Page 53 of Forgotten Fate

He left me to travel alone with one guard as he shifted into his wolf body and disappeared off the beach, and I watched in dismay, his suit left crumpled behind in his wake.

“This way,” Calliver intoned, reminiscent of how I’d been ushered out of Harbinger’s, but I resisted his ushering and shook my head.

“I’d like to be alone,” I told him nervously, unsure of how he might react to that.

“My instructions are to return you to Silverhold Tower,” Calliver insisted. “You can be alone there.”

I didn’t want to go back to the suite and stare at the walls, wondering where Zen was and what he was doing. But arguing with Calliver wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

I should have left the castle when I had the chance. I should have never stayed in the first place.

I nodded slowly, making the decision in my mind. I would go back with Calliver, but I wouldn’t stay, not even to finish out the night as I’d planned to do the last time. I’d pack up the few meager belongings that I had—that Zen had provided for me—and leave Silverhold Tower that very night, even if I had to sneak out in my mouse form and come back for the stuff when no one was watching. I didn’t have any money, but I’d find my way somehow. It had to be better than sitting on pins and needles, waiting to learn that I was truly unworthy of the king’s affections.

I had to go before Zen found out for himself.

“Are you coming?” There was a vaguely threatening note to Calliver’s tone, and I bobbed my head.

“Yes.”

I followed him back toward the SUV, staring hopefully toward the beach where Zen had vanished, but I didn’t really believe that he would return, not logically. Still, my heart ached, and I wanted him back.

Why did I ask him that? Who hates him?

The question had popped up unbidden from nowhere, from the recesses of my blank memory, snarky and bitter. And I couldn’t take it back.

Climbing into the back of the vehicle, I kept my head down, doing my best to smother the increasing sadness mounting inside me.

The car pulled away from the center of Catalonia without Landon, who I assumed had left with Zen, although I didn’t see him follow, and my heart sank lower into my stomach.

This time, I didn’t pay attention to the town as we made our way back toward the castle, my hands twisting nervously in my lap as I tried to formulate a game plan for myself.

I’d leave the castle, and then what? Come to the city and look for a job? Doing what? What was I skilled at doing? Who would hire someone without proper identification, without references or job history?

The future looked bleak, even without taking the first steps, but I couldn’t stay. I had no other option if I wasn’t going to come completely clean with Zen.

Abruptly, the vehicle came to a halt, my shoulders jerking forward.

“What the hell…?”

My head rose, and I looked out the windshield as Calliver threw the SUV in park. At first, I didn’t understand what I was seeing, the headlights spraying over a hunched pile on the road.

“Stay here!” he barked at me, but I was already unfastening my seatbelt to follow him out, my heart hammering, nose raised to the air. I knew this smell, and Calliver’s alarm was evident.

“LANDON!” Calliver yelled, rushing toward the heap on the road, and I sprinted forward, too, realizing at the same time what he had almost hit. “Where is the king?!”

That scent hovering around us turned my blood to ice. It encompassed me as I whirled around, looking for the faeries in black cloaks. It was the same sulfuric odor that had consumed the ballroom on the night of the attack in the castle.

“ZEN!” I cried out, spinning full circle, the danger encroaching.

“Get back in the car!” Calliver yelled at me, but I had already begun my sprint toward the side of the road, my senses guiding me to where I believed Zen was being held.

Each step I took filled me with more fear, the brimstone tearing my eyes now, but I refused to let myself be blinded in my quest to find him, his heartbeat in my ears.

“Zen!”

I gasped, stopping at the clearing off the roadside, my eyes widening to find him levitating, his body limp and defenseless. In a circle, six ebony-cloaked faeries elevated him with their fingers like children playing monkey-in-the-middle.

“Stop it!” I whimpered, but if they heard me, they didn’t make any indication. Without touching him, their magic slowly squeezing the life out of my lover, they grinned maniacally amongst themselves.

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