'll get X back. I promise."
"Holy shit," Taj breathed, a little laugh in his voice and a ripple going through his soul. It was strangely like happiness. "How the hell didheget out?"
"Who?" Ark demanded, his voice dropping a few degrees colder.
So much frantic worry, scorching love, and urgency slammed into my soul that my knees wobbled. But that felt like…
I snapped my head up, staring at the castle gates as someone exploded through them.
I'd know those broad shoulders anywhere, and that determined stride, those hands already reaching out for me even though he was still at the top of the hill.
I staggered forward with a choked laugh of disbelief.
"Joseph?"
18
Every part of my body hurt like a bitch, but that didn't stop me slamming into Joseph so hard that my entire body rattled. His cinnamon chocolate scent filled my lungs, his cold arms wrapped around me, and for a moment everything was okay.
"Sweetness, Avie, my sweet," he babbled, his big hands moving up and down my back, pressing with the perfect amount of pressure to make me weak, to make me feel completely vulnerable and utterly safe.
"Hi," I choked out, in complete denial about crying.1
