I jerked back, my spine hitting the dusty wall. “I’m not going to fail him,” I hissed.
“There she is,” Cain replied darkly as he took in the furious rage in my tone. “Now let’s go get your boy.”
Shock still held me in its grasp, my lips parting on some command, some plan which wouldn’t form.
“That motherfucker is supposed to be dead,” I growled in a low tone, my eyes on the door where Vard had now disappeared. Roary was being yanked along by the collar on his neck, drawn through a door to the other side of the stage and panic gripped me as I lost sight of him. “I fought in the war. They found his body. He – Drav – Vard. He tortured Tory Vega, he-”
“I don’t care if he orchestrated the entire fucking war and was the reason behind every death that took place in it,” Cain said firmly. “The only thing that matters is that he is standing between us and Roary and I can’t bear to keep seeing that heartbreak in your eyes. So if he’s blocking our path then we’ll pass right through him.”
“He’ll see us coming. He has The Sight. If we plan anything directly against him then the stars will warn him and-”
“Who needs the stars when we have the moon on our side?” Cain demanded, his gaze iron, tone unflinching.
I wasn’t sure why he was so determined to help me now when his assistance had seemed reluctant before, but his words were a light to a fuse inside me.
I could feel the heavy weight of the moon’s power surrounding me, her energy suffusing me and helping drive away my fear. He was right. It didn’t matter what stood between me and Roary because there wasn’t anything in this world that would keep me from him. And I did have the moon on my side.
“Give Shadowbrook and Wilder the signal,” Cain commanded, and a surge of excitement ran through my veins at the rough tone he took with me.
I tipped my head back and howled, long and low and pure. The sound carried from my lips like a broken lament, but just in case my dark souls weren’t close enough to hear me, I threw my fist into the wall hard enough to break bone. Ethan sure as shit would have felt that thanks to our mate bond.
I cursed, pushing healing magic into my fingers before shaking my hand out and striding from our hiding place, my shoulder brushing against Cain’s arm as I moved.
My skin prickled as I reached out to the moon, asking her to hide me from the world as she had done before and adrenaline pounded through me as my body faded from sight.
A new presentation was beginning on the stage, a man with an assortment of dark objects still in the process of laying them out while the crowd murmured among themselves.
I didn’t turn as Cain moved closer beside me, I only reached out and took his hand in mine so that he knew where I was.
“Tell me when,” he said in a low tone.
We were jostled by people who were heading to the seating around the stage or abandoning it, several Fae cursing loudly as they met with the sharp edge of my elbows when they moved close enough to walk into me.
I remained quiet for a few moments, plotting, strategizing. If we settled on a plan to go straight at Vard, he would see it coming but he might just see us coming for Roary too if the avid obsession I had witnessed in him was as potent as I feared. Roary was his prize possession, the culmination of his abhorrent tests and experiments. He wouldn’t give him up easily. Hell, he might already know we were on our way. We needed to draw his attention away from us and what we were doing.
“The door to the right of the stage,” I whispered.
Cain whipped me off of my feet without another word, shooting me towards it so fast that the world blurred around us.
I had to blink to orient myself as he set me back on my feet in the shadows by the door. Roary had been taken out through here just minutes ago, but I could feel the wards in place on it, could hear the guards murmuring on the other side of it. This wasn’t going to be the best way to get to Roary – but it would do for one hell of a distraction.
I released my moon gifts, reappearing in the shadows at Cain’s side and taking my bag from my back. I unbuckled it, flipping the top open and reaching inside to take one of the incendiary devices from their place within it, but I became utterly still as my eyes fell on the contents of my pack. Where there had been six carefully packaged fire bombs now sat six bright yellow lemons.
“That fucking Incubus,” Cain snarled as he caught sight of the fruit.
I straightened, a lemon in hand and the useless pack abandoned at my feet.
“I’m going to kill him,” I hissed but before any real ideas about all the ways I would make Sin Wilder pay for going against my clear instructions and acting as though we were in on some special little secret plan together again, an explosion rang out in the direction of the marketplace and the entire world went to hell.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mayhem was the prettiest word I knew, and I embodied it now, my little friends giggling in the bag that was swinging from my fist as I selected one of the feisty fire bombs and preparing to toss it at a nasty-looking man who had just slapped a duck and was frantically gathering things into his briefcase. What had that duck ever done to him? It flapped away with a quack of outrage and I saluted it.
“Catch!” I yelled and the man’s hands flew out automatically to snatch the pretty little fire bomb from the air. My giggly friend went boom, blasting the man into the arms of the stars and beyond, my air shield only just snapping over me in time to protect me from the flames and accompanying spray of body parts.
“Sin!” Ethan barked from behind me and I whirled like a ballet dancer, hurling a fistful of flames into the surrounding marketplace. Stalls were set ablaze, the many cursed and dangerous wares exploding in flashes of colour, and screams swirled through the air like choir music while blood flew and chaos descended. This was exactly how I pictured Christmas morning, flash-bangs and adrenaline galore.
“Sin.” Ethan grabbed me by the shoulder as my gaze locked on a woman who was clutching a selection of dried-up fingers in her arms, racing for freedom. Where did she get those fingers? There weren’t any nice people who touted fingers about like that so she had to be bad to the bone.