Page 3 of Tempest of Wrath and Vengeance

Tristyn stopped, turning to face him. His eyes flared again, and he held Theon’s gaze when he said, “Because some things are worth the risk and more.”

They said nothing else as they traversed the tunnels of the Underground. He glanced back to make sure Corbin and Lange were still with them. They were quiet, hand in hand and keeping up. Theon wasn’t entirely sure why he’d brought them with, but he didn’t trust leaving them at Arius House. It wasn’t that he didn’t trustthem. It was that he didn’t trust anyone else. Tessa would be livid if something happened to her friends, and the last thing he needed was to give her yet another reason to hate him.

Not that it really mattered anymore.

“Since I am with you, I assume this is not your unaccompanied visit you bartered for?” Theon said as they turned down another passage. Theon didn’t know where they were going, and he was beginning to wonder how Tristyn knew how to traverse the Underground so well.

Tristyn glanced at him with a smirk. “Consider that debt paid,my Lord.”

Theon was about to snap something back in reply until they stepped into a spacious cavern he immediately recognized. Three work tables were in the center of the space, multiple shelves with herbs and ingredients lined the walls. There were three hearths, one with a cauldron steaming atop a fire.

“You know Cienna,” he said in understanding, looking around for the Witch, but she was nowhere to be found.

“Something like that,” Tristyn answered, walking over to a table and tossing some type of powder into a pot.

“I wouldn’t mess with her things,” Theon warned, knowing full well what it was like to be on the Witch’s bad side.

“I can handle her,” Tristyn answered.

As if his words summoned her, Cienna’s voice carried from a side tunnel. “Never useful when I need you, and now you are messing with my potions.”

Theon felt his entire face go slack as Cienna and Gia, her lover, entered the cavern with two others. One was a female with red-gold hair braided into a plait over her shoulder. Definitely Fae, she had a sword at her back and more weapons strapped to what appeared to be some kind of leather armor. But the male?

He looked just like Luka.

His brown hair wasn’t nearly as long, but it was shaggy and curled around his ears. His skin tone was a little darker, as if he spent more time in the sun. But the square jaw and facial features? The sapphire blue eyes? The build and stature? It was impossible for them not to be related, but that also meant that this male was a dragon shifter.

How many siblings do you have?

Those had been her taunting words. That arrogant silver-haired queen had known even then.

“Is she here then?” Theon asked.

“Who?” Cienna replied, shoving at Tristyn to get him out of the way before peering into the pot.

“Scarlett,” he answered.

“No,” the new female said. “She has been…forbidden to interfere here.”

“So she sent you two?”

The male sighed, as if he was utterly annoyed with everything happening. “She is incredibly adept at finding loopholes. It is both brilliant and irksome.”

“Must run in the family. Her cousin is the same,” Theon muttered, crossing his arms and leaning a hip against the table. “Are you her Guardian then? She mentioned one.”

The male made a face that told Theon he would rather swallow glass and bleed out of his eyes than be Scarlett’s Guardian. “No, but I am her brother’s Guardian.”

Theon nodded. “She mentioned a brother.” Glancing at the female, he asked, “Are you the sister that tried to kill her?”

Her brows knitted in confusion for a brief moment before understanding seemed to don. “No,” she said with a huff of laughter. “I wish I could call myself a Wraith of Death, but that would be Nuri. I am the general of the Fire Court.”

“Fire?” Theon said. “You are a fire Fae then?”

She nodded, eyeing him before her gaze slid to the others.

“This is Eliza,” the male said, stepping subtly closer to her. “I am Razik Greybane.”

“You are certainly more forthcoming with information than Scarlett is,” Theon answered.

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