Mom answered.
“What about Stryx? Shouldn’t he be here for this since I’m already bonded to him?” My little feathered friend better hurry back from Dásos before I got cold feet.
“He doesn’t need to be, but if you’d rather wait for him, we certainly can.” Mom didn’t sound confident that would be the best choice, but I was beginning to consider it. As the realization that he wasn’t present really set in, my stomach began to knot up.
“I’m not sure. Something doesn’t feel right now that we’re here,” I said, glancing around for any signs that something was amiss.
Dad wrapped an arm tighter around me. “You have full say in what happens today, sweet girl. If you’d rather wait, then that’s what we’ll do. None of us are going anywhere.”
“Let’s just get to the council room, and I’ll see if anyone has heard from Stryx. Maybe he’ll be here soon. He did say he’d be back today.” I really hoped that was the case, because all of a sudden, there was a heaviness pressing down on me. Any positive thoughts I’d had back at the house were long gone. Something on an instinctual level was telling me nothing was okay anymore, and I was afraid to find out I was right.
My pace picked up as we moved through the town hall, eager to figure out what had me so on edge. Except, when we rounded the corner to the meeting room, my steps faltered, and we stopped. “There’s something dark in that room. It’s pulling me forward, yet everything within me says to run the other way. Who is in there?”
Concern was etched deeply into both of their faces. “It should just be the council, Jordan, and Ryland. I don’t sense anyone else,” Mom said warily.
Before we could decide what to do, there was a scream muffled by the walls, though there was no mistaking the terror that induced it. With trembling hands, all three of us ran for the door, and I wondered just where Jordan and Ryland were. If they weren’t okay, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through anything else.
When we arrived, my dad flung open the door to a setting that would forever be engraved into my darkest memories.
Chapter Twenty-Two
One of the council members was lying stomach-down on the table, eyes open, yet lifeless. There was blood splattered everywhere, but I couldn’t see her wounds, making me assume they were all in the front pressed against the table that was also covered in crimson liquid.
My eyes found Ryland, who was standing next to a furious Jordan and staring at the back of the room. I followed their gazes and met the smirking face of a stranger who didn’t belong in Arvayta. With stark-white hair that was shaved short at the sides and a few inches long at the top, his pointed ears and sharply angled cheekbones stood out, along with the nearly black eyes staring at me.
“My love, I’m so glad you finally arrived. And look at you! Positively exquisite,” the man who I then assumed to be Alaryk purred.
Everything about him was light except for his eyes, and it was hard to believe he was supposed to be a dark fae, but when he smiled at me, my skin crawled and I didn’t question the evil I knew he was capable of. It radiated off of him in rapid pulses.
“What are you doing here, Alaryk?” Dad roared.
Taking a moment, I glanced around the room, trying to see if anyone else was hurt besides Rosella, whose name I finally remembered when I had a moment to breathe. While the rest of the council wasn’t hurt, they were pinned to the wall by an invisible force.
Mathias, the head of the council, was red in the face as he fought against whatever magic was being used against them, but it seemed pointless.
“I’m here to claim my mate. I heard there would be a bonding ceremony today and assumed I should be present. She is destined to be mine after all.” Alaryk spoke with such confidence, he had me worried.
But what I was most concerned with was how in the hell he knew I was supposed to be bonded to Ryland when we’d only decided the night before. Who had betrayed us and why?
“I’m not yours. I don’t care what some prophecy said decades ago. I’m my own person and make my own decisions,” I said, taking a step forward.
If Alaryk wanted me for himself, I wasn’t