Page 58 of Inflamed By an Incubus

“Hey now, sweetheart,” Fenix interjected. “Let’s not go tossing insults around like that. Vail might be a little… unhinged… but he’s a good bloke at heart.”

Her right eyebrow arched. “You know of him?”

Fenix shrugged. “Met him in the cells of the castle of the Fifth Realm a while back. Me and the future-missus-Vail were being held there for different reasons and the demons captured him and brought him down to the cell opposite mine. The rest is history. Rosalind must have tamed Vail by now, or at least hauled him a little closer to sane.”

“I do not think he will ever be sane,” she muttered, ignoring Fenix’s glare.

Kyter patted her shoulder. “Your opinion is just being coloured by your brother. Bleu hates the guy with a passion and it’s rubbed off on you.”

She scowled at him too, and if her mate didn’t watch his step, he was going to be sleeping on the couch tonight. “That prince is tainted.”

Apparently, Iolanthe was one of those elves who despised those of her breed who had allowed the darkness that lived within them all to take the reins a little too much. Elves called them tainted, because of the black that coloured their violet irises, and wanted them all eradicated to remove the stain on their good name.

So, Fenix wasn’t going to mention he had cut a deal with one, possibly two, tainted elves who were going to help him save his mate.

“I know who this Aryanna is now and what Archangel want with her, but who’s Brink?” Fenix shifted his focus back to Kyter.

It was Talon who answered.

“Brink is a dragon and the mate of the sorceress. The cave was his home once and he lives near there in a village now. He doesn’t remember his mate. He forgets her whenever he manages to recall her.”

That struck a chord in Fenix that had him feeling a strange sort of connection to the dragon, because the curses that afflicted them were similar in a way, only his mate was the greatest victim and she forgot him whenever she fell for him.

If this Aryanna was still alive, could she help him lift the curse? It was worth a shot.

“Grey left him the note because Brink remembered her and went after her. My twin was worried that Brink wouldn’t forget her until he had passed through a portal to this world, and then he had felt bad that he was going to forget her period.” Talon folded his arms across his chest, causing his white shirt to stretch tight over his muscles. “He wants to help Brink, and that’s why he pointed the dragon to King Thorne.”

“Any word from King Thorne about this?” Fenix caught the grave look in Talon’s eyes.

“None. Grey is heading back to the dragon village to see if Brink is there.” Talon looked worried about his brother now, his dark eyebrows furrowing slightly as he glanced at Kyter.

The jaguar shifter sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Grey will be fine. Lyra is with him. Nothing bad will happen to him, but… he had to go. I’m not sure what he’ll do if he finds that Brink never returned to the village though.”

If that were the case, there probably wasn’t much the tiger shifter could do. It would mean Brink was probably in this world already, somewhere unknown to them, dying a slow death and not even sure why he was here if he had forgotten his mate again.

Fenix thought about his own mate, back in Hell, exposed to all the dangers of that realm. He wasn’t sure what was a bigger threat to her—travelling through Hell or working for Archangel. He was sure of one thing though.

Archangel were up to something nefarious.

And it was time he got his mate out of there.

Chapter 17

Evelyn couldn’t shake the feeling that had been plaguing her from the moment she had seen that carving in Hell. Something was coming. Something bad. It had her on edge, had brought her to the Central Archive every day since she had returned from the dark and shadowy realm. She couldn’t remember ever spending this much time in front of the computers. She couldn’t remember ever being this interested in research reports either.

So far, she had pored over hundreds of documents in the database, seeking the answer to the question ringing in her mind—what was Archangel doing?

She had never doubted the hunter organisation before, but ever since that incubus had come into her life, ever since she had almost been killed in the Fifth Realm, her faith in them had been steadily chipped away, until she had started to doubt them.

Now, she saw everything in a different light. A cold light. Things that would have seemed normal to her before, completely innocent even, now took on a dark edge that had her looking closer for the first time.

The number of fae Archangel were capturing was on the rise, and during a walk through the pens, several of those fae had been muttering to themselves. For once, she had listened to their ramblings, tuning in to them, and all of them spoke of the same thing.

Portals.

Some of the hunter teams who were bringing the fae in had been demanding the non-humans give up the locations of portals in this country and also places where there were portals in Hell too. Other teams had even gone as far as making their fae detainees take them through portals. Evelyn had looked up their reports and had been stunned by the sheer number of these gateways Archangel had uncovered so far. The list of GPS coordinates had been mind-blowing, with at least thirty documented in the United Kingdom and a dozen in France and Ireland, and close to one hundred in Hell.

Why did Archangel need to know the locations of so many portals?

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