Grief washed over me in endless waves as we sat in the car driving back to the mansion.
Everyone was silent.
The omega had introduced himself as Warren after Jax had beaten him bloody for being a perverted ferret.
Now Warren sat next to Cobra, who had his jeweled hand around the back of the omega’s neck in a death grip.
Warren looked repentant and had Lucinda’s sweatshirt wrapped around his waist to preserve his modesty.
“I knew what he was as soon as the don gave him to me, and he was always respectful. He left the room when we changed. It wasn’t weird,” Jinx had argued as the men slammed their fists into Warren’s stomach.
No one had listened to her.
Now we rode in silence.
The truth was a noose around our necks.
Aran and Walter were dead.
My stomach and chest burned like I’d been gutted, and I struggled to breathe. We were going back to the mansion.
Back to their bodies.
The only thing that stopped me from losing all semblance of sanity was the five brothers crammed painfully on top of one another in the back seat.
I still controlled them.
We’d decided it was the safest way to keep them constrained, because who knew what enchanted devices they had on them like the wolves.
We couldn’t risk it.
Sweat poured down my face as every muscle in my body burned.
The ball was in the afternoon, and the night was just fading into a gray morning. Who even knew if we’d passed the third trial. Had there even been one to begin with?
Everything reeked of betrayal and sabotage.
Just one big setup.
I breathed through the pain.
Lucinda gripped my hand in hers, her savaged arm still dripping blood, her eyes wide with shock.
The don had warned us this world was cruel.
But it was so much worse than I could ever have imagined.
When the car came to a stop, I dragged the Ortega brothers behind me through the rain, but stopped at the entrance.
Bullet holes speckled the front door, and the ornate glass on either side had been shot out. Shards lay at our feet.
I couldn’t lose Aran.
I couldn’t face any of this without her.
I refused.
My hands shook so hard I couldn’t twist the doorknob. No one stepped up to open it, and all of us stood on the stoop, unable to face the truth.
Eventually, Xerxes walked up and shoved it open.
Blood was everywhere.
The foyer stank of death.
Aran lay on top of Walter like she’d tried to shield him with her body, and both were riddled with bullet holes.
No one could survive that.
I keeled over and heaved bile across the gore-splattered marble.
Lucinda and Jala joined me. Jess collapsed.
Xerxes backed away.
Warren stood in the doorway, staring at the scene in horror.
The alphas didn’t move.
My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees. The Ortega brothers mimicked my motion, my power still wrapped around them.
I screamed.
They bellowed.
Jinx was the only one that walked up to the bodies.
I fell forward onto my forearms, so much pain coursing through me that I couldn’t cry, could do nothing, as the world fell apart around me.
The little girl knelt in front of Aran’s body and prodded it.
Her head snapped up, dark eyes wide. “She’s—” she whispered so quietly I couldn’t hear the rest of what she said.
I heaved up bile.
Jinx stumbled backward, eyes frantic. “She’s alive.”
Her words penetrated.
I crawled forward through the broken glass and blood, the Ortega brothers following mindlessly.
“Aran!” I screamed as I collapsed atop my best friend.
Bullet holes covered her body, and every inch of pale skin was stained red. Her skin was icy, colder than snow.
She was dead. It was a cruel joke.
I shook.
“Look at her chest.” Jinx’s voice was far away.
Aran’s chest was a mess of bullet holes.
I stared at it with single-minded intensity, refusing to blink, forcing myself to stare at the carnage that was my best friend.
Ever so slightly…
It rose.
My eyes widened, and I grabbed her shoulders, shaking her as hard as I could. “Wake up!” I screamed as I clawed at her gore-covered skin.
All rationality fled my body.
Ascher fell to his knees beside me. “How?”
I didn’t care how, or why. I didn’t give a flying fuck. All that mattered was she was still breathing.
“HELP HER!” I screamed frantically at everyone, unsure of what I was asking for, just knowing that we needed to do something.
Anything.
Sweat poured off my body, the strain of using my blood powers mixed with the acidic hope that burned me from the inside out, and I collapsed onto my back beside Aran, choking on manic screams.
Xerxes yelled something about a medical kit.
Maids ran around us.
I prayed to every god—promised myself, anything they wanted—if they would just let her live.
The Ortega brothers sprawled on the ground beside me, mindless puppets connected to my will.
Xerxes poured vials of liquid down Aran’s throat, and Ascher used tweezers to pull out the enchanted bullets that were buried in her flesh, the ones that hadn’t gone straight through to Walter.
The butler’s chest didn’t move.
Tears streaked down Xerxes’s cheeks as he worked, glancing over at Walter every few seconds.
I mourned for him.
The girls scrubbed the blood off Aran’s skin, and Jax wrapped belts around her limbs to stop the blood flow.
Her chest kept moving, but she was glacier cold.
Xerxes stopped pouring liquid down her throat and started stabbing her with various needles.
Jinx helped Ascher pull out bullets.
Glass from the window breaking had left long gashes across her body. Jala, Cobra, and Jess stitched them up.
Warren handed over supplies, wet rags, and drugs as Xerxes shouted at him to grab things.
Exhausted from using my powers, I could do nothing but lie among the carnage, praying that my friend would be okay.
Hours passed.
Aran’s condition didn’t change.
I stared down at her face, willing her to wake up.
I swore at her. Called her every dirty word I could think of. Promised to hunt her down in the valley of the sun god if she dared leave me.
Warren said something about the ball coming up.
I screamed expletives at him until he paled and said nothing of it again.
Xerxes kept working, injecting and stabbing her, ordering maids to get different drugs from the store. They came back with bags full, and he mindlessly stabbed her with needles.
Ascher pulled out bullet after bullet, working at an exhausting pace, refusing to stop until the hundreds of shards had been removed from her flesh.
Aran didn’t wake.
Time ticked by faster.
I got light-headed, sweat pouring off my face and blurring my vision, as I used my blood powers for far longer than I should have.
Everything cramped, and the world spun around me.
If there was any truth to the third trial, we needed the brothers.
I didn’t release them.
There was a long, ragged breath, and someone hacked aggressively.
I turned my head to the side in slow motion, body like a starfish across the bloody foyer, toward my best friend.
Aran’s blue eyes were open, and she was coughing.
For the first time, tears leaked out of my eyes, and I choked on a shallow sob. I’d never known such relief.
There were no words for the sensation slamming through me.
I crawled toward her, sobbing.
The girls cried with me.
Tears streamed down Ascher’s face.
Xerxes helped Aran sit up, all of us wincing at her mangled state, the holes that still were gaping across her body.
She shouldn’t be alive.
After aggressively hacking, Aran choked out, “Ow.”
Everyone chuckled.
“You stupid fucking cunt,” I snarled, perspiration still half blinding me as my muscles burned.
Aran held up her arms and inspected the bullet holes covering them. “Shit.” Frost radiated off her, a cold mist that crackled in the air in a white fog.
“How dare you get yourself shot like this.” My voice trembled with anger as I glared at her.
“Shit,” Aran repeated as she looked around with wide eyes.
Her face fell as she took in my haggard appearance.
We both knew she was powerful; even if she avoided it, there was darkness inside her.
There was no way she’d been taken by surprise by a hail of bullets. No way she couldn’t have done something in that split second of gunfire to avoid them.
She looked down guiltily.
We both knew it.
I grabbed her by the tattered collar of her sweatshirt and pulled her close to my sweat-stained face. “You don’t get to leave me.”
Crystal-blue eyes sparked with fire as she stared back at me.
Hands tried to pull me off her, but my fingers didn’t release.
“Promise me!” I screamed into her face, shaking her with desperation. “Please,” my voice cracked with another sob.
Ever so slowly, she nodded, her mangled arms resting gingerly around my shoulders as she pulled me close.
“I’m a coward,” she whispered. “My back, my mother, the fae realm. It was all too much.”
I squeezed her back, and she trembled beneath me.
“But I promise. For you and the girls. I promise.”
“Um, Sadie.” Lucinda tugged at my arm, and I realized the pressure on my back was the five Ortega brothers hugging us.
I gagged, ordering them to get off. My mindless puppets stumbled away.
“The ball is in less than one hour. You have to go or you’ll fail the third trial. Your lives are still at risk,” Warren said frantically.
“Who’s that?” Aran asked.
“That’s Noodle, the ferret,” I spat in his direction and glared at him.
I still remembered him running around with underwear on his head.
It didn’t matter if the don gave him to Jinx to protect the girls like he’d claimed. The man was a pervert.
Aran swore vehemently, summing up the situation. “Why is he still alive?”
I shrugged. “He saved Jinx’s life. But I think Jax is just waiting to kill him.”
Warren paled.
“Do you feel alive?” I asked tentatively, unsure how my best friend seemed to be okay even though physically she clearly wasn’t.
“Not really, but I don’t feel dead.” Aran shrugged, then winced at the movement.
Everyone stood up and looked around, taking in the fact that all of us were covered in Aran’s blood and shards of glass.
We had less than an hour till the ball.
A maid, who stood next to Xerxes, holding supplies, gestured up the stairs and said, “The don delivered lots of formal wear yesterday so you could choose what you liked best. It’s in your closets.”
Xerxes stared down at the sheet he’d had the maids place over Walter’s dead body.
I could read the question on his face. It was the same one I was asking myself.
How were we supposed to go to a ball after everything that had happened? How were we supposed to act normal after all this?
Jax cracked his neck. “Everyone is attending. The girls and Aran. We’re sticking together.”
We all nodded in agreement, although I grimaced down at Aran’s gaping wounds.
Ascher gestured at Aran. “We need to get her a hoverchair. She can’t walk.”
Xerxes said something to the maids, and they scurried off.
“Sit here and stay,” I ordered the Ortega brothers, my limbs shaking from the strain of commanding them.
The world wobbled around me, but I forced myself to act normal as I turned to Ascher. “Please carry Aran to our bedroom. I need to clean her up.”
He nodded and picked her up gingerly.
Lucinda went to hold my hand, but Cobra picked me up before she could grab it.
“You’re almost done, Kitten. You can do this,” he whispered down at me. “Deep breaths,” he coached.
Annoyance sparked.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said weakly.
Cobra chuckled even though his eyes were tight with concern as he carried me to the bedroom.
The shadow snake on my back sent me images of support, like I was a weakling who needed his help.
“Fuck you,” I growled and sent back violent images. “I don’t need your help.”
“No, Kitten,” Cobra whispered as the snake sent me images of love and warmth. “I fuck you.”
He winked as he turned on the shower and set me down on the toilet next to it. Ascher gingerly set Aran on the floor next to the tub.
Cobra left the room, but Ascher lingered.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Ascher asked as he narrowed his eyes at my sweat-stained face and trembling muscles.
I would never forget how he’d dug the bullets out of Aran for hours, working tirelessly to save my best friend.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice catching.
Ascher’s tattoos rippled across his torso as he dragged his fingers along my hairline and leaned over me.
“Princess, you understand I would do anything for you?” His amber eyes were dark with intensity as he stared down at me.
“Anything,” he repeated.
I swallowed thickly. He’d thrown himself face first off a platform in the fae realm to cushion my fall with his body.
“I know, Ascher. You’ve shown me.”
The big man fell to his knees in front of me, his tattooed biceps lying on either side of the toilet as he caged me in.
Intoxicating pine filled my nose.
Ascher said, “I know I’ve fucked up in the past, and I have some anger issues, but I would go to the ends of the earth for you, Sadie.”
He swallowed thickly, flames leaping across his throat. “You’re my everything,” he said as he dragged a colorful knuckle across my lips.
The man who was closest to my age, who’d already killed hundreds of people, trembled before me.
“I love you, Princess,” Ascher whispered as he leaned his head forward so our foreheads touched.
He inhaled deeply, and his voice broke. “I love you so fucking much it terrifies me. I don’t know how to fucking take care of someone. Don’t know how to be something for anybody. But I want to be someone for you.”
I held my breath as a buzzing sensation spread across my chest.
“Princess, I want to take care of you. I want to love you.”
I exhaled shakily. “I love you too, Ascher. I want to take care of you too.”
Ascher grabbed my face and slammed his warm lips against mine, consuming me with his mouth until all I knew was the heady scent of pine.
He pulled back. “Even if you have crazy fucking friends.”
I chuckled and punched him in the arm weakly. His hands on my face were the only things keeping me sitting upright as exhaustion pummeled through me.
“Please, don’t mind me,” Aran drawled. “Should we all do celebratory anal now that we’ve established we all love each other?”
Ascher chuckled as I groaned with embarrassment.
Why was she like this?
“No, please continue,” Aran said. “I only puked in my mouth six times.” She lowered her voice in a mockery of Ascher’s. “Oh, baby, I love you so much I just wanna protect you and have your babies and be a little bitch for you.”
“Oh, fuck off. You’re just jealous,” Ascher said as he rolled his eyes at her.
Aran continued, “Is he always this sappy? I’ve literally never been so embarrassed for someone in my entire life. Did you plan that speech beforehand, because if so, I’m ashamed for you, man. You should have come to me first.”
“All right, I’m leaving,” Ascher said as he stood up and looked down at me. “Are you sure you’re okay, Princess?”
The corners of his mouth pulled up in the cutest little smile, like he was still buzzing from telling me he loved me.
Sun god, he was adorable.
Six feet, five inches of tattoos, muscles, and sweetness.
I grinned back at him, then rolled my eyes dramatically. “We’re fine. I’m not some weak woman that’s going to collapse as soon as the men leave.” I pushed my shoulders back and projected competence. “Go get ready. We don’t have time.”
With furrowed brows, Ascher backed out of the bathroom, eyes on my face as he waited for me to ask for help.
“Love you,” he said softly, a red tint staining the tops of his golden cheeks, before he turned around and hurried away.
My heart soared as my body gave out on me at the same time. I slumped forward, exhaustion hammering through me.
“So we both agree that was cringy and embarrassing?”
“Oh, shut it,” I groaned at Aran as I collapsed onto my knees in front of her. “No, it was sweet,” I mumbled under my breath defensively.
“So how are we going to do this?” Aran asked, changing the subject with a weak chuckle, her face a bloodstained mess.
Her gore covered my skin.
“The only way we can,” I said with conviction, then awkwardly shoved her body over the lip of the tub into the shower.
Immediately, I collapsed beside her.
We lay together under the hot spray, fully clothed, unable to move, limbs tangled, as I handed her a bar of soap and we both scrubbed weakly at our skin.
The water ran red around us.
“I think we’re cursed,” I said through gritted teeth as I picked shards of glass out of my skin, the water stinging unbearably.
Aran haphazardly rubbed soap across the holes still dotting her flesh.
Bloody limbs entangled in the tub. It was a morbid scene.
“You know, they banned guns in the fae realm because enchanted bullets don’t just kill shifters.”
Aran paused.
“They also kill fae.”
Droplets slammed against the tub and hammered our sensitive flesh.
Aran turned her head and pulled her hair back to expose her neck and ears. “My hair wasn’t the only thing that changed when I took off my mother’s toe ring.”
It took me a second to process what she was showing me.
Then it hit me. “Well, fuck.”
Aran slumped against me, and I patted her head as we lay dejectedly under the warm spray.
Thinking about how everything was messed up, thinking about how nothing was what it seemed.
Because Arabella Alis Egan, fae princess, rightful ruler of the fae realm, heir to the seat of death, daughter of the fae queen, wanted fae monarch, didn’t have fae ears.
Aran wasn’t fae.
