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“And yet I am still your superior.”
“Guys,” I interrupted, desperate to hear what insight he had on the attacks.
“Yes, darling. We’ll behave, won’t we, Kota?” Rook turned toward me, the expensive fabric that clung to his toned frame gleaming like it was made out of the smallest diamonds. I could see why women, and men, apparently fell at his feet. And it went beyond his beauty and regality. Rook was powerful, and he wore that well too.
“First, I need your word,” Rook implored me.
Dason stepped in and crossed his arms over his chest. “On what?”
Rook held his hands out at his sides, letting my men know he wasn’t a threat before he addressed me. “There may come a time, darling, when I require your assistance with the gate to the fae realm. All I ask is that you remember the kindness I have bestowed upon you on this day.” Rook held out his hand, and the royal crest glowed in a magick circle on his palm, a binding promise that if he called on me, I’d need to respond. To obey.
Wariness squeezed my heart like a vise. I didn’t like making open ended promises. Especially ones that could have horrible consequences.
“I assure you, Lorn” —Rook dropped his voice to a serious tone, the playacting he always clung to stripping away until he was standing before me not as a prince, but as a man— “I only have my people’s best interest at heart. If a war should come to the mortal realm, I will return my people to their rightful realm and seal the gate to keep them safe. The same could be said of the evils in my own world, for which there are many, my father being one of them. But I cannot protect my people alone. I swear my allegiance to you here in the mortal realm and ask that you return the same courtesy.” His hand moved a little closer, beckoning me to take it.
I glanced at my mates, and when none of them objected, I clasped his hand firmly, letting the promise brand itself into my palm. The mark was red and irritated when I pulled away, but it quickly faded into the lightest pink. It was barely noticeable, and yet my arm felt weighted, like an anchor in a dark sea.
“Now, what can you tell me about all of this?” I pointed to the map, and Rook’s face lit with excitement.
“You were right about the ley lines, but not in the way you’re thinking.” He held up a finger and spun on an expensive heel. Walking up to Axel, he grabbed his hand, much to Axel’s confusion. “May I?” he asked, not waiting for an answer. Rook made Axel create a fist, folding down all his fingers except for the pointer one. “Do your magick bit for me,” Rook ordered, and Axel shook his head in shock, yet he let his orange powers glow to life while he handed his popcorn bowl to his brother.
Rook dragged him along by his arm and wielded Axel’s hand as a marker. “First of all, this map of the ley lines is incorrect. Many mundanes believe in historical ley lines—basically lines that intersect at important sites, such as Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid. While there is some truth to those great locations being special, they don’t realize it’s because of the supernatural element. Supernatural ley lines differ from any of the maps you could pull off the internet. The one you mentioned in your texts from the Witching Academy was probably much more accurate.” Rook pursed his lips and studied the map, which wobbled and changed before our eyes, sparkling with the glamour that Rook bestowed on it. “It’s rumored that each realm has a physical gate somewhere in the mortal realm, while the veil between worlds connects us all. The fae’s gate is located in California, at Mt. Shasta.”
“Oh my God.” I shook my head, realizing how obvious that should have been. “The mundanes always report sightings of godly beings around Mt. Shasta. Some of them even believe beautiful spirits live within the mountain. That’s the fae. That’s you.” The nerd in me was rising to the surface, excited that I’d connected the dots. As a witch, I’d always taken an interest in the idea of ‘hot spots’ around the globe, places where the ley lines intersected. Power was rumored to be stronger in those areas, and easier to channel for our spells. I used to wonder if one of those locations would be the key to fixing my broken magick.
Turns out I wasn’t broken at all. Just different. Special.
“That’s right. But the reason our gate lies at Mt. Shasta is because of the balance of these three intersecting points.” Rook dragged Axel with him as he marked the spots, using my mate’s finger. Once all three places he’d mentioned had an ‘X’, he drew a straight line from the first to the second then the third, creating a triangle. In the center sat Mt. Shasta. He pointed to each spot in turn. “Magick, spiritual, and dark. The fae gate requires the balance of the three energies to function. The spirit realm, however, would require something different, as would the shadow realm. The mortal realm in which we are in is the fourth and final realm.”
“So you’re saying there’s a physical gate to the shadow realm?” Chayton scratched the patch of hair on his chin, and his gaze slid to Dason. “How did we not know about this?”
“Seems like that should have been information passed down from the elders,” Chayton commented, processing everything the same way I was.
“Do you know where the location of the physical gate is?” As much as I wanted to know why this information was suspiciously missing from my mates’ repertoire of shadow touched history, knowing its location seemed much more important in the moment. Later, we could figure out the why. Right now, we needed the where.
“Unfortunately, I am not privy to that information, but knowing what I know about how the fae gate functions, it should be easy enough to determine from the data you’ve religiously collected.”
Rook dragged Axel again.
“No,” Rook muttered to himself. “Not there either. If the fae realm needs the balance of the three energies, I’d assume the spiritual realm requires copious amounts of spiritual energy, while the shadow realm’s gate would repel the energy and feed mostly off of…”
“Dark energy!” I gasped, scanning the map. My eyes landed back on Cedar Falls, Nebraska, at the same time Rook circled the location using Axel’s finger before dropping my mate’s arm.
“This is the only place far enough from the other energies, and yet…” He tapped the map three times, pointing out three known areas of dark energy along the few ley lines that intersected the state. “Close enough to these to feed off its darkness.”
“That’s why they ripped it apart,” Dason surmised hoarsely. “They left it in ruins.”
I whirled. “They were searching for the gate.”
“But they must not have found it,” Axel added. “It’s gotta be hidden.”
“I think my work here is done. As much as I’d like to stay, duty calls.” Rook took my hand and bowed over it, lightly brushing his lips over the back to the tune of my mates’ grumbles and growls. When he lifted his head, still bent over my hand, he winked at me. “That will never get old.”
I smiled and shook my head at him as he released me. Taking the rock, he placed it back in Dason’s hand.
“Thank you,” Dason told him sincerely.
“If you need me, old friend, do call.”
