Page 59 of Luna Rising

Ilyod smiled. “I’m afraid we do.”

The portal opened again, and two people dressed in all black dragged a third figure into the clearing. An older man and a blonde woman around my age followed. Winter made the sharpest keening sound I had ever heard. Her pain filled the bond. I turned to her, wide-eyed and terrified. She was pale and in shock, and I wanted to murder the person responsible.

Colleen rubbed Winter’s arm. “It’s okay, baby. He can’t hurt you.”

I pried Winter’s hand loose from the chair arm and threaded her fingers with mine. Nothing much hurt me anymore, but her grip had me wondering how quickly a vampire’s broken finger bones healed.

“If he comes near you, I will drink him dry and spit out his unworthy blood. Then I’ll feed him to the next blue bat we find.” I never raised my voice, every word measured and precise, because this wasn’t an idle threat. I didn’t just want to protect her from harm. Her pain made me vicious and vengeful.

Is this how Ewan feels about Mat? I wondered. If so, we had yet another problem. That bond couldn’t continue. What had Winter said? The bond couldn’t be severed, only rejected. On my list of Uncomfortable Topics to Discuss with Your New Mate, formally rejecting his bond with Mat was number one.

Colleen laughed. “Walter will be so disappointed he wasn’t here to hear you say that.” She held firm to Winter’s arm, while keeping her eyes on the projection. After a few seconds, her calming magic flowed from Winter to me.

I didn’t love the way Colleen magically sedated her daughter, but I didn’t want to overstep, especially in a family dynamic with so many nuances.

“Lazlo Keene has agreed to testify in exchange for a year’s worth of magic infusions,” Ilyod informed Essie.

If it surprised her to see the disheveled captive, she didn’t let on. “He killed two people. His word is garbage.”

Ilyod gestured to the man and woman. “Jonathon Keene and his daughter Christina have also volunteered to give testimony.”

“Let the prisoner speak,” a relatively young fae councilperson said.

The guards forced their prisoner to stand tall, one holding the back of his neck so his head wouldn’t lull. Beside me, Winter whimpered and squeezed my hand harder.

“It’s okay, baby,” Colleen cooed like Winter was a faeling. “It’s in the past.”

I had a vague idea of Winter’s ordeal at Arcane University, but never knew the specifics. Hearing Lazlo fucking Keene detail how he stole her magic bit by bit, becoming addicted to her power… I wanted blood. His. Spilled at my feet, pooling into a puddle of consequences. I didn’t want to give him the pleasure of my bite. He didn’t deserve it. Instead, I would take his blood bit by bit, same as he’d done with her magic. Except I wouldn’t start out so subtlely.

More of Colleen’s cool magic infused my veins, reducing the rage from a boiling inferno to a simmer. That was a lightbulb moment. I’d thought Colleen was easing Winter’s suffering. In hindsight, it was obvious. The rage was what Colleen wanted to quiet in her daughter and, by extension, in me.

In true piece-of-shit fashion, Lazlo Keene tried to spin it so that he was a victim. Winter’s magic was just too addictive to resist. He had a disease, and the fae had a long history of killing people who suffered from depletion.

Judging by the uncomfortable reactions of the fae in the clearing, this was another dirty secret no one wanted to discuss.

Jonathon Keen’s testimony was short and not helpful to Ilyod’s case. At the crux of it, Colleen had told him that Winter was “different”. Essie protested, arguing that Colleen had been referring only to Winter’s dimensional magic.

Christina “Tina” Keene had apparently been Winter’s roommate at Arcane U, and she proved to be a reluctant witness. While fully saying that Winter was weird, Tina only talked about overhearing conversations between her roommate and a ghost. Ilyod and the other fae councilpersons tried to pry information out of her with leading questions. Tina held strong.

“Didn’t Winter Sable call out for Zosia in her sleep?” someone demanded of Tina, who rolled her eyes as if this entire thing was boring her. “No, she called out for my brother. Yeah, gross, I had to be there for her sex dreams.”

Given the average age of the fae council members, no one wanted to pursue a line of questioning that involved anyone’s sex life. Still, they seemed to think the evidence against Winter was damning enough without Tina’s testimony.

Essie nodded, as if resigned to the council’s decision. Then she spoke. “Like so many before you, Ilyod, you refuse to see the forest for the trees. You are so focused on a prophecy made long before anyone here lived. You are bringing it to fruition, not the eternals. Remember that. They didn’t declare war. You did.”

Ilyod opened his mouth to speak, but Essie wasn’t finished.

“Come for my blood, Ilyod, and I will spill yours across this sacred ground.” A deep rumble filled the clearing from all sides, punctuating Essie’s words.

I knew Ewan’s growl, and it was music to my ears.

The fae council looked around as if a terrifying beast might stride into their midst. The shifter council responded to the call of their king, returning Ewan’s howl in unison. A few even pounded their chests, though none seemed to understand the truth of the situation.

Ewan and the others didn’t grace the clearing with their presence, much to the relief of the fae council. They knew a true predator skulked in the shadows. I noted reactions from both councils and filed the information away for later, when someone with a lot more knowledge could explain what it all meant.

Essie turned and led the Gemini Fae back to their spot in the circle. Except, before they reached it, a portal opened, swallowing Essie and the Geminis.

“Did you do that?” I asked Winter.

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