Page 132 of Madness of Her Mages

I ran out the back doors, frantically searching through outside pens, meeting nothing but a few disgruntled pigs. Then I spied an old barn, an unnatural iridescent light spilling out of its double doors. Could they be in there?

A strange feeling came over me as I approached the barn doors, and my feet felt like they were incased in blocks of granite, dread coursing through my veins. Something didn’t feel right.

I couldn’t express my knee-quaking relief when I saw the girls through a crack in the door.

They’re at the barn by the stables,I projected to my mates, hoping they were close enough to hear.

Coming!Nikkos answered, though his brothers didn’t respond.

“Ember, Aurora, I’ve been looking all over for you,” I scolded while slipping into the barn. “You know better than to stray from our tent.”

I gasped when I saw a silver-haired Fae standing across from them, his jaw slackened with shock while he clutched a steaming burlap sack and the source of the odd light.

Aurora turned to me and thumbed at the Fae. “This man has a faerie ball.”

Ember folded her arms with a pout. “It’s a bad ball and he is abadman.”

My gaze snapped to the silver-haired Fae as I waved the children to my side. The steam was spilling faster from a cracked, round stone cradled within the sack in his hands. “Who the hell are you?”

“You.” The Fae gaped at me as if he was staring at a ghost. “You look like her,” he said on a breathy whisper. “Just like her.”

Dread rushed through my veins like a shot of venom. “You’ve seen my twin?”

His eyes widened. “Your twin?”

“Where is she?” I demanded. “Where is Tarianya?” I added, my siren voice echoing across the space between us as I looked around. Was she here?

“Back at camp,” he answered.

“Whose camp?” I demanded, though I knew the answer. I wanted to hear it from him, and I wanted him to explain why my sister would ally with that evil king.

“Fachnan’s camp,” he blurted, my siren pulling the words from his mouth.

“Why?” I demanded. “Have you harmed her?”

“She’s safe.” The words dragged out of him like he was my puppet and I held the strings to his tongue.

“Safe? What’s safe about tearing apart our family?” I broke on a sob, clutching the girls’ backs as they pressed their faces into my hips. “Taking a mother from her children?”

“Children?” he mumbled. “Anya’s children? My brothers’ children?”

My eyes narrowed. “What?”

“It’s a bad ball, Auntie.” Ember blinked up at me, her eyes misting with tears. “It needs to go, or we will all die.”

I frowned down at her. “Ember, what are you talking about?”

“He brought a bad ball here,” Ember cried, her bottom lip quivering. “A fire ball.”

My gaze shot to his. Even though she wasn’t here, the light spilling from that ball called to me, the other half of my blood and soul. I somehow knew it was my sister’s very powerful and very deadly magic. “Did you come to kill us?”

“Yes, but that was before I knew Anya’s family was here.” The words poured out of him like vomit.

“And now?”

“And now I need you to come with me.”

“No.” I stepped back, pulling the children with me. “I’m not leaving my mates.”

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