Page 105 of Fae Farewells

“Alania and Bowers are your targets,” I reminded myself. “I just need to bust through the ice.”

Then I relinquished control to the demon I shared a soul with, hoping she would give it back so that I could play.

Saturday, June 20th

Evening

We left our fancy prison with five stalkers in tow—two Winter sisters and a set of mates. I could feel them creeping along behind us as we wandered the halls. It took us all of seven minutes to bump into the Winter guards.

“We heard you were looking for us,” York stated, dipping his head. “We don’t know where Vaughn and Sloane have gone, but they left in a hurry.”

“You’re turning yourselves in?” one guard stammered, genuinely surprised by our surrender.

Briggs shrugged a massive shoulder. “We haven’t done anything wrong, and you’re just doing your job. This way seemed easier.”

“Hand the cuffs over,” I demanded, making the gimme motion with my fingers. “We’ll help you out.”

The man in front nodded slowly, like none of this made any sense to him. I got it. How many times had their prisoners asked to be restrained and willingly accepted going to the dungeon?

Probably very few.

But at least five...

The metal cuffs negated magic, though I didn’t have powers like the fae or mages. I was sure they affected Palmer. They would definitely stop Briggs’ shift, but they did nothing against his strength. With that thought, I assumed Stone’s powers were cut in half. Possibly even York too, though his magic wasn’t like any of the others.

For me, the cuffs were as good as human handcuffs.

Shitty.

They were shitty.

I wouldn’t bring that to their attention yet.

The guards led us through the backside of the palace, the halls more narrow than what we’d seen in the main areas. And dusty. Everything was so godsdamned dusty. We hadn’t seen a soul in this place other than the staff.

It was apparent now that Alania had grown paranoid. Either that or she’d already killed everyone, and we were late for the party.

We went down the stairwell near the kitchen, but we didn’t get any farther than that.

During our parade here, I’d learned this room was called the execution room. And that dark pit of doom-filled water was where they dropped the bodies. The guards didn’t like using it, believing the dead should be turned over to their families for reincarnation, but their queen ordered it so…

That was where Freya and Ruby chose to cut the guards off.

I couldn’t knock their spin on Trouble’s plan, though. If anything went wrong, we could drown everyone and call it a day.

“Stop,” Freya commanded, freezing the guards in place.

“These men are not under arrest,” Ruby informed them.

The man on my right looked uncomfortable. “The queen—”

“Is no longer your queen,” the spicy redhead growled.

Freya put her hand on Ruby’s forearm, calming her sister before she spoke again.

“We will give you two options. You should make your decision immediately, or we will consider your pause answer enough.”

“Princess—” a guard began.