use me as an excuse to start a war here. I faced Baron and Rowan. “I want you to leave. If you have issues with me, you can take it up with me outside the club after my shift is over.”
“I’ll never harm you, Evie,” Rowan said, frowning at me, anger beating in him. “You know that.”
“I don’t know anything anymore!” I said. “You keep making my life difficult.”
“I was trying to protect you as I vowed to do,” Rowan protested.
“You need to learn to have faith in me, Evie,” Baron said. “I’ll take care of this, and that fucking asshole will never come near you again.”
They couldn’t be reasoned with while white-hot rage rode them, even though they were trying to be patient with me as the tension kept rising in the room.
They wouldn’t leave until they bled Rydstrom.
“Please, Rowan, Baron, just leave,” I said. “We can talk this out when I get home. I’ll even make spaghetti for you tonight if you leave now.”
“You heard the lady,” Rydstrom said coldly, his voice like a sharp blade striking from above. He’d come out to the balcony and glared down at the other kings. “She asked you to leave, so leave, or I’ll make you. And Evelina, you don’t need to cook anything for them.”
I glared at him. He was no less arrogant than the other kings.
The Night King leapt from the balcony and landed with the lethal grace of a panther before Baron and Rowan, and now the two brothers, Rydstrom, and I formed a triangle.
“Summer King and Winter King,” Rydstrom pronounced. “You aren’t welcome in my domain.”
“When did you expand your Night Court to the mortal realm?” Rowan retorted. “Next you’d claim the entire Earth as yours. Is that your ambition or idiocy?”
“That’s not the point, Winter King,” Baron snapped. “Focus. We came to take back what’s ours. After we combine our forces and erase him, we’ll level this place and take Evie home.”
Rydstrom darted a glance at me, and I growled at him for what he had done to me last night. He didn’t seem offended. Instead, a wicked delight sparked in his sapphire eyes.
“Hello, Evelina. I missed you,” he purred, just to anger his rivals more.
“You’ll pay with your life for marking what’s mine, asshole,” Rowan said icily, raising his blade to charge the Night King.
“Wait a second!” I shouted. “I’m no one’s. I belong to myself, and my loyalty is strictly to my family! And you know what? It’s only going to get worse and messy with all three of you. My life was so nice and simple before I met you.” Which wasn’t exactly true. My life had gone downhill the day my parents had disappeared without a trace. “So, I quit,” I yelled more. “I’m done with all of you and I mean it! Indira, please pour me the strongest drink. After that, I’m getting the hell out of here.”
“You can’t quit, Evelina,” Rydstrom said silkily. “We have a magical contract. I haven’t resolved you.”
“We are not done, Evie, far from it,” Rowan said, looking furious and devastated, and his eyes burned with icy fire. “You’re mine and no one else’s.”
“Calm, Evie,” Baron said. “Go take a break and sit tight over there. I’ll kill the Night King, resolve any contract you have with him, and scratch his stinky mark off you.”
My face burned with fury. Hardass Fae didn’t know when to quit. “This—this—” I was too mad to string words together.
A strong wind of three sources—winter, summer, and night—lifted me and transported me out of the combat range.
Then Baron’s sunbeam blasted toward Rydstrom. The room brightened as if a small sun had dropped in the club. The vampires screamed. The shifters howled. And everyone else groaned in pain and shielded their eyes, including Indira. I was the only one immune to the Summer King’s sun power, even though the brightness was a bit too much for my taste.
Shadows surged out of Rydstrom like a dark flood and met Baron’s sunbeam, dimming the room an instant later. Taking advantage of that, patrons fled toward the entrance or the back exit.
Rowan bellowed as he flung a current of ice spears toward Rydstrom, intending to punch as many holes as possible in his foe, and Rydstrom’s starlight lashed out.
Their magics locked in a death duel. Where their powers collided, a terrible vortex formed and started expanding, wild wind whipping around the club as it grew.
“Get out of here, Evie,” the three kings called.
The ground shook.