True to his word, Garrin had held Lex as they grabbed a few hours of sleep. And that was all they’d done.
What in the hell? Now that her hormones had been activated, why did people decide to show up and ruin the moment? Lex had wanted to investigate these new sensations Garrin brought out in her. Only she’d accidentally shattered their privacy wall during her exploration.
Somehow, Garrin had managed to pass out after the entire cave caught Lex and Garrin in a compromising position. It had felt amazing to be held by Garrin as night turned to dawn, but whatever happened to men not being able to think of anything besides sex? Instead, it had been Lex who slept fitfully, aching to do more than sleep, and now that they were awake, she was still thinking about it.
Lex sat around the large firepit with Garrin and the others as they plotted their escape. But not everyone was plotting. Some were preparing in other ways.
The sound of swords clashing rent the air as Amund deflected a strike from Em while eating Allon bread from her parents’ house.
Em glared at the food in Amund’s hand and thrust forward with more force. “Keep it up, portal maker, and I’ll cut you into ribbons.”
Amund took another bite. “Still waiting for you to give me a reason to use two hands.”
Lex tilted her head toward Garrin beside her. “I’ve never seen Em upset.”
Garrin glanced up from the pebble and dirt map he’d been creating with Zirel. He took in his former courtier and Amund for the first time, and his brow lifted. “I don’t know Em as well as some of my other courtiers, but she’s not known to anger easily. I wonder…”
At that moment, Em must have reached her limit for patience because she growled like a wild animal, levitated, and roundhouse-kicked Amund on the side of the head.
He stumbled and shook his head.
Lex stood abruptly, along with Garrin and Zirel. All eyes in the cave were on Em, who was back on solid ground and smirking at Amund.
Garrin chuckled. “Told you not to tease my courtiers.”
A smile slowly curved Amund’s lips, and he threw his food aside. “No more playtime. Now we fight.”
Apparently, that was when the real fighting began. Because Em started hopping all over the cave, jumping off walls, levitating for brief moments, and deflecting Amund’s quick swordsmanship.
“Umm…should we worry?” Lex said.
Garrin had resumed his mapmaking. “She can handle him.”
“I’m talking about Amund. Em looks pissed.”
Em made another impressive leap, kicking off the wall and the ceiling before doing a backflip and landing on the ground.
Lex’s jaw went slack. “Since when can you levitate?” she said to Em.
Em was crouched, waiting for Amund’s counterattack. Her face scrunched. “I can only do it for a second or two, the same as my other ability.”
“Does everyone from Dark Kingdom have multiple powers?”
“Many do.” This from Keen, who stood across the cave observing Garrin’s meticulous mapmaking, commenting on strategy from time to time. He lifted his chin in Zirel’s direction. “Healer and partial empath.” Then across to Jas. “Glamourist and illusionist.”
Jas snickered. “I made you plain-looking on Earth, but even then, you attracted attention. I created illusions of you tripping and knocking into people to put others off.”
Lex held up her hand. “Are you telling me the reason girls in college hated me is because you made them see things they weren’t actually seeing?”
Jas sipped a jug of brune someone had smuggled in. “Precisely. The men were less deterred, so I got more creative with them.”
Lex’s jaw dropped. “I hate you. No wonder I had no friends… Wait, what did you show men?”
Jas looked up as though sifting through his metal Rolodex. “One particularly ardent male started trailing you incessantly, so I showed him you picking your no—”
“You did not! What the hell, Jasper?”
“You have my respect,” Garrin said to Jas.
Lex’s gaze darted between the two men. “I have PTSD from students ostracizing me, and you’re happy he kept men away?”
“Certainly,” Garrin said without looking up.
She smacked him in the arm, and he grinned.
Lex turned to her mother. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
Isle stared at the fire. “It was necessary.”
Jas frowned at some move Garrin had made on the map. “You may not like my methods, but it was how I kept you hidden on Earth.”
Lex wrapped her arms around her knees. Necessary or not, she was going to be scarred for the rest of her life thanks to her loving family. “Did you take away my powers too?”
Jas looked up. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. Your mother enlisted alchemists for that part.”
Isle straightened her back, her chin squared. “Someone at the castle owed me a favor.”
Garrin set down his map markers. “You didn’t think it would put your daughter’s life at risk asking for help from a castle alchemist?”
Isle glared. “No, prince, I did not. The alchemist was in love with Camille. At the time, he was also extremely angry at your father and would have done anything for her and her friends.”
Lex sensed anger boiling off Garrin. Interesting though the conversation was, tempers were rising. “What about your power, Keen?” She’d ask her mother more about that alchemist thing later.
Keen grinned. “I have the power of telepathy.”
“You can hear our thoughts?”
“Indeed,” Keen said, and grinned, a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh. Ohh.” Crap. Images of Lex and Garrin before everyone had walked in on them last night crossed her mind, and her face flushed. Was Keen reading her thoughts and how much she desired Garrin?
“Yes,” Keen answered.
Lex sat up straight. “Stop that!”
Garrin stood, his bright eyes pinning the Old Kingdom king. “Mess with my woman once more, and it will be the last thing you do.”
Reese lifted her head and yawned after a nap she’d been taking on Keen’s shoulder. “Lover, you are being super annoying right now.”
“Me annoying? Never,” Keen said.
“It isn’t polite to embarrass people,” she said. “Don’t make me teach you a lesson.” Reese stood and started walking toward the back of the cave, her expression mischievous.
Keen’s gaze trailed Reese, and the apples of his cheeks turned red. He slowly stalked her as she giggled and disappeared down the corridor.
“What just happened?” Lex murmured.
Garrin crouched and added another pebble to his map. “Reese can make people feel whatever she wants.” Garrin chuckled. “She used it to distract him.”
Lex’s eyes went wide. Was he talking about what she thought he was talking about?
Lex leaned over until she was inches away. “What sort of distracting?”
Garrin stared at her mouth, his nostrils flaring lightly. “Can you not guess?”
“I might need more lessons, since my boyfriend fell asleep on me last night.”
He dipped his head closer and nuzzled her neck. “I wasn’t sure if it was too soon. And your mother’s threat of death was a deterrent.”
“You’re afraid of my mother?”
He pulled her closer until her hip touched his side and continued nuzzling her neck. “I do not wish to get on the bad side of the mother of my girlfriend.”
“She already hates you by nature of your paternity.”
He leaned back, and a disturbed look crossed his face. “I suppose that is true.”
Lex clung to his muscular arm. “She doesn’t know you. She still believes you’re like your father.”
“He is like his father,” Isle said, clearly listening in on their conversation.
Lex shot her mother a glare.
Garrin tucked her hair behind her ear and cradled her cheek with his palm, forcing her to look at him. “Would you like me to stay awake tonight?”
Lex glanced in her mother’s direction, but she’d finally gotten the hint and walked off to talk with Camille. “Only if you want.”
He leaned over and kissed her softly. “I want.”
Instead of returning to their love cave, Garrin insisted on finishing details of their escape plan. Not exactly romantic, but he was trying to keep them alive, so point taken.
Lex joined Em and Amund to get pointers on how to fight—and to try something she’d thought about earlier. “Do that levitating thing again, Em. Only do it when I say this time, okay?”
Em glanced over while blocking a blow from Amund. “Why?”
“I want to try something.”
Em sidestepped a slashing sword maneuver by Amund, then made a vicious cut at his body, which he managed to deflect. That was how all their attacks ended—a hairsbreadth from severing a limb.
“For the record, watching you two is stressing me out.”
Their movements were fast as hell. Faster than the battle practice Lex had witnessed inside Garrin’s court. But in this battle play, Em seemed to be giving it everything she had.
Energy wafted off Em, so much so that Lex could easily detect it. Not so much Em’s power level, which only Amund and Camille were good at reading, but the cocktail of energy that made up her unique magic. And the magic she used to levitate was different from what she used to Blend.
Lex saw her window of opportunity and yelled, “Now!”
Em leapt into the air and levitated. Only this time, she didn’t fall a second or two later. She remained rooted on invisible strings powered by Lex.
Em’s arms swung in the air, and she nearly dropped her sword when her natural landing didn’t come.
Lex blinked, her eyes burning, unable to hold the magic.
A few seconds later, Em landed on the ground, her sword at her side. She looked over in surprise. “Can you boost my magic and someone else’s at the same time?”
Lex’s hands shook as her mind relaxed and she regained her strength. “I don’t know.” The amount of concentration it had taken to hold Em’s magic was intense.
She glanced at Garrin, but he was already staring at her. And he wasn’t alone.
Everyone in the room was staring. The only person who didn’t appear surprised was her mother, standing off to the side with a smug look on her face.
“Do it again.” Em bent her knees in a ready stance.
“Reading your power and pushing it back at you took mental energy, Em. I don’t know if I can do it right away. Pretty sure I can’t hold you there and boost someone else’s power at the same time.”
Isle stepped forward. “You can, if you split your mind.”
Had she lost it? “I’m a decent multitasker, but I’m pretty sure I can’t do that,” Lex said.
“As a human, no, but you are no longer human, daughter. Only your memory tells you that you are.”
Garrin sent Isle a cutting look. “And who is to blame for that? You wiped her consciousness, leaving scraps behind.”
“I did what any mother would—I saved my child’s life. From your father, Dark Prince, if you recall. Even if my daughter had been fully grown and capable of her magic, she could not have stood against the Dark King and his soldiers.”
Isle paced the cave. “There was a reason I hid, and not simply because I was of noble blood and Casone would have wished me to be a part of his court. I feared your father finding Lex and discovering who she was. Of him discovering what she was.”
Lex pinched her eyes closed. What was her mother talking about now?
Isle stopped pacing and leveled a look at Garrin. “Regardless of my desperate actions, your father figured it out. When, I do not know. I thought I had hidden us well, but I worry now it wasn’t me Casone wanted the day he buried me. Zirel’s kin said the Dark King heard tale of my daughter—and of her father.”
Garrin’s brow furrowed. “Who was her father?”
Lex huffed out a breath. “Whoever it was, he wasn’t in my life.”
“Of course he was,” Isle said. “He simply was not of this realm, preferring to watch over you from afar.”
“A human?” Garrin shook his head. “Impossible. Her power is like none in our land. We’ve already determined she isn’t Halven but full Fae.”
Isle raised one eyebrow. “No, not Halven.”
Garrin’s jaw clenched. “Speak plainly. There is no other realm besides Tirnan and the Earth realm.”
“Is there not?” Isle slowly looked around the room. “There is a realm from which we all hail. From which our forefathers came.”
Garrin blinked, and his gaze shot to Lex. “You mean to say she…she is…”
“My husband Kushiel was sent down to condemn the Dark King. Lex’s father was an angel.”
