The Summer King Bundle 3 Stories - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,192

be one once married to the freaking King of the Summer fae? Sure, they’d kept Ivy on, and she was a halfling. And Miles was open to things that other sects would’ve been dead set against. But Caden had…well, Caden was different.

Did I even want to be an Order member?

Being part of the Order was ingrained in my blood and bones. What would I be without my duty? Not that there was anything wrong with being a wife and a mother, but I needed more than that.

But the better question was, should I even still be Order when I wouldn’t turn over highly necessary information about how the gates could be opened at any time by Caden?

While I had my little moral crisis, Caden was saying, “Unless she’s somehow tripled in power, which is impossible, there is no way for her to physically open the gate.”

“They can worship her like she’s a god,” Fabian chimed in. “But they cannot free her simply by praying for it to happen. What they would need is impossible.”

Not exactly…

I wasn’t sure if Ren accepted the answer or not, but he quieted as I unscrewed the lid of the bottle. There was no fizz. Was it flat? I sighed, but flat soda was better than none. I took a drink, relieved to feel some carbonation, although it sort of tasted like...like diet? I checked the bottle just to make sure I could read properly. It wasn’t diet. Looking up, I saw Fabian frowning at his opened bottle.

“Luce has some information to share,” Tanner announced, drawing my attention.

Luce nodded. “I was able to do a rapid test thanks to Benji’s affinity for spitting when I went in to see him.”

My lip curled as I took another drink.

“I was also able to get a urine sample,” she said, and Caden’s brows lifted. “You do not want to know how I accomplished that.”

“I was there for it. She is right,” Ren tossed out.

“I’ll take both of your words on that,” Caden said, and I grinned a little.

“This isn’t entirely comprehensive.” She opened the folder. “But from his saliva, I was able to determine that he hadn’t consumed any alcohol in the last two hours, but there were trace amounts in his urine.”

“What does that mean?” Faye asked.

“It means that he drank at some point in the last ninety days, but not recently, and not a lot. If the Devil’s Breath is still being mixed with nightshade and liquor, I don’t believe he’s consumed any of it in the last couple of days.”

Faye started to speak and then stopped to swallow before finding her voice. “But we don’t know how long the Devil’s Breath influences a fae.”

“From what I’ve learned about the borrachero, it’s that it only stays in a human’s system for four hours and then is utterly undetectable in blood tests,” Luce stated carefully.

I recognized that tone. Not the greatest news was coming. I started to drown my sorrow in my soda.

“I can one hundred percent say that it works the same in one of us—that it’s only effective in terms of making one susceptible to persuasion for a short period of time. But there were no traces of scopolamine—the drug most similar here—in his system.” Luce drew in a shallow breath. “I know these results don’t tell us much.”

“But what do you think it does tell us?” Caden asked, sensing there was something she wanted to add.

“This isn’t my specialty,” she started.

“I know. Tell us what you think.”

She nodded curtly as she folded her hands over the file. “I think that Devil’s Breath is only a part of the equation here. We know certain drugs and food and drinks react differently in us. Nightshade for example is poisonous to humans, but it gives us the same effect as some alcoholic beverages do. We also know that scopolamine, in most forms, is absolutely harmless to humans and fae. It’s a common ingredient in motion sickness medication but when it’s chemically processed into what we know as Devil’s Breath, it’s a different story. The fae could obviously be susceptible to it, but I have no reason to believe that it wouldn’t have worn off by now. Very few human drugs have any impact on us.”

Faye shook her head. “What…what does that mean exactly?”

“What I believe that means is there is a missing link. Something we don’t know,” she said. “And I know that’s not exactly helpful, but there has to be something used or done in addition to