CHAPTER NINETEEN
What now?
Elena had had her fill of surprises, but at least she and Vaughn were communicating, even if they weren’t in agreement about the crown.
She knew he wasn’t wrong to distrust the ancient Fae object, yet she also knew there was a reason she gravitated toward it, an instinct she couldn’t pin down that stemmed from something far deeper than a craving for more power.
Vaughn took a marginal step in front of her. Even if he knew she was the Shadow’s Angel, a confession she’d been moments from sharing, he would have put himself in front of her anyway.
“Move!” He shouted, slamming into her a second before the door splintered.
The shockwave blasted through the room, sending tables skidding across the floor and bookshelves topping. It would have knocked them off the feet if Vaughn hadn’t already put them on the ground.
He raised his head, chunks of wood and shredded books fluttering around them. “Up!”
She was already halfway to her feet by the time he gave the order.
Three assailants. Two in the hall, one approaching the doorway. More voices echoed further away.
While she couldn’t hear as well as the wolf, she knew they weren’t facing the best odds with her magic still restricted and Vaughn recovering from his injuries.
“Promise me you won’t touch the crown,” he hissed.
“I don’t even know where it is.”
“We need—”
The short bookcase closest to them burst apart. Vaughn grabbed her hand and pulled her in the opposite direction. They moved along the wall, turning down a small corridor that led to a series of study rooms long abandoned.
“Shit,” Vaughn cursed, turning her in the other direction to avoid being cornered.
They only made it a few more steps before a large immortal stepped in front of them.
With long black hair, no shirt and mutated-looking muscles rippling beneath an olive green skin, he offered them a menacing grin. He carried an axe already coated with blood.
Dare’s?
Anger surged within her, her magic lashing against the brand from within. Vaughn came to the same conclusion within moments of her, a vicious snarl tearing from his chest.
“It’s probably a bit of a stretch to think he’s a friend of yours, huh?”
“We both know I’m not as popular as you are,” Vaughn said.
The exchange seemed to give the troll a moment’s pause, which was long enough.
Vaughn darted forward, dodging the troll’s axe at the last second. The curved blade bit into the shelf where Vaughn’s midsection had been a millisecond before that, snagging on the twisted metal.
Vaughn buried his fist in the creature’s thick neck. Elena ducked, slipping beneath the troll’s guard, and dropping to the floor to deliver a sharp kick to his kneecap.
The breeze from the troll’s axe whistled a little too close to her head but kept her moving. They needed to get to Dare. Vaughn was right on her heels, pivoting to grab the shelf and yank it down on the troll.
It barely slowed him down.
Power brewed inside her, her tracings vanishing and reappearing on her skin. Fire ate into her chest, but she didn’t let go of the power straining for her.
A burst of blue flame ignited in her palm as the troll knocked the shelving aside. She released it before the troll even saw it coming.
His mottled body shot into the far wall, the plaster crumbling around him as he slumped to the floor.
“It only stunned him,” she said.
“You’re amazing,” was Vaughn’s only response before he grabbed her hand and hauled her after him.
They backtracked toward the door that had been blown apart. She stood out in the open while Vaughn waited.
The first moron through the door didn’t see her wolf until it was too late. Vaughn snapped the other immortal’s neck, putting them on a more even playing field.
They’d be long gone before the Fae on the floor healed enough to regain consciousness. Two down…
A blur of movement from the right.
Elena sidestepped but wasn’t fast enough. A knife sliced her side before embedding in the wall behind her. Only a graze.
Vaughn snatched the blade from the wall, firing it back at the lithe female dressed all in black. The blade sank into her thigh.
With little more than a grimace, she yanked it free and at the same time drawing another knife from a sheath strapped to her hip. The goth immortal eyed the two of them, fingers clenched around the matching blades.
Wasn’t she cute? Elena grabbed the shelf, releasing another burst of magic. A trail of blue shot along the edge of the shelf, leaping like a sideways bolt of lightning for the next closest object.
This time the other immortal cried out. She dropped one of her blades, but kept hold of the other, waving it tauntingly in front of Vaughn.
Elena staggered, the pain in her chest making her vision swim. She couldn’t pass out now. She gritted her teeth, her tracings reappearing on her skin as she lost sight of Vaughn and their attacker, the goth retreating beyond Elena’s field of vision.
Find me, Elena.
Elena mentally turned from the voice in her head, focusing on moving. Her feet tripped over each other, her body on the edge of burnout.
“Easy.” Vaughn slid an arm around her.
Blood ran down his shoulder from a fresh gash. “You should see the other guy,” he said before she could ask if he was okay, a dark satisfaction lacing his words.
By the time they reached the hall some of her balance had returned, except for the fifty-pound weights she seemed to be dragging behind her.
She made Vaughn let go of her. If he continued to hold her it would put them at a disadvantage. “I’m good,” she insisted, hoping like hell he didn’t see the way she floundered for the wall when he turned his head.
Sweat dampened her skin, the biting ache where the glyph sat on her chest worse than ever. Still, she managed to keep up with Vaughn as they made their way back downstairs.
The front door remained closed and intact.
Vaughn paused, then turned toward the small kitchen area. If Dare was here, they needed to find him and get some distance between them and the library before the troll and the goth got back on their feet.
You need me.
The voice pulled at her from the opposite direction, but she stayed with Vaughn. Maybe she could handle the crown, but if she couldn’t, she would need someone there to hold her in check. Ditching Vaughn now to go look for the crown would do more harm than good, of that she had no doubt.
First Dare, then the crown.
She came to a standstill behind Vaughn. The wraith stood in the middle of the kitchen area, his lower half a swirl of writhing shadows.
Vaughn growled, the wolf as close to the surface as Elena had ever witnessed.
The wraith held up his hands. “I didn’t attack him.”
Vaughn didn’t take his eyes off the wraith. “Dare?”
“Yeah,” came a pained wheeze. The pup’s eyes flickered open, and Elena felt some of the tension ease. “Wasn’t Erec,” he said after another long moment.
“I’m not here for your witch,” the wraith tacked on.
“If you want to hurt my feelings witch isn’t going to cut it.” By sheer will she walked the few feet into the room without falling on her face.
Vaughn crossed the room toward Dare only to freeze halfway there. “Piper?” He cocked his head, scanning the room completely before zeroing in the wraith all over again. He shot forward. “Where the hell is my sister?”
The wraith embraced his phantom form, slipping through the claws that would have caught the former knight around the neck. And then he was gone.
Vaughn snarled and bolted from the room in pursuit of the wraith.
Wobbly but hanging on, Elena sank to the floor where Dare lay on his side, one arm curled protectively around his middle.
She didn’t need to see the wound to know it was bad. The floor was covered in blood.
“They took the crown.”
“We’ll worry about that later. You should be a giant paperweight by now.” It was the only way he’d heal.
“Had to talk to him first.”
Him? Vaughn, she guessed. “It’ll have to wait.” Especially with that much blood pumping between his fingers and saturating his clothes.
“He needs to know it was my fault. I should have told him Piper joined the rebellion.”
“He’ll forgive you.” Assuming Vaughn’s sister came out of this unscathed. Assuming they all did.
“You are a horrible liar.”
“All the mortals I bluff at the casino would disagree with that assessment. And he won’t forgive you if you bleed out.”
“Erec… Her scent is all over him.”
The wraith smelled like Piper? Well that was an unexpected development, and certainly explained why Vaughn tore out of the room so fast…
Elena’s side tingled, and she checked the wound that seemed superficial earlier. A thin line of silver blazed within the puckered pink skin. Shit.
Dare clutched her hand. “You need to tell him the truth. He needs to know you’ll have his back.”
“Shut up and stop talking like you’re dying.” She listened for any signs of movement upstairs.
“Feels like it.”
“Best give up the Shadow game if you’re going to cry over a scratch like that.” A horrible, bleeding scratch that continued to cover the floor in a widening splash of crimson. “You need to go to stone. I’ve got his back,” she promised.
“Tell him, I’m sorry. I should have told him about Piper.”
“Should have told me what about Piper?” Vaughn returned a beat before a shimmer of color brightened the air, a white wolf staring up at her before he turned to stone.
Elena rocked back on her heels, managing to rise on her own. “The wraith?”
“Gone. We’ve got to go. Now.”
He caught her hand, pulling her from the room. Her knees trembled, then buckled.
Vaughn caught her before she hit the ground, giving her a glimpse of his own silver-laced wound.
So not good. She opened her mouth to tell him about the poison.
The wall to the right exploded, the impact knocking her back against the cupboards. She rolled to her knees and scrambled across the floor in what felt like slow motion. Her system was already compromised by whatever poison had coated the goth’s blades.
Somehow she made it to her feet, ducking under the hand that reached for her. It wasn’t Vaughn’s.
She pivoted and slammed her elbow into the newest assailant’s back. The bastard grunted and pitched forward.
Vaughn took him down from there. “There’s more of them coming. Get the hell out of here.”
She’d been waiting to leave him since the moment he’d strolled into her kitchen, dripping water all over her floor, and now she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
The compulsion to obey tightened into a painful knot where the brand darkened her skin. She ignored it.
Another immortal, a Fae, burst through the door leading to the kitchen. She’d seen him before somewhere.
“Damn it, Ivy.” Vaughn snapped. “Move your ass.”
Already weak, the harsh words forced her to take a few steps back and then she held her ground. If he hadn’t turned to deal with the first guy staggering to his feet as the Fae rushed them, she was pretty sure he would have strangled her.
Someone grabbed a handful of her hair, jerking her back. The troll.
“Finally,” a deep voice said from somewhere behind her.
A voice she’d heard before. Something sharp pierced her side, and she cried out.
A flash of heat spiraled out from her chest, constricting her lungs, each breath harder to draw than the last. The world swam in shades of fuzzy blue and green.
“Vaughn?” Her hand hit the wall and slid sideways. The rest of her followed and she hit the floor hard.
Miles away her wolf snarled, ready to tear someone apart.
And then everything went dark.
***
Somewhere in the dark, a monster growled.
Elena squeezed her eyes shut, not interested in anything but sleep. If she kept sleeping, she could ignore whatever irritating beast had decided to channel a primordial rooster.
Something wet landed on her cheek, and she raised a hand to swat it away, her limbs sluggish. She just needed a few more minutes of sleep.
The monster roared again, and this time an equally menacing growl answered it. One practically next to her ear.
The growler licked her again.
“If you want to keep your tongue, I suggest you keep it between your slobbering jaws, Barkley.”
The wolf rewarded her with another lick. Taking it one step at a time, she managed to get her eyes open and the roll to her back. The ceiling of a cave greeted her, but that wasn’t the biggest surprise. Her chest burned with a fever that wouldn’t break, but beneath it, a pulse of magic beat steady and strong.
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, are we Toto?”
Avalon. Had to be. It explained why her magic felt so much closer, as if it was working to chew the very brand off her skin from the inside.
And fuck, it hurt.
A woman laughed, and Elena shot upright, scanning the room for the Iron Queen.
Only she and Vaughn were in the cramped cell with a dirt floor and a solid row of thick bars separating them from the rest of the prime dungeon real estate.
Next to her, the wolf sat back on its haunches, watching her carefully, head cocked.
“I don’t suppose you heard her, too?”
Another giggle. “Trust and slumber.”
Elena frowned at the voice, one that was definitely not in her head and sounded nothing like the Iron Queen.
The monster snarled again. So Elena wasn’t the only one who heard the other woman.
The wolf turned, hackles raised, but she stroked the animal’s side, running her fingers through the thick fur.
Forgetting the monster, the wolf pressed into her, his head sliding under her chin before he delivered another swipe of his tongue.
She scratched under the wolf’s jaw finding no trace of Vaughn in the animal’s eyes. “You’re not turning into one of the Forgotten on me I hope.”
The wolf merely held her gaze.
Despite the injuries and poison, he hadn’t gone to stone. Maybe intentionally? She knew gargoyles were less vulnerable to some magic in animal form. Maybe the wolf could handle the toxins that the man couldn’t?
The wolf turned away, facing the cell door.
“Trust and slumber,” the feminine voice whispered.
The wolf’s growl wasn’t as menacing this time, but he wasn’t happy about whoever was hanging out across the hall.
Feeling marginally stronger, Elena rose. How long had they been here? Hours? Days? Unfortunately the wolf wasn’t talking.
She made it to the door without face-planting. A small victory, but she’d take what she could get at this point. Across the hall, a woman stood in the cell opposite theirs. Her long blonde hair was dirty and matted, her face smudged with sooty grime. Near-shredded clothes hung in tatters on her painfully-thin body.
The other woman had been here much longer than they had. Had she wronged Alrick the way Elena had or was she guilty of some other perceived crime?
Elena wasn’t surprised that Alrick had finally caught up with her. He hadn’t made it a secret that he held her accountable for his daughter’s death, and he wasn’t wrong. But what was this woman’s crime? She appeared human, her expression almost vacant as she stared around her cell. Was she blind?
“Trust and slumber,” she repeated, quiet at first, then louder.
Blind and possibly crazy. “What does that mean?”
The monster growled.
“Shhhhh, pretty kitty,” the woman crooned.
Elena had to press her face to the bars to see into the cell next to the woman. A shadow passed by the bars, but it was too dark to make anything out aside from the sheer size of the beast.
The wolf brushed Elena’s leg. He’d stopped growling but didn’t take his eyes off the other cell.
“What’s your name?” Elena asked the woman.
“He’s coming.”
“Who’s coming?” Alrick?
“Even when the world burns, he’ll come for me. He always comes for me.” She gripped the bars, fear trickling into her voice.
The monster roared again, and the woman cringed. “He never meant to betray you. My fault. Always my fault. Always—”
The beast next to her launched itself against its cage, the animal’s massive paws making the bars shudder.
Sweet Avalon. Constantine.
The former knight and Arthur’s heir had vanished more than a thousand years ago, right after he forged the daggers that would supposedly lead to Excalibur. Rumors abounded that he’d been killed by Morgana a lifetime ago, though she’d never claimed responsibility for it.
Then he’d turned up briefly during the Gauntlet, his human form unstable, a monstrous tiger left in his place that hadn’t recognized even his once closest friends.
At the end of the final round of the games, Morgana had left with him in chains.
What the hell was he doing here with Alrick?
A dark-haired man covered in Fae glyphs that resembled tribal markings stepped into the narrow opening between cells. “Shut up.”
“Fire and might, fire and might.” The blonde sank to the dirt floor of her cell. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked herself. “He comes for me. Always for me.”
“I said, shut up.”
The monster threw itself at the bars and the whole dungeon trembled.
The guard glared at the beast, pulling a sword from the scabbard at his side.
“Ever hear the expression don’t poke the tiger?” Elena drawled.
The guard looked at her, eyes narrowed.
“No? That’s because the people who do usually don’t live to talk about it.”
The guard strode toward her.
“Unless you’re a sorceress playing with fire,” a deep voice boomed, stopping the guard in his tracks.
Alrick.
She’d been surprised when he hadn’t approached her at Mac’s party. Had he been planning on abducting her then? Was he connected to the Iron Brotherhood and arranged the deal?
As convenient as that was, it didn’t quite fit. If he’d planned to exchange Piper for her, he wouldn’t have attacked them. He would have threatened Piper to ensure Vaughn intended to hold to the deal.
No this was personal—as personal as it got. More than likely it had nothing to do with Vaughn’s sister or the crown. Just a whole lot of shitty timing that he’d come for her now.
If they were lucky, though, Alrick had been too preoccupied with finally getting his hands on her to realize the significance of what was in the box they’d taken from Dare. How long did they have before he sensed it and tried to harness the magic?
The wolf lunged at the bars, recognizing the threat. Elena ran her hand along the wolf’s back, strengthened by his presence.
“You should never have interfered,” Alrick said to her, dismissing the guard with a nod.
Elena scraped her nail the length of the bar, refusing to display a hint of concern over their current predicament.
“My daughter was alive before you fucked everything up.”
Even though she’d known it was coming, her stomach twisted painfully. His daughter had barely been alive by the time Elena got to her, but he was right that she’d screwed up. Badly. And the younger sorceress had paid the ultimate price.
“Morgana was going to give my daughter back.”
On that they definitely disagreed. Morgana had been steadily consolidating her power by snatching weaker members of her race and feeding off their magic, and no one had been doing a damn thing about it.
Ever since Rutger recruited her, Elena had been working behind the scenes to release those Morgana had been collecting. Best case scenario, Morgana would have laid off Alrick’s daughter long enough to let her regain some strength, and then would have started leeching her magic all over again.
“My daughter—”
“Was going to waste away to nothing, because that’s what Morgana does.” Elena had witnessed it time and again, had seen families crushed by the loss. “She takes the weak and uses them up until there is nothing left. She was never going to release her.”
“And now she’s dead.” The pained words echoed in the small chamber. “So I guess we’ll never know if I could have reasoned with Morgana. If you and the rebellion hadn’t been working against Morgana, my daughter wouldn’t have been taken in the first place. Your constant sabotage forced her to take action, to gather more power.”
“Defending Morgana now? That must be a proud papa moment.”
Alrick gripped the bars, his face red with rage. “You know nothing of the sacrifices required to protect family. But you will,” the sorcerer vowed darkly. “I will make sure you know the pain your treachery caused.” He walked away, calling over his shoulder, “Do enjoy your stay, Shadow’s Angel. That is the silly name they gave you, isn’t it?”
No longer feeling the wolf next to her, Elena turned to find a very stunned, very human Vaughn.
***
His mate was Bruce Wayne.
Vaughn could practically hear Dare’s voice in his head and knew that’s exactly what the pup would say to him.
All of Dare’s recent cryptic comments about not underestimating Elena, that she could be trusted made sense now. Dare must have figured it out at some point, and that had to be why he resisted the idea of handing Elena over.
The Shadow’s Angel had been in front of him the whole time and he hadn’t realized it.
Dare was right. He really was an idiot.
All the pieces fell into place. The way she let everyone believe she was only there for a good time, how she didn’t rely entirely on her magic and learned to defend herself, maybe a little too well. And how she’d been scared she wouldn’t be able to save them all.
For as long as he could remember they’d all thought the Shadow’s Angel was some rogue badass with a death wish, and all this time it had been the fiery sorceress in front of him. Still a badass with a death wish, though, given all the risks she’d taken.
Risks his mate had taken.
Frustration warred with a pride so fierce it had him by the throat. If he hadn’t deserved her before...
Elena met his eyes, chin angled in that devil-may-care way that warned him she’d braced herself for battle. “Speak, Barkley.”
“The dog jokes never get old with you, do they?”
“I like to stick with what works.” Her expression remained guarded.
“You could have told me. You must have known it would have mattered.”
She didn’t say anything.
“If you think—”
She took a wary step back.
So, he’d finally made the mighty Elena nervous. He’d make sure to point that out to her later, but now wasn’t the time.
“If you think,” he tried again, slowing the steps he took to close the distance between them, “that I would have agonized over sacrificing the infamous Shadow’s Angel, you’d be right. But it doesn’t come close to the thought of losing my m—.”
Emotion tightened his throat. Gods, how many times had he heard Rutger boast about the Shadow’s Angel missions and close calls? And all that time it had been his mate in harm’s way. “You should know that just as soon as I stop wanting to strangle you, I’m going kiss the hell out of you.”
A heavy thump rattled the ground above them, bits of earth breaking from the ceiling.
Elena held up her hands before he said a word. “Wasn’t me.”
Another thump shook the whole damn place.
“Fire and might. Fire and might. Trust and slumber. Trust and slumber.” The woman in the opposite cell was on her feet again, hands wrapped around the bars. Her voice grew louder as she continued to chant the confusing phrases over and over.
The beast in the cell next to her had grown eerily silent.
Constantine. Vaughn had met the fierce warrior once when he’d been tagging along with Briana and her older brothers. He’d been awed by the warrior, even contemplated joining the Gargoyle Guard for a brief time always wanting to be part of the effort to bring Morgana down.
Did the man in beast form know what was going on? Or was he just another one of the Forgotten after whatever transformed the former knight into a monstrous tiger?
He reached for Elena, drawing her closer as their surroundings continued to rock.
Chunks of the ceiling rained down on them, muffled screams of agony echoed down the corridor. Their guard bolted into the opposite direction, vanishing deeper into the dungeon. The other immortal either knew another way out or wasn’t afraid of being crushed if the whole dungeon came down on their heads.
As quickly it began, everything went quiet. Too quiet. The smell of smoke and ash reached Vaughn, setting the wolf he’d had to fight for control, back on edge. His animal half wasn’t willing to sacrifice its mate for anything, reminding Vaughn that fighting the instinct to protect her at all costs would destroy them both.
He’d been in denial about that for far too long. Dare had been right that Elena was family now, and the wolf would do whatever it took to enforce that, even cut himself off from Vaughn.
“Fire and might,” the blonde whispered. “He comes for me.”
Another scream echoed, this one from just beyond the dungeon. Another guard they hadn’t seen?
“Fire and might,” she whimpered.
A soot-covered shadow emerged from the doorway.
Kellagh the Black.
The dragon shifter was Arthur’s ultimate betrayer and the source of a thousand bedtime stories meant to scare the young into never following in the dragon’s treacherous footsteps. If he and the rest of the dragons hadn’t left the Battle of Camlann that day, Arthur might not have been killed.
Vaughn hadn’t seen the black dragon since the final round of the Gauntlet, when they’d discovered Constantine was alive.
Kel didn’t so much as glance in their direction, striding directly toward the blonde’s cell door. She glanced unseeing at the cell door and scrambled back, slamming into the rock wall behind her.
Kel ripped the door off its hinges and tossed it aside.
The dragon had always been strong, but nothing like this.
“Bet you’re wishing you could get your hands on whatever magic-crack the dragon is taking, huh?”
Kel whipped around at the sound of Elena’s voice, taking notice of them for the first time. The corner of his lips kicked up. “Wasn’t expecting to see Witch Barbie and Gargoyle Ken down here.”
She shot Vaughn a sideways glance. “I’m starting to see why you keep commenting on the dog jokes.”
“Two witch references in a day too much for you, Angel?”
She cocked her head, her expression amused. “You really want to get into that now?”
Across the dungeon, Constantine growled threatening.
Kel tensed at the sound.
“Bet you weren’t expecting to find your former BFF down here either,” Elena quipped, probably enjoying the confrontation a little too much.
Kel approached Constantine’s cell, the room so heavy with tension Vaughn could feel it weigh on his skin. The blonde started rocking again, whatever she chanted too quiet to make out.
Kel gripped the bars, peering inside the cell. The beast threw itself at the door, his claws just missing the dragon’s fingers. Kel looked at the blonde, then back at Constantine’s cell. He grunted and tore the door off as if he wasn’t putting himself in the path of the one immortal who hated him more than Lucan.
Vaughn couldn’t decide if that made Kel brave or a complete idiot. One look at his mate’s face and he knew which opinion she would voice.
With nothing separating the dangerous predators, the tiger prowled out of the cell, baring its teeth, looking ready to tear Kel to pieces.