Page 49 of Inheritance
She paled slightly but then looked towards the doors, where two guards stood, “Take her. Now.”
I was handed over, and the guards, whose hands were trembling slightly, led me forward through a dark hallway, the panicked whispers of the king and queen echoing slightly so that I could hear them.
I smiled at that, glad that at least I had managed to freak them out to some extent. I considered that a win. My body was heavy and tired from the cuffs’ drain on my magic, but I knew I needed to stay vigilant. I swallowed and kept focused up ahead, noticing a slight downward slant of the pathway, my eyes narrowing on a heavy wooden door with bars across the window.
When the doors opened, I immediately registered several things.
First, this was a holding cell area that was at least partially underground.
Second, it was old as hell, considering it still was covered in brick and had iron cages.
Third, several people I recognized were here.
“Ama?” My father’s voice was sharp and almost angry as I surged out of the guards’ arms, surprising them with the last effort of my energy, and came to stand right in front of a massive cell that contained my father, Damien’s father, and Adrien’s father—all of them looking rather worse for wear, but damn, it felt good to see them alive.
“Dad. Are you okay?” I asked, my voice raising an octave as I panicked over how he truly was. He was alive, but that didn’t mean he was unharmed.
“I’m fine,” he said evenly in a calming tone that soothed my frazzled nerves. “Are you okay? Why the hell are you back—” he was cut off as guards moved forward to take me, “Do not fucking touch her. I swear to the devil himself I will kill you.”
Oh, I think the devil would agree, Dad.
The guards paused behind me as my dad went from the scary motherfucker that was the Grim Reaper back to the loving dad only I got to see, his tone even. “Why are you here, Ama? I portaled you all out of here so that you could escape, not be captured again!”
“Looooong story,” I leveled and looked at the other two kings. “Your sons are here as well.”
Glancing back to my dad, I asked a question that had been at the top of my mind for a bit now, “Which reminds me, how did you know when to show up? I mean your timing was freakin’ accurate as hell.”
Literally.
My dad grunted, “Could have been far more accurate. As Supreme leader, despite not being here in person, I was given extra power throughout the Summit and those powers are connected directly to the summit building, so when the Dark Elves put up a ward around the place, I immediately sensed something was wrong. If I had known, Ama, I would have never sent you. I had assumed it was safe, especially because I was able to keep tabs on… the last thing I had ever expected was treason and betrayal of our realm.”
That explained a lot actually and I hated the guilt I heard in his voice.
“Well, after you transported us out, we found the Kingdom of Impurus. A kingdom of hybrids.” All three of them froze.
“Yeah, apparently they actually exist,” I huffed.
My dad exchanged a look with the other kings and my mouth popped open, “You knew.” It was an accusation, and my father ran a hand through his hair, looking a bit tense.
“Sort of.”
“You sort of knew there was an entire kingdom of people just like me?” I growled.
“We had heard rumors of it,” Adrien’s father explained, his temperament clearly as calm as his son’s.
“We had sent scouts as well,” Damien’s father offered.
“We had pretty much all the evidence that it existed, but we didn’t know where—we just continued to find proof of its existence, our scouts even coming across hybrids who continued to evade them.”
“What does that have to do with why you are here?” my dad asked.
“So, I found the kingdom, talked to the king and queen, and convinced them to bring their army here so we could take back Pura,” I explained simply. “The Dark Elves’ forces have been nearly depleted, although there are clearly more in this building...” I looked back at the two guards, who both avoided eye contact.
“But we’ve got it handled,” I nodded my head, still believing in my mates and all of those who’d rallied around us to fight this war.
“You allowed them to cuff you, though?” my father hedged, eyeing the shackles like he didn’t understand how the hell I thought we had this handled in my current state.
No faith.
