Only Saint’s power—the skill of projecting and altering mental realities—even came close. Just the thought of that bloodmad fucker in power was enough to curl my lip.
“I can freeze time,” Ajax offered.
I directed my snarl toward the Hunter.
He shrugged.
“Hawke, I understand why you want to keep them. I also know that if I let you into that room, whoever is waiting for us—Saint or Samuel— won’t make it out alive. And then I’m facing all-out war. So, it’s your choice. You stay here with your knives, or your knives stay here while you come with us.” Alek arched his dark brows and waited for me to decide.
I muttered a swear word and unsheathed all six of my knives, leaving them on the table where everyone had deposited their own weapons. “This is stupid.”
“We agreed to their stipulation of no weapons,” Lachlan, Alek’s second in command, said in his thick, Scottish bur.
“Acting with honor when no one else does will eventually get you killed,” I said to Alek.
“Noted.” There was a twinge of a smile as we readied ourselves to enter the chamber.
We might be going in without weapons, but we weren’t defenseless. Any of our abilities were enough to wage war without steel or bullets.
The Conclave chamber was slightly cooler than the hallway as we walked into the stone-walled, domed structure that had existed beneath the Edgemont Opera House for centuries. It was our neutral ground, where the leaders of vampires, witches, demons, lycans, and humans met to maintain our alliances and keep the laws we’d all agreed to hundreds of years ago in the Covenant.
But tonight, it served as the grown-up equivalent of meeting us behind the gym after school. Saint and Samuel more than deserved to have their asses kicked. I wanted them fucking dead.
Alek stood in front of his chair, Lachlan, Benedict, and I by his side—Ransom stayed at home for defense. Across from us, where the witch queen usually sat, stood Samuel and another vampire that made me blink. It wasn’t Saint, but James, one of the oldest aristocrats left in our society—the twins’ uncle. As far as I knew, he hadn’t been seen, or heard from, in over fifty years.
Completing our triangle, the Hunters—the powerful vampires we’d awakened to help us fight our war against the Sons of Honor—stood equidistant from us both. Zachariah, their leader, folded his arms and glanced between Alek and Samuel, with Dagon, Talon, and Ajax standing slightly behind him, as though the group hadn’t quite decided which side they owed their loyalty to. The six of them had been a brotherhood for hundreds of years.
“You didn’t bring Saint?” I asked Samuel directly, kicking off our little parley.
James spared me a glance. “How do you know he’s not Saint? They’re identical, aren’t they?”
I cocked my head to the side, picking up on Samuel’s energy. “Nawh. Samuel has more of this whole Superman vibe thing going for him.” Samuel’s gaze clashed with mine, and I bared my teeth. “His worst fear is failure.”
Samuel hissed in a breath.
“Saint, however, is straight-up villain energy, crimson-edged irises and all.” My eyes narrowed on Samuel. “But don’t for one fucking second think you’re the hero in all this, because it were up to me, you’d be dead right now. You deserve death for daring to kidnap Avianna.” I felt another fear from just behind the pair…insignificance. “Who did you bring with you?”
Lachlan moved in front of Alek as another form walked out of the shadows.
The head warlock of the Greenbriar coven took his place at Samuel’s side. You have to be fucking kidding me. They’d made themselves an inter-species alliance.
Lachlan retreated, recognizing the lack of threat to our king.
“Funny,” Benedict drawled. “I remember you preaching that you’d never steal power from another coven, Greenbriar.”
“Maybe our coven seeks to ally itself to the true royal line of the vampires.”
“Fuck you,” Benedict snapped.
“Enough.” Alek’s simple command was enough to silence every voice in the room. “The penalty for kidnapping a member of the royal family is death. What do you have to say for yourself, Samuel?”
“I speak for this family.” James stepped forward. His cheeks were gaunt, but there was no red in his eyes to make me think he’d fallen into bloodmadness. “And while we will…admit to her arrival at our family’s estate as being unorthodox, she stayed by her own will.”
My jaw clenched. She’d stayed because she’d wanted to spy on our enemy.
Stubborn, naive, beautiful female.
Your female.
I pushed that thought straight out of my fucking head. Now was not the time. Never was the right time, but definitely not now.
“I would say that her willing participation, both by remaining as our honored guest and happily signing the pre-betrothal agreement, would negate any such penalty.” He flashed a ruthless smile.
I stepped forward.
Alek lifted his hand, and I paused. “Where is Saint?”