Page 10 of Renegade Kings

Icouldn’t shake the betrayal. I’d always known Fizzle kept things from me. It made sense when I was in Nymeria before. I was so young, still learning to control my magic, and had absolutely no interest in court politics. I didn’t care that he didn’t tell me everything because, frankly, I didn’t want to know.

But whatever he was keeping from me now, it was big. It was life changing. Life ending.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

Because no matter what had happened throughout my life, Fizzle had always been on my side. And right now, he wasn’t.

He was standing firm between me and Rhidian. If it really came down to it, I didn’t think he’d choose me this time.

“Look, tensions are high right now and everyone has questions they want answers to. How about we move this into the court, get everyone situated, and we can talk this out?” Rhidian moved forward, and Dean bristled at my side.

I’d almost forgotten that I was still holding his hand.

Rhidian nervously glanced at Tank before stopping in his tracks. It was probably the most sensible thing he’d done since he stepped into this clearing.

Tank was barely hanging on by a thread, and the others were just waiting for any excuse. The magic I’d felt slowly waking up inside of me since I’d stepped foot back in Nymeria was practically begging for a chance to be set free. But we were in no state to walk into another fight, and part of me wanted to know what was happening here.

I hated this place. I hated that I’d had so many happy memories and they’d all been crushed in a single moment, drowned in the blood of everyone I loved. But that hate was nothing compared to how I felt about Arik, and if doing this now gave me the opportunity to rid the realm of his plague, then it was worth the risk. It was worth any risk.

I looked at the men standing around me. The ones who were so ready to jump into a fight we couldn’t possibly win. And the guilt struck hard.

Because it wasn’t just me I was risking. It was them as well.

Part of me wanted to tell them to stay here, but I knew it wasn’t even worth suggesting. They’d never let me walk away without them. Not to mention that Dean still desperately needed medical aid, even if he was trying to pretend like nothing had happened.

The fact that he was still standing was pretty insane. His wolf was strong. We’d known it would be when we realised he was an alpha, but this was on a whole different level.

“Fine,” I relented.

Just that one word had the tension in our group dropping in everyone except me.

Because even if we trusted Rhidian enough to believe that we weren’t walking into a trap, I was still walking back into that place.

Tank and Maddox moved closer to me and I could feel a spark of magic shift through the air. My gaze quickly snapped to them both. Tank still seemed to have some control over the bear, but the biggest concern here was Maddox. He’d shifted way before he should have been able to, and he had a volatile magic that he had no control over. I was more worried about him than I was about Dean, who still had a slightly murderous glint in his eye. I should have been a lot more concerned about it than I was right now.

Coming here was a mistake. I thought we’d be able to move quietly through the realm, do what we needed to get done, and then leave without drawing attention. To say that plan had spiralled out of control was a major understatement.

“We need to head to the palace,” Rhidian calmly explained. It went totally against the fact that he still had a sword in his hand—my sword, to be exact. “Once we head inside, it’s all going to become clearer.”

“Or you could just tell us now,” Ryder snarled, eyeing the guy closest to him, and I resisted the urge to slap him around the head.

Starting a fight now wouldn’t help any of us.

Rhidian sighed. His gaze moved to Fizzle, who shrugged, offering no help for whatever Rhidian’s dilemma really was.

“I can’t,” he said slowly. “But maybe I can tell you why.”

He said nothing else and just looked at us curiously. I could feel his men shifting uneasily at the suggestion. Was Rhidian not the one in charge here? Was he working for someone else?

“Are you waiting for permission or something? What the hell is actually going on here?” Maddox snapped.

Yep, the lion was pushing hard. It was impressive that he’d stayed in control for this long, really.

“No, sorry. I just… we’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

My gaze snapped to Fizzle again, who’d stayed firmly in the middle ground. He gave no sign of whether he agreed. In fact, he couldn’t even meet my eyes anymore.

“Arik has a strong control over the people. Sometimes it’s impossible to tell who has taken his side. We have people here who…” Rhidian trailed off, not finishing his sentence, but it was impossible to not fill in the blanks.