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When he moved on to Florin, I yelled, even though I knew it would do no good.
This time, when the bells tinkled, Romulus sucked in a loud gasp of shock. His gaze shot up to Florin as the knife fell from his hand and clanked to the ground. The elder cupped Florin’s face between his gentle hands, and he breathed, “Grandson.”
Grandson? Was he… did he mean… Goddess, Florin was his grandson?
There was a collective gasp from all of the fae around us, including Jedrek, who must also be related to Florin, if what Romulus said was true.
The elder ran his eyes over Florin’s features as if trying to memorize them, then said, “You’re Tephysea’s son. Now that I’m close, I can see it and smell it on you.” He ran a hand over Florin’s head, through his hair, and frowned. “Welcome to your home, little one. It is so good to have you here.”
He released Florin and gave Jedrek a sharp look. “Lay him on the ground.”
“Wh-what?” Florin said but was ignored.
Jedrek lifted Florin off his feet, my lover kicking and yelling questions to no avail. Jedrek knelt down and forced him onto the ground, lying flat on his back.
Romulus picked his dagger up off the ground and knelt beside Florin, saying, “This is going to hurt.”
And then Romulus pushed Florin’s shirt up, dragged his pants down a little on one side, and lifted his hand high in the air. Braz roared and pushed himself forward a few more steps, and I screamed at the top of my lungs as the elder brought his dagger down, rightintoFlorin’s hip.
Florin screamed in pain, and I felt my magic stirring inside me again, trying to make its way out. No one hurt my lover, my… my fae. No one.
As my magic tried to blast out of me, the net around my body seemed to catch it and push it back inside. Ithurt, but not as badly as hearing the pain in Florin’s voice.
Florin screamed in agony as Jedrek and two others held him down, and the elder—hisgrandfather—continued cutting away at him. Blood splashed against the floor and soaked into Florin’s pants and shirt, but Romulus didn’t let up.
“Please! Stop! You’re hurting him!” I screamed as tears ran down my cheeks.
Braz was screaming as loudly as I was, roars filling the large hall. He had ten fae holding him back, while I had four.
Romulus raised his hand again, and I tried to let my magic go. I tried to push it out. Anything to stop him. Anything to help Florin.
But nothing happened, and all I could do was scream and cry as the elder cut open my friend, one of the men I loved.
16
Weylyn
Nica’s forearms were warm and solid in my hands. He was gripping mine as tightly as I was gripping his as we flew far above the hard earth below. The key was to be high enough that we wouldn’t be easily spotted, but low enough that the air wasn’t too thin. Nica—and Kasper’s passenger beside us—weren’t built for flying and were still new to it despite the training we’d been doing to prepare for this raid.
Training that had proved to be an excellent distraction from the fact Theon was gone. It’d been over a month without a word. Not knowing where he was or if he was safe felt like a constant burning itch under my skin. A constant ache in my heart. Knowing this was what Theon needed and trusting that Florin knew what he was doing were still difficult for me to accept. But it wasn’t my place to make Theon’s choices for him. I only wish he would’ve consulted us, waited for Nica to wake, and allowed us to help him.
Aside from Nica, my only solace rested in knowing Braz was with them. The half-orc and I may have had our differences, but I knew in my bones he’d die before he let Theon come to harm.
Nica’s fingers tightened on my arms. Looking forward, I spotted the same guard he must have seen. Praying the moonless night we’d chosen would be enough cover, I kept my wings open to glide over the guard’s head, hoping not to draw attention to us in case his hearing was sensitive enough to pick up the sound of our flapping. Not flapping meant we dropped lower in the sky, but we’d likely go unnoticed. Our scouts had determined this lone guard station was the only outer defense for the outpost where it rested at the base of a dormant volcano.
“We’re really going to attack a lava mountain?”Nica had said some weeks ago when I’d told him about Kasper’s plan and the belief there was a weapon the mages didn’t want us to get our hands on. I’d chuckled at the time—lava mountain—and the memory brought a grin to my face.
To my left, I could barely make out the shape of Kasper and the wolf shifter he was carrying. Both the wolf and Nica were naked in preparation to shift once we reached the outpost.
The lava mountain—dammit, Nica—grew larger and larger as we approached, rising up out of the earth like an angry god. At its base, shrouded in shadow, was the outpost. In the dark, it was difficult to make out all the details, but the building was plain, squat, and a lot smaller than I’d imagined. What if Holcot had lied, and the armor wasn’t here after all?
Just as I was thinking we should have kept the mage alive until we were sure, the guards surrounding the building materialized out of thin air.
Magic. They’d used a glamour to disguise their amount of security and fortifications, and we’d just passed through the boundary. Our scouts hadn’t gotten this close so they’d had no way of knowing. Six mages surrounded the building, which hadn’t changed at all—still plain, squat, and small.
Nica started to vibrate in my hands, preparing to shift as the mages scrambled beneath us in their surprise. Frantic yells to raise a shield reached me. We couldn’t let them get up a magical shield that we had no means to get through. I squeezed Nica’s arms twice—the signal we’d practiced—and let him go. He dropped with a roar, orange, black, and white fur exploding out to cover his growing body. With a sickening thud, he landed on all fours directly on top of one of the mages. There wasn’t even time for the man to scream.
Nica lashed out at the next mage, stunned to suddenly have a tiger shifter tearing into their ranks. A wolf landed behind Nica, covering Nica’s flank and snapping his massive jaws around the mage’s throat. Behind us, from the direction of the guard post, Sephiran roared. He was leading the rest of the small group we’d put together for this raid in on foot.
