T he war council had taken all goddamn morning, partly because we had to wait for over an hour for Darius and Tory following their wedding after he dragged her into their room on our way back to it to consummate their damn union.
We’d spent that time trying not to notice the way the walls were rattling while also working hard not to fall into the trap of agonising over Darius’s fate.
I’d been awake all night with the others discussing it and we had all finally agreed to focus on this battle before we turned our attention to changing his fate.
Gabriel had been working hard to see the best way to success for us with that and eventually we’d all landed on the fight happening in a week.
Without stardust to transport our army, we were going to have a whole lot of work to do to bring the fight to Lionel though, so we planned on getting the rebels underway over the next few days and we’d spent the afternoon taking part in a huge rally to get all of them hyped up for the battle.
But after hours of listening to them chanting their support for the true queens and feeling like extras to this entire war campaign, I was starting to feel the results of missing a night’s sleep.
“Just think, we could be back home again within a week,” Max said as he moved to stand at my side, pressing a hand to my shoulder and helping me to feel refreshed and wakeful once more.
“It’s hard to imagine that,” I admitted, the sounds of the rebels celebrating filling the tunnels and echoing all around my skull. There were more than a few drinks being consumed and it was clear that this entire thing was going to have descended into a rave by nightfall, but I found it hard to muster the strength to join in with the celebrations.
“We’ll figure it out,” Max swore, feeling my fear for Darius through his touch and I looked at him hopelessly, willing that to be true, but I just didn’t see how it could be. “He still has weeks left for us to find a solution. We’re the most powerful Fae in Solaria - there has to be a way to change it.”
“I really hope you’re-” I cut myself off as a buzzing sensation raced across my skin, warning me that the leather journal my mom had given me had a new message waiting for my attention. “My mom just sent us a message,” I said and Max’s eyes widened in fear the way they did every time she made contact. There had never been a problem with our families before, but we were all expecting Lionel to turn on them at any given point so that fear for their safety never diminished.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, looking out over the crowd of yelling, bloodthirsty Fae and spotting Seth and Darius on the far side of the room but I couldn’t see any of the others.
I grabbed Max’s arm, hoisting him over my shoulder and shooting through the crowd - possibly knocking a couple of people over among the tightly packed bodies - before coming to a halt before the other Heirs.
“Hey, what’s up?” Seth asked, looking between me and Max and clearly noticing the unease in our expressions.
“I have a message waiting for us from my mom,” I explained.
“Then let’s go read it,” Darius replied. “The twins have been swallowed by the crowd anyway and Lance is making sure they don’t get swamped. I think this thing will be going on for the entire night at this rate.”
“Come on then,” I agreed and I turned, leading the way to the royal quarters and heading to the room I shared with Seth.
It was pretty difficult for me not to think about how good his mouth had felt against mine in this very room, not to mention the other parts of my body too, but since I’d gotten him to come back here, we’d been careful not to get close to crossing that line again. We still needed to talk more about it really, but I was stalling on that, trying to get to a point where I didn’t think about him every time I jerked off, so that I could discuss it without the fear that I would end up making a fucking idiot of myself over it.
I shot across the room as the others stayed by the door and I carefully pulled the leather journal my mom had given me to reflect the words of her scribing stone out from its hiding spot, removing the magical locks and concealments I had in place to protect it.
The message was waiting for me on the it and my heart froze to ice in my chest as I read it.
Lionel has summoned us to his manor, but something is wrong. He has Hadley and the others and won’t let us see them unless we go to him. I fear what he is planning.
“Fuck,” Max cursed as Seth howled.
“What do we do?” I asked, my pulse racing.
“We go to them,” Darius replied firmly, looking between us. “I won’t let my father take your families from you.”