The Rise of Fortune and Fury (Chronicles of the Stone Veil #5) - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,15

protected me from the pine tree top about to crush my body.

But fuck it… he’s a proven member of our team, and I’m the one who moves in for a hug. I get just a glimpse of his eyes widening in shock before I throw my arms around his neck for a hard squeeze, which he returns far more exuberantly than his son had.

“Are you hungry?” Zaid asks, and I nod effusively.

“The dungeon fare was awful,” I quip, and everyone around me looks horrified.

Carrick steps forward, taking my hand. “How about we get you into a hot shower while Zaid prepares you something to eat, then we get you to bed?”

I smile at Carrick—a smile that says, ‘you’re sweet but a little patronizing’. I shake my head. “How about we sit down and talk right now about what we’re facing because things have drastically changed and I know we’re all reeling.”

The dubious look I get from Carrick is expected, but because he knows I don’t want to be coddled and he respects my grit, he glances at Zaid and says, “Fix her up some food and let’s talk.”

Everyone gathers around the kitchen island at their usual seats, but this is the first time Boral has taken a meal with the entire team. It’s the first time he was not specifically excluded.

Zaid pulls out the fixings for a club sandwich, and I grab a bottle of water from the fridge before I take the stool in between Rainey and Carrick.

While I’m sure they all heard from Zaid what had happened at Arwen’s home in Faere, Rainey asks me to tell it again.

So I do.

“Why didn’t you just open the veil and leave the minute you heard Pyke’s voice?” Myles asks.

The question is legit. In hindsight, I wish I’d done that. All I can do is shrug. “I thought he was a friend.”

“You were smart enough to have Zaid leave with the Blood Stone, though,” Maddox praises me. “Friend or not, he didn’t need to know you had it.”

“But he already did know,” I mutter, feeling foolish to have been taken so easily. “He had that damn tracking spell on it and—”

A thought strikes me, and I whip toward Carrick. “Did you put a tracking spell on the Blood Stone before you gave it to Kymaris?”

“I did,” Carrick replies, but his expression is grim. “It’s gone, though. I can’t feel it.”

“It was worth a try,” I say with a pat to his knee. “I expected someone of her power and cunning would check.”

Zaid slides a plate before me, my sandwich cut into triangular quarters with a side of chips. “Thank you,” I say, picking up a section of sandwich and taking a grateful bite.

“Where did Pyke take you?” Rainey asks.

I chew, chew, and chew some more before swallowing. “I don’t know. The house felt incredibly old European, and there was a dungeon complete with cold, wet floors and heavy chains.

“Fuck,” Carrick snarls, and I know that when he gets ahold of Pyke, he’s going to suffer.

“It wasn’t that bad,” I reassure him, not for Pyke’s benefit but for Carrick’s. “As far as chains can go, I was comfortable. Able to sit with my hands before me.”

“And did you see Kymaris?” Rainey presses for the story.

I nod, picking up my sandwich again. “I was surprised how much she’d healed from the explosion. But she doesn’t think much of me. Said I was nothing special.”

“Proving she’s as much an idiot as I thought her to be,” Carrick mutters.

Setting my sandwich down, I wipe my mouth with a paper towel Zaid had provided before pushing my plate back. “I need to tell you how they came to be together. It’s a decades-long relationship.”

“What?” more than one around the island exclaims.

“I just assumed he sought her out after we got the Blood Stone,” Maddox says incredulously.

I shake my head. “No, they met a long time ago when Pyke was able to see her through the veil that separated Faere from the Underworld.”

The entire story takes a few minutes, and my food goes ignored. I tell them how he saw her, talked to her, and traveled into the Underworld to see her. How they concocted the plan to take over the Earth realm, and how he’s the one who put the entire changeling ritual into place, as well as the one who visited my sister monthly to pump her full of magic once Kymaris went into stasis.

That gets a growl from Carrick. “I expect you might want