Page 82 of Hellfire

Phoebe extended her elbow to her husband. “Come, my dear. We leave for the djinn planet immediately.”

Everything made perfect sense. The djinn were masters of the five elements, and it only seemed fitting for the sixth elemental to dwell among them.

“Lock her in here until we return,” Camus ordered, and two Sanctuary guards nodded, closing the door after them, the key twisting the lock clanking like it sealed my fate.

CHAPTER 28 - GABLE

Iknew something was wrong when my door flung open and Talon, Cole, and Blaze stormed inside, locking it behind them. Nothing good was going to come of their visit when my naga senses tingled with danger.

Mary yelped and raced out back to hide. Sudden movement or loud sounds startled her. Fuck. Calming her and coaxing her back would take up to thirty minutes. We were having a good day until this lot arrived with shitty portents.

“Careful with my door and sister, chaps,” I warned. “Else you might be paying for a replacement.”

“Sorry to frighten her,” Blaze said, rucking his golden hair. “Do you need a minute to speak with her?”

“We don’t have a fucking minute.” Cole’s desperate growl signaled trouble.

Half of me urged me to go after my sister and console her until she felt again. The other said leave her be, let her come back on her own. Toughen her up, so to speak.

I didn’t have the luxury of comfort when I first escaped. It took me a solid six months to become accustomed to the strange sounds of the world outside of the Brotherhood. And I was one of the lucky few who ventured beyond the walls to performmissions, so I had some semblance of how things operated beyond my cage.

My sister had zero clue, a newborn to this world, exploring everything for the first time with a lens of trepidation and wonder. She required patience to get her used to an unfamiliar setting.

Once I got to the bottom of this surprise visit, I’d go to her and comfort her.

I raised two palms to bring the panic down, both for my peace of mind and my sister’s. “Calm down.” Nothing good was solved in a panic, and I needed to remain chill for whatever this was.

Cole pinned me with a death glare.

I rubbed my eyebrow with my thumb. “I hate to ask it, but what’s happened? Is our princess okay?”

“No, she’s not.” Cole placed his hands behind his head, pressing them to the back of his neck, stretching his triceps.

My stomach filled with a dark, oily substance like octopus ink. “Tell me everything.”

“She’s been taken by the serpents.” Talon dropped the words that filled our nights with dread.

His tone darkened as he filled me in on the entire story, starting with Blaze’s slave labor, leaving the musical festival to retrieve Luna’s mind map, his lack of memory of the event, suggesting Camus commandeered his body. Talon moved onto Luna’s friend’s imprisonment with a sister organization for doing the dirty deed for Blaze and ending on our princess vanishing from the Academy in a black cloud.

Nothing got past Camus. He was always two steps ahead. And now we dealt with his wife too.

Talon palmed the spear resting in his belt holster. “Can you do your tracker thing to find her?

My thing. Dark forces. Much as I wanted to escape it, I came to the conclusion that it was a part of me, etched into my soul, and at some point, I had to make peace with that. Trifling with those powers didn’t make me inherently bad. It made me knowledgeable. Resourceful like Castor. All these years, I feared they would consume me and turn me into a monster. Yet the enforcer wielded dark magick without it with no deleterious side effects, showing me that I could do the same.

“Flip the sign on my door to Closed, would you?” I said, coming out from behind my counter, going to the back wall, grabbing the ingredients for a spell—candles, mixing bowl, calendula oil, herbs—and putting them on my counter.

I tried not to let my fear of losing Luna get in the way of my job. The serpents taught me to overcome my fears and be the most dangerous, fast, stealthy, and poisonous predator in the room. I called on those lessons to keep my wayward emotions in check. Because the alternative was to lose my fucking shit like Cole at my nemesis harming my mate.

“Back in a second.” I disappeared out to my loft, finding Mary curled up on the sofa. “It’s safe, Little Bug. They’re my friends and won’t hurt you.”

She warily eyed me, then the door to the shop. “What are they doing?”

“I’m performing a locator spell,” I replied. “Luna’s gone missing. Come and help me find her.”

Learning gave her purpose and teaching her gave me meaning in my life beyond revenge on the Brotherhood.

“We must get her back. She freed me.” All signs of apprehension faded at her determination.

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