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Iswore after searchingall over the castle. Where could they be hiding? I had a foreboding feeling as I looked under the dining room table and saw it was empty. I flew back out to the grand hall. My heart filled with dread as I called for the girls, met with only my own voice echoing through the atrium. When I heard the sound of a child weeping coming from the nursery, I flew into the room, nearly barreling into Mrs. Euphemia, who held Aurora against her chest.
The child had sticks and leaves in her hair. Damn. They’d gone outside against my orders!
“Where is her sister?” I asked the nursemaid.
Her eyes were as round as saucers. “I-I don’t know. She just popped in a second ago.”
I grasped the child’s shoulders, tempted to throttle her, but I knew that would get us nowhere. “Aurora, where is your sister?”
Her lower lip trembled as she pointed to the window. “The bad men have Em!”
Fuck. I pulled her from Mrs. Euphemia’s arms. “Take me there.”
It took me a moment to get my bearings. One moment we were in the nursery, and the next we were outside the safety of the castle walls, staring at two fire mages who had their backs to us while they set the brambles on fire. The sun had almost finished setting, casting them in shadow, but I didn’t need to see their ugly faces to know who they were. White-hot rage shot through my veins when I saw one of the mages held a squirming child in his arms.
I was going to kill them.
“Go get my brothers,” I whispered to Aurora before setting her down.
She swallowed, nodding toward her sister. “Not without Em.” Stubborn child. She was too much like her aunt. Too much like me.
I didn’t have time to argue with the child, and I prayed she’d be able to get her sister. I’d lose my mind if anything happened to the girls. Gritting my teeth, I flew fast at my adversaries, landing softly on the ground and hitting their backsides with streams of fire, careful not to hit Ember. Hopefully, if I shocked them, Ember would be able to get away. The mages spun around, roaring, and Ember fell from Bertram’s arms, crying out before she scrambled behind me. I had only a moment to look behind me as Ember and Aurora blinked out like a snuffed candle.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Bertram?” I seethed, sparks shooting from my palms.
He shook embers off his wings with a snarl. “I would ask the same of you.”
I forced a laugh. “Is this what you’ve been reduced to, terrorizing children? Too afraid to fight me instead?”
His nostrils flared, and he reminded me of a dragon preparing to charge. “At least I’m not fucking the enemy.”
I charged him with a roar, knocking him on his backside. Sol came at me, and I easily knocked him back with my flame. They’d never been good fire mages, more spark than flame. One reason why I believed they loathed my brothers and me, always picking fights with us, always trying to make us look bad in our queen’s eyes. The other reason could’ve been that their estate was a quarter the size of ours, their mansion practically in ruins, their fields fallow, and their personal army just a handful of rejects.
Bertram blinked up at me as I wrapped my hands around his throat. “She’s not our enemy. She’sour mate.”
Laughter gurgled up from his throat, his eyes narrowing. “Our queen will turn you all to ash.”
Sol came at me again, this time wielding a bow and flaming arrows. I jumped from Bertram as an arrow whisked past my head, grazing my ear.
“For what exactly?” I asked as I flew just above Bertram, turning arrow upon arrow to ash as Sol fired at me with unnatural speed. Red flashed in his eyes, and not the normal deep crimson typical of fire mages, but a bright, unnatural red that somehow made me think of the flames of hell.
Bertram stood, ruffling the dirt off his wings and scowling up at me. “Did you kill Flora and Derrick?”
“None of your fucking business,” I seethed after turning the last of Sol’s arrows to ash. Sol swore and threw down his bow, then disappeared into the forest. Coward.
Bertram jumped into the air, hovering just above me, a sneer etched into his features. “You were supposed to kill them and deliver their daughter to our queen.”
“Our assignment changed,” I spat, my flames at the ready. “I’m sure our queen will understand when we explain what happened.”
Bertram’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
“Again, none of your fucking business!” I bellowed, taunting him with my flame. “I answer to the queen, not you.”
He threw back his head with a laugh. “Oh, you’ll be answering to her, alright.”
I jutted a finger toward the forest behind us. “Get the hell off my estate.”
Bertram crossed his arms, leveling me with a dark look. “I’m not on your estate.”
