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Charlotte met his gaze. “That doesn’t mean she accepts it.”
“And won’t fight it tooth and nail,” Aiden interjected. “What better way to unite the panthenites as one than to elevate the Genoras to the ruling class of the malefics? The chaos they would create in the world—fires everywhere. That family is one disaster after another waiting to happen, and would be the worst common enemy we could have.”
A scream bubbled in my throat and I swallowed it down.
All this fucking talking and no action. My patience had officially run out.
“I don’t give a damn what Helen wants or doesn’t want for the panthenites.” My voice pitched into a barely controlled scream. “I want Damen back.”
Charlotte nodded to me, her hand rubbing under the lower part of her belly, then she looked to Triaten. “So why does it not look like you’re planning anything?”
I pointed at my uncle and Aiden in sudden lockstep with stubbornness cutting their jawlines. “They don’t think it’s the time for civil war—not for Damen.”
“He cannot be the reason?” Charlotte’s eyebrows lifted.
Triaten nodded.
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Then make up some other fucking excuse that has nothing to do with Damen. You are getting him out of Victor Genora’s compound.”
“Char—”
“No, don’t Char me.” She flung her finger out at Triaten. “Damen came onto our mountain with assurances of safe passage in and out to help your niece, and you just screwed him over.”
“I didn’t screw him over. Helen screwed him over.”
Charlotte ripped into Triaten. “So what? He is also the future of their kind—him and his heirs.”
“Was the future.” Triaten rubbed his palm along his jawline. “There can be other futures.”
Charlotte jutted a step forward, her hand landing on Triaten’s chest. “Do not be an imbecile. Who in the hell do you think is going to keep his daughter in line when he’s gone?”
Triaten looked to me. “Ada and Venetia have become quite close.”
My head flew back and forth. “Don’t you dare play that card—the only thing I will do with Venetia is to bring her here to tear down this mountain at its seams if you abandon Damen like this. You don’t want civil war? I will bring a bloody civil war down onto your head like nothing you’ve ever seen.”
Anger flashed across Triaten’s eyes. Always so cool and collected, but one of his own family threatening him and he lost composure. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” Unflinching, I stared him down, making damn sure he knew I was serious.
For I was. If they left Damen on his own to hang after coming here to help me, then Triaten would be dead to me.
Triaten was family, yes. But not my true family. He wasn’t Damen. He wasn’t Venetia.
That thought, sudden and vehement, sliced through me with ironclad will.
Unexplainable how it happened, but those two were my true north, and I wasn’t ever going to give them up.
“Fine.” Triaten threw his hand up, breaking the thick-as-molasses tension in the room. “We go to extract him. But it is a small operation. Just us.”
“But—”
“Ada.” His voice thundered. “I’m giving you what you want—don’t push it. This needs to be just us. Aiden and I will do it, in and out. No one here can know we were even gone.”
“But—”
He advanced on me. “You talk of treachery—there is no betrayal worse than one of the leaders of the panthenites jetting off to rescue the leader of the malefics. How in the hell do you think that would play out with our kind?”
I shut my mouth. He was right. This was a big ask. The biggest. He was willing to help me and that was all I could hope for.
