Page 174 of Love & Heart Braking

A shiver ran through me as I scanned the Hucs matriarch. I’d never seen her before. Her face was never printed anywhere. But I’d heard too many stories from Soleil to count. She may send her son out to do the dirty work, but the depraved ideas came from her. Mistress Cineres was someone to be reckoned with in her own right, Master Dethnel and Master Ventram seemed as devoid of decency as any of the others, but this woman set the tone for the twelve. By her standard, the others had learned to act and compete and destroy what was good in the world.

That Soleil was afraid of her was enough to warn me that I never, ever wanted to be in her direct company, let alone her power.

Like all sirens, she was beautiful, and though age had touched her skin and posture, it hadn’t dimmed her radiance or presence. She shone with a coldness that cast a cloud over those sirens in her wake. The chill crept over the clearing, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the petals of the wildflowers closing shop as she passed. Her hair was red but streaked with silver, and I gasped at the gold object tucked into her stately hairstyle.

A feather.

Soleil’s remaining feather.

Disgust twisted my mouth into a snarl. The eldest Hucs was dangling it right in front of her granddaughter’s eyes.

I’d hated her before. I loathed her now.

Soleil looked up, and I locked gazes with her. Removing my wings, I then shoved them between the bars, watching as they floated to the ground. My friend flashed me a grin before her father barked an order. With a last look up at me, she disappeared beneath the tent of dripping silver.

Where was Devereaux?

I dreaded seeing him. I longed to see him.

“All right over there?” Lerome called.

All right? Nope. Not one bit. I’d just realized the complete idiocy of our plan. How could we ever pull something off? We were all over the place. The evidence we’d scraped together couldn’t topple these people.

At best, all we might manage was to escape the estate with Lerome, Austin, and his family in tow.

I frowned as an awareness tickled my senses.

Turning to where the garden spilled into the open meadow, I saw him. My heart caught in my mouth as my berserker stalked down the path dressed in a tux. He glanced up, and I wished I had his vision to better see him.

But he could see me.

“I love you,” I mouthed, knowing he’d be able to see.

Someone rested a hand on his shoulder not long after, and I jerked, recognizing the shining beacon of Bain’s white hair. Lerome and I exchanged a look.

“And that’s not all,” the griffin said.

I looked again and spotted the red of Maligni’s skin. That meant Gug was here too. Shit. What it must’ve taken for the daemon to come back into the twelve’s playground. Gug wouldn’t have come easy either.

All of us were here.

And all that seemed like right now was that we’d walked right into their trap.

I released a breath and shifted to get blood flow into my legs. The tension rising from the guests below was palpable and my heart hammered in reaction. I knew that the twelve interacted with each other all the time, but did they all gather regularly? Peering below, I watched as they took their seats, congregating in groups. I picked out the individual families, then noticed that the Hucses had planted themselves through the crowd, and were the only one of the twelve who appeared to be, for lack of a better word to describe the likely sinister nature, networking.

Soleil was leaving the tent to join the other guests in the tiers, but she froze and slowly lifted her head in Bain’s direction.

My heart squeezed on behalf of their love.

Soleil started turning away but froze all over again when Bain strode toward her. Oh shit. The unicorn let his magic blaze in a swirl of rainbows and glistening white. But he’d done more than that.

As the aura that had drawn the eye of every person not down in the amphitheater died down, gasps took the place of the vulture-like anticipation. Maybe at the fact Bain was taking Soleil in his arms and kissing her soundly.

And maybe because a gleaming crown now sat upon his head around his rough diamond horn. That seemed like a pretty strong declaration of “fuck you. I’m royal, bitches.”

I clapped from inside my cage, then cupped my hands around my mouth. “Wooooo!”

Lerome cheered too. We had nothing to lose from up here. Those down on the ground weren’t so sure. I scanned the crowd for the others and frowned when I couldn’t spot Devereaux or Maligni.

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