Page 3 of Ruin

My eyes narrowed. “Fuck off.” I didn’t bother with names. Even when my fellow shifters were being utter dicks, we didn’t use names in the open. Prince B’nar and King L’nar Voltair, which I'd discovered meantson of Voltair, knew all of our names, except Blue’s. But unlike Blue, none of us were totally human, so fae compulsions and mind trick games didn’t work as easily on us.

Lance gave a smug smile and pulled Ava closer. “Already done that. I just need to refuel before going again.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Mother Wolf, lover boy, stick a sock in it.” She gave me a smile. “Sorry, Yellow, he’s still learning how to play nice with the other children. Besides a threesome with this stud…” She lowered her gaze down Alex’s body and back up again. “...and Connor sounds off the charts. Daayum, girl…” She fanned her face while winking at me. “I’d totally hit that.”

Lance’s brows dipped comically, his jaw muscles popping and his eyes darkening. “What does that mean…?”

Ava patted his cheek and smiled sweetly. Yeah, Lance knew her and Connor had been lovers once, and he looked furious that his words had backfired.

I smirked, knowing she wasn’t trying to hurt me, only wind Lance up.

Ava smiled placatingly. “Nothing at all, lover. They might be hot, but you’re more than enough for me. Besides one of them shot me before, so, yeah, that could be awkward.” She winked at me again, letting me know there was no venom in her words. “Now come along, we need to mingle and pick up the juicy goss on who’s shagging who, who’s planning to overthrow Walker, and who’s going to attempt to kill B’nar…” Their voices faded as she pulled him towards the stairs.

I gave her a small smile. Ava had our backs. Her past relationship with Connor was just that—past, though I had no idea why she had forgiven Connor so readily.

“Come on, we need to do the same: mingle and all that. I know Lance is an ass, but we’re all a team now.” Alex pursed his lips as he glanced at my face.

I tried to smile, but being reminded by Lance that I was here, living it up while Connor was likely being tortured or might even be dead, did not help my mood. Just like Ava, Lance had a reason to hate Connor. Connor had shot both him and Ava after Doherty had accused them of being traitors; only Walker’s magic had saved them. But Lance, the bastard, knew how much I missed Connor, so suggesting that Alex and I were a thing was cruel.

“Are we a team?” I supposed we were, though at times like this I wasn’t so sure.

Walker had brought us all together. He’d been training the others for years, along with Zander. Together they’d been spying on the upper levels of authority in the SBI. That was how Walker had found the prison. Even Connor and Owen had worked for him, albeit unknowingly. We all had different skills that he deemed useful not only to infiltrate the SBI, but to fight Berith, a general of Hell who seemed determined to unleash Hell’s army on the unsuspecting people of Earth. Walker was also a ruler who planned for the future. He knew the demon of murder and chaos would not stop at one world, and he was honest enough to admit he didn’t want Faerie to be next. By putting us in position to fight Berith on Earth, he was protecting Faerie.

“Yes, we are. It’s new and a little fraught, I know that. But I have always been a loner, and finding a tribe to belong to is a novelty for me; one that I hope won’t wear off. Besides, we all have a common purpose, don’t we? Stopping Berith...” He led me to the stairs and we began a slow descent, smiling politely and dipping our heads with our right hand palm down and flat over our chests as was the custom formal greeting in this society. “And finding Connor. You’re not alone in that, Yell.” He glanced sideways at me. “I was alone when I met Connor; surviving hand to mouth and trying to stay under the SBI’s radar. He should have killed me, but he didn’t. Instead he gave me purpose in my life. I really do believe we can all work together to find him. He’s alive, I know it.”

I swallowed the ache in my throat, hoping he was right. “How did you meet him?” Connor had been my closest friend when we were growing up together, but then he’d moved out of our home, the one we’d shared with Cain and Lyss Rawson, two shifters who had become like parents to us. When Connor had graduated at eighteen from the SBI academy, he’d become an agent for the Supernatural Bureau of Investigation, often going undercover for weeks at a time. The higher up the SBI ranks he went, the more we’d grown apart. It was as if he’d deliberately put distance between us.

Alex glanced down at me. I was only five foot four to his six foot frame. “Connor discovered my rare skill set when he was undercover. We came to a mutual agreement about my need to continue breathing. If I wanted to, then it was in exchange for my help. I didn’t mind, I actually liked the guy, even though he was a tough son-of-a-bitch. I helped him, and in turn he kept my skill set hidden from the SBI.”

I smiled. “Sounds like Connor. He always gets what he wants. Which was what with you?”

Alex patted my hand. “You. Safe. He convinced the school board he needed an undercover agent in the school, telling them it was classified agency business. No one ever questioned it, not when he was a top agent. For me, it was a win win. I stayed alive and got a regular job, money and a home. All I had to do in return was keep you safe and out of trouble at school.”

My footsteps faltered as his words registered. “Me?”

“Of course. He always knew you were his mate, and after that boy attacked you when you were only a young girl, he didn’t trust the school to keep you safe.”

“Mother Wolf, is that why no one ever bothered me after that?”

Alex’s generous lips curved upward. “I think it had more to do with how hard you worked to stay under the radar. It was only that last day that I needed to save your skinny arse.”

“I never did thank you for that. I always wondered why Shannon and the others had no memory of me punching her.”

“It wasn’t just the punch, it was the burn you left on her skin. Explaining that would have been difficult, so I got rid of it, wiped everyone’s minds, and then called Connor.”

“You called Connor?” My eyes widened at this newest revelation.

“Sure did, sugar.”

To his surprise, I reached up and kissed his cheek. Alex had gotten me out of a lot of trouble with Doherty, the director of the SBI, that day. Shannon was his daughter. Heat churned in my belly, my nostrils flaring. That bastard had gone after my foster family. Remembering Lyss’s beautiful smile, I felt heat roll over my skin. Mea growled, the sound echoing in my mind. Prime sent a soothing wash of alpha power through us and she settled, but Fire didn’t listen to him. Lyss had been cruelly dismembered and it had utterly destroyed Rawson. The air around me began to shimmer.

“Hey, hey, settle down, it’s okay.” Alex squeezed my arm in a reassuring fashion. “Now’s not the time to become a flaming candle. You’ll melt Walker’s decorations and he'll be well pissed at you.”

I glanced at the high fae king. His pale blue face was as stoic as ever and his silky white hair was starkly beautiful next to the turquoise blue of his son’s. “Fucker deserves it.” And he did. Apparently, I was the key to Hell’s gates, so Satan needed the phoenix that resided inside me to open them. How they would pull Fire, my phoenix, from me, I didn't know, but once she was released they could chain her to the gates and turn them to ash. Earth would become a buffet of flesh and souls for Satan and his army.

I glanced away from Walker and B’nar, and studied some of the other angular, almost androgenous faces of the high fae. They were all beautiful and all deadly in their own way.

“Hey, come on. Let’s get through this night and then, if Blue plays her part well, we’ll find Connor. After all, I owe him. He’s been a prisoner for four years because of Walker. Poor bugger didn’t even know who he was working for. He did what Walker wanted and found out who the warden really is, and what Doherty was up to. It’s time to get him out of there.”

---