Page 29 of Renegade Kings
My finger clutched at Alyssa’s shoulders, trying to give her the support I knew she needed and to keep myself grounded in this moment. It was the only thing that was keeping me from shifting. She didn’t need a rampaging bear right now. She needed a mate she could rely on to have her back.
The door slammed behind us, and I knew one of the others would have made sure we were well and truly alone. Alyssa needed to bond with them as soon as possible. The more mates she had around her, the more people she would have to keep her safe.
But was that even possible? She was fated to die in this fucking cursed place. It had been a mistake to return. I shouldn’t have encouraged her. Alyssa had always said returning to Nymeria was a death wish. I never really believed her until now. I knew it was dangerous. I knew we’d have to fight, but I at least thought we’d have a chance. And now, here we stood in a palace we’d apparently claimed as our own, with magic I could already feel building inside me, and a ticking clock counting down to the end.
“We leave,” Dean suddenly said. “We get to the portal, go back to the human realm and put this place behind us.”
Maddox winced at the thought, and I knew it was thoughts of his brother that filled his mind. I couldn’t fault him. He loved them both, and giving up on Damon wasn’t something any of us had really discussed. I’d never met the man, but even I was finding it a bitter pill to swallow. All of this couldn’t have been for nothing.
“No.” Alyssa’s voice was firm, but I could sense the distance as she tried to disconnect herself from this situation. “We stay. We stick with the plan. Damon isn’t beyond our reach, we just need to understand whatever hold Arik has on him. We can still save him. And… and I can’t abandon these people again. They need someone to fight for them. Someone who has a chance of winning.”
“Winning? Didn’t you hear what they just said? Alyssa, winning means dying and I’m not prepared to allow that to happen. I told you before that you didn’t get to sacrifice yourself for us, and that hasn’t changed. If we have to do this alone, then we will. We’ll meet you back at the garage when we’re done.” Dean stepped closer, his hands cupping Alyssa’s cheeks as he tipped her head back against my chest. “Why are you always so ready to die for everyone else?” he whispered.
He didn’t give her a chance to answer. His head dipped and Dean pressed his lips to Alyssa’s. She didn’t move at first, but as Dean went to deepen the kiss, she whimpered, and her arms came up to wrap around him.
I stepped back to give them space. They both needed this moment. Alyssa needed to remember that it wasn’t just her against the world anymore. She had us at her side and we’d fight just as fiercely as any army when it came to keeping her safe.
Dean rested his forehead against hers when he reluctantly broke away from their kiss and I could see Maddox and Ryder having to hold themselves back from interrupting their moment. It actually brought a smile to my face. There was no jealousy here, only need. We’d make a strange pack, but with her at our centre, there was no way it wouldn’t work.
“We need a plan,” Maddox said firmly. “If we’re doing this, we need a solid plan of action. Intel about what’s happening, who stands with us, and Arik’s weaknesses.”
“Not to mention what’s going on with all of you,” Alyssa added. “But I don’t know who we can trust with those questions.”
She looked nervous as her gaze darted to me, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of what we were talking about or because of the kiss. I needed her to know that it didn’t matter. It was everything I had hoped for her. As I reached out for her hand and threaded my fingers through hers, I smiled as she accepted my touch so easily. We’d spent so many years denying this for ourselves, and now that I had it, I couldn’t even remember why it had seemed like a good idea.
“Are you sure we have magic?” Ryder asked. When Alyssa scowled at him, he just laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just checking. Everything magic wise in this place seems a bit screwy. Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.”
“Maddox literally set fire to a stone room. I think it’s safe to say that there is more magic in this mix than there’s supposed to be.” As she spoke, Alyssa moved to a door on the other side of the room, and I followed because there was no way I was letting go of her right now. “My parents loved me. I know they did. It doesn’t matter if I wasn’t theirs. They treated me like I was. And they would never have stood by and just accepted this.”
She reached for the handle of the door but when she pushed it open; she stayed frozen on the spot, not moving. Inside looked like an office on steroids. Whoever had worked from here had papers and books lining the walls, and the desk was still heaped high with whatever they’d been working on.
“This was my father’s study. If he had any answers, they’ll be in here. No one else could access this suite without their permission. Any sensitive information would be in here, so anything that has to do with me will be in this room. They were always adamant that my magic had to be kept secret, but now that I think about it, they knew more about it than they really should have. In fact, they knew I’d have access to the magic from each court before it even became apparent. That wasn’t in the prophecy that Fizzle told us, so either it isn’t a part of it or he’s still keeping some of it a secret from us.”
My bear grumbled in annoyance at that thought. He thought the little owl gryphon was worth nothing more than a snack, and I couldn’t exactly argue with that right now. He’d been standoffish since we first met, and I hadn’t even considered that it was because he was hiding things from us. Honestly, I just thought he was a dick.
“Okay, here’s the plan for now,” Maddox started, stepping forward and taking the lead. “We go through the office and find what we can that references either Alyssa or Nymeria’s magic. After that, we assess whether Fizzle is telling us the truth and what we want to do about that. We need to consider that he might be hiding something from us because he thinks it will protect you. Remember, he tried to get you to leave. I don’t think he’s as on board with this whole plan as he seems to be. And if he isn’t, we need to consider if he’s an ally we need to keep on our side.”
Alyssa nodded. “That makes sense.”
“There’s something I can’t figure out,” I realised aloud. “Nymeria controls the magic in this realm, so if we have more than we’re supposed to, then Nymeria is responsible for it. So… why bother? If this whole prophecy is for you to go into this big battle and die, why give us the means to fight for you if the whole point is that you need to die?”
The fact that the others weren’t turning out to be normal shifters was bugging me too. They’d been turned by strong shifters, but I’d never seen that result in someone stronger than the alpha who had bitten them. If anything, turned-shifters were always considered weaker than those of us who were born this way. And I didn’t think this additional strength came from us coming to Nymeria, because Maddox had proved he was more than an ordinary shifter right from the point of taking the bite. No, whatever had happened had started in the human realm.
“Prophecies are tricky things,” Alyssa admitted. “You need the original words because they always change depending on who’s telling it. Everyone puts their own inflection on it. They interpret it differently or they might dismiss the small references which are actually important.”
“So, he could be wrong,” Ryder asked. He sounded so hopeful, and it was exactly what we all needed. An ounce of hope to cling to while we figured out whatever the hell was going on here.
“Yeah. In fact, it’s more likely than not when you consider this prophecy has been around for over a hundred years.” Even Alyssa seemed lighter, and I was grateful for it, and leary at the same time.
Because hope could be what you need to push through, but if what we found here proved them wrong, or worse, the prophecy was more fucked up than we knew; it was going to crush us all. And yet, I still clung to it. The hope that this didn’t have an end date looming over us. That we hadn’t wasted so many years together only to have the future we both wanted snatched away from us when we finally gave in to our feelings.
“It’s going to take some time to work through all of this,” Dean said, stepping into the study that everyone else seemed content to just wait outside of. “Even if we all work together and push through the night. We’re looking at several days of work.”
“Plus, the full moon is tomorrow night,” Alyssa reminded us all. “We don’t know how you’re all going to react to the first real shift. And we need to figure out how we’re going to deal with that without tipping Rhidian and Fizzle off to your magic. You won’t have any control as you surrender yourselves to the shift, and it’s a prime time for your magic to run out of control as well.” She thought for a moment longer before adding, “We might actually need to consider where it would be safe for this to take place.”
The others didn’t look worried about shifting. Well, Maddox had done it once already, so I doubted he’d have much trouble. Alyssa was right, though. I’d watched turned shifters experience the first shift before and it never went smoothly. But the guys all seemed to be aware of their animals already. Nothing about this was going to be like we were expecting because I was starting to think it was something that had never happened before.
We were about to see the birth of a new type of shifter and I might actually be fucking excited about it. The fae had always looked down on us as their poor cousins back in the human realm, but this? This put us on an even level with them, maybe even a step above.