Page 15 of Bros Come Before Hordes
"And then what?" he asked, his voice hard.
I tried to form the words for what I had seen underneath the desk on my way out, but that would mean picturing it in my head. For my own sanity, I couldn't. Not right now. Not when I was so tired and everything was so fucked up.
"I'm sorry," I choked out. "I can't."
"It's fine, Yara." Vance put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed some warmth back into me. "Really. Just tell us what you can."
"I got out of there when I could,” I said. “As fast as I could."
Calhoun blew out a slow breath. "Another murder."
Tavis ran a hand through his blue hair, making it spike up in all directions. “These murders... It feels almost casual, like it’s done without even a second thought.”
“It’s sounding more and more like the fae,” Vance muttered and turned away. “Cold. Brutal.”
"If it is the fae, what do we do?” I asked. “Is there a way to stop them?"
Vance turned back, his lips firmed together. "I’ve been cobbling together stories of what happened last night. Our goddess went missing before we got our power surge, which sure can't be a coincidence. We're weakened. The fae...” He shook his head. “They don't need a monthly power surge."
I closed my eyes, exhaustion taking its toll, but forced them open against a bitter sting. No rest for the weary. Besides, how much worse was this going to get before it got any better? "They're powerful."
"Very," Tavis said.
"Then we need to find Léas,” I said, my voice low with determination. “If it is the fae we're dealing with, then how much do you want to bet they took her?"
A frown dragged at Tavis’s full mouth. "That's not a wager I’m willing to take."
Nodding, I looked at each of them, my head spinning with how fast the pieces were starting to click together. "With Léas out of the way, and a new human queen everyone's pissed about and focused on, it sounds like the perfect time to start a war." The truth slammed into me like a barbed wire wall. "This is all a setup. Léas going missing. Me. The other dragon shifters distracted by their furytowardme. This has all been planned in perfect detail."
Tavis reached out and brushed my cheek with his knuckle, his frown still in place. "But, Yara, we knew you were coming twenty-five years ago. It was foretold."
"By Madame Theodosia.” I nodded. “But how much do you really know about this seer?"
"That she's the best.” Vance shrugged. “Never been wrong."
“Why?” Calhoun narrowed his eyes, the cunning gleam inside them sharp as twin daggers.
"What if she just told you what you wanted to hear so you would help put me in power? I wasn’t even alive twenty-five years ago." I winced as I said it, hating that I had to be the one to point all this out to them. Even humans gravitated to what we already believed, and then felt better when those beliefs were backed up by others. Apparently shifters and humans weren't all that different, at least in that regard.
But to have those beliefs questioned? It could shake your foundation, or in my harem's case, cause their faces to fall so far that it dragged my heart down with them.
"Was Madame Theodosia a fae?" I asked gently.
Calhoun turned away slightly, his dark gaze roaming across the nearest wall of queens’ portraits until it snagged on one—his mother, no doubt. She was beautiful, with similar features as the three brothers, but with honey blonde hair and green eyes that twinkled with secrets. Alyssa D. Collins, the plaque below her picture read. Calhoun had said the D stood for Delilah.
"Fae look just like us,” Calhoun said, still staring at his mother. “Unless we checked to see if she had a tattoo, we wouldn't have ever known if Madame Theodosia was fae."
"And we had no reason to ask,” Vance said, his eyebrows drawn. “Her reputation was enough."
With a short sigh that I had to continue going with this topic rather than drop it for their sakes, I pulled the folded, now slightly sweaty flier I'd taken from the bulletin board from my thigh tape. "The person—or whoever—stopped long enough to smooth this out in the security office."
They stared at it, their faces made of stone. I was hurting them, shaking their foundations too much, but they needed to hear it if we were going to figure this shit out.
"It doesn't prove anything, but it's super curious," I told them. "I want to speak with Madame Theodosia. Can one of you bring her here?"
"I'll take care of that." There was an edge to Vance's voice that showed he didn't care for being duped, if that was, in fact, the case.
"This doesn't change anything, guys. I’m not going anywhere." They’d helped me. Now I was going to help them. End of story, despite the rush of dread spiking along my skin.
