“Next time, you’re pissing on the floor.” I don’t get to ask Sam why he’s doing this. Maybe these allies The Kings have do things because they’re born to do it. Or maybe it’s because they want to, or they owe them. But I’ve been a part of their world long enough to know the likelihood of Hector having something on Sam is high. He pulls out a set of keys from his pocket and directs me to yet another door. Unlocking it, the door swings open and he pushes me inside. “This is your room. You stay here until I allow you out.” Then the door slams closed and I’m left alone with the information I’ve just been fed.
Brantley
Fire burns through my veins as I lean against the wall. It has been four hours since she was taken. Four hours. I move through the rubble with Ophelia behind me and the rest of The Kings outside.
“She’s not anywhere close, Brantley. I’d feel her.”
I nod, aside from the ever-burning rage that’s swimming in my gut, Ophelia is one of the good ones and I know she wants to find Dea as much as I do. She was lucky to survive the explosion herself, with a broken arm and a bruised head.
I look up to the ceiling and pause. “Who else was home?”
Ophelia steps up behind me and follows what I’m staring at. “Just us.”
I shake her off and turn toward the door when I hear Bishop’s footsteps. “I just got off the phone with Madison. She’s not fucking happy and she said if we don’t find her in one hour, they’re both flying back.”
“Fuck.” I grind my teeth, unable to contain my anger. I shove them all out of the way as I make my way outside, stepping over splintered wood and the garden that Saint spent years flourishing. It almost breaks me right then and there, seeing her flowers and greenery burned to ash. I step over them with my heavy boots, unable to bring myself to step on them. Reaching for my phone, I pull it out and dial Hector’s number.
He answers instantly, “I know. I’m working on it.”
“Well, work fucking harder!”
He sighs, closing a door in the background. “You know when I gave the gavel to Bishop, it meant I didn’t have to deal with this anymore.”
“Bullshit,” I snap at him, dropping down onto the stone bench seat. “You love Saint and you know it.”
“I do,” he says, and I hear a flick of a lighter. “Which is why—and you’re not going to like this much—but it’s why I put Sam in.”
I fly off the bench, just as Bishop and Nate walk in behind me. “You what?”
“Put me on speaker.”
I do, squeezing my phone in my hand.
“I put Sam in as soon as I noticed that she was gifted. I knew Veronica would come for her eventually.”
“How would you know that?” I fume, squeezing my phone.
“I didn’t want to have this conversation now, but Veronica has always had her eyes on Saint. Your mother is so caught up in the riptide to the delusions in her head that she actually deems them true.”
“What are you talking about?” Bishop’s eyes fly to mine, his jaw set and his shoulders straight. I know that look. I know if it came down to it, he would probably do what we have to do when it comes to his father, but I also know Bishop doesn’t rule like Hector. He has a conscience.
“She has had it in her mind that Saint could break a curse that has existed within The Daughters of the Night since she gave birth to you. It was a punishment, you see, for her sleeping with someone who was not a witch.”
“Why?” Bishop questions. “Why is it not allowed for them to be with another man?”
“Just one of their laws, son. On top of her with another man outside, she went with a King. When The Coven first moved into Riverside to live and work with The Kings, we drew up a treaty. If the treaty was broken, the witch who breaks it would ignite a curse that would live within her coven forever, until—”
“—until what?” I grind out. “I’m getting impatient.”
“There’s a riddle…”
“Of course there is,” I seethe.
“The only way the curse could be broken was by a Swan born by a Hayes.” Hector clears his throat. “As you can imagine, that would never have happened, and if it did, she would die because of our own laws. Until recently.” He pauses. “A Swan and the Devil. One pure, one evil. Neither can exist with the other, until one is born with wings that fly.”
“That’s a shit riddle. It doesn’t make sense.” Nate pulls out his pack of smokes and I have to fight with myself not to take one.