Page 54 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom
“Sadie!” I didn’t think. Didn’t weigh the consequences. Didn’t wait for someone to stop me.
“Meera, NO!” Vareck yelled, voice cracking.
Too late.
I launched off the edge without a second thought, the wind snatching the scream from my throat as I plunged after my sister into the abyss.
Chapter 15
Drayden
“Are you sure this is the place?” Kaia asked, looking down the row of townhomes lining the street. Despite every other door having some sort of personalization—a custom knocker, a welcome mat, a wreath, a potted plant—this entry had nothing. In any other circumstance, I would have assumed this place to be uninhabited.
“Positive,” I grunted, lifting my hand to the door. I knocked twice.
Lucian gave me the address, and considering I left him under Cadoc’s care, I was fairly certain he wouldn’t lie to me. Not when one word from my lips could mean the difference between remaining alive and experiencing a very slow death.
Inside, footsteps shuffled toward the door. Unhurried and yet agitated all the same.
Three different locks disengaged. Kaia and I shared a wary glance.
Most witches were reclusive, yes, but they were also arrogant in the belief that nothing could end them. After all, only one species carried the magic of gods and demons. For this one to have so many safety measures in place was odd.
Especially if she was as powerful as both Lucian and Corvo alluded to.
The door slid back an inch.
It was that exact moment that something in me, long since buried, slowly cracked an eye open.
There were a handful of moments in my life I would never forget, even if I wished I could.
The very second in time the familiar bond snapped into place with Vyrexis.
The feeling of the wind above and below me as we flew into battle together.
The first day I saw my beloved ... and the way my world stopped at the sound of her very last breath.
I never, and I truly meannever, expected that moment—standing at the doorstep of an unmarked home in the Arcane District of Seattle—to be another one that would be locked into my memory forever.
And yet, as a pair of blood-red eyes regarded me warily through the crack in the door, my entire world shifted.
“What do you want, Kingsguard?” Her voice was low. Not quite deep, but sultry. An unmistakable raspy quality that roused a part of me I’d long considered dead.
I gritted my teeth, fingers curling into a fist at my side.
“We need a portal.”
“Find someone else,” she muttered, moving to close the door.
Kaia moved faster than any being truly should and slipped her boot between the door and the frame, preventing it from closing.
“There’s no time for us to find someone else. The fae king, his mate, and the prince have been taken into one of the hell realms. We need your assistance creating a portal and we need itnow.”
A pregnant pause filled the silence.
“Which realm?”
“The twin realms,” Kaia answered. “Evorsus, specifically.”
