Summer of Frost (28 page)

I smiled, and placed a hand over hers.
“Thank you.”

She beamed lovingly at me, but then threw an
icy glare at my mother before marching her way over to Meliantha
and the twins. My mother agreed to the temporary truce, earning a
grin from me in return even though it took great effort for her to
agree.

Oren caught my eye, and called me over. I
left my mother and greeted him with a warm embrace. He whispered in
my ear, “You’re hiding something,
ai dulin
. I can feel it.
What’s got you so excited that you can’t tell me?”

I snickered, and whispered back, “I can’t
tell you, but you’ll find out soon.”

I kissed him on the cheek, and moved to my
father, who crushed me in a bear hug.

“I’m so glad you’re all right,” my father
sighed. “We came to the Summer Court the moment we found out what
happened.”

“I’m okay. You know I can handle
myself.”

“That’s for damn sure.” He laughed. “Don’t
be mad, but I already gave Drake the fatherly lecture.”

Annoyed, I pulled out of his grasp. “What
did you say?”

He shrugged. “Nothing much really, just that
if he hurt you I’d come kill him.”

Shaking my head, I chuckled. “If he hurt me,
I’d kill him.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “That’s my
girl.”

Meliantha spotted me and waved me over to
her and Kalen where they were both holding onto the babies. I
kissed the little ones on the cheeks, and noticed my brother
gawking at me with a smirk on his face. “What is it, Kalen?”

“I was just thinking about something. When
you and Drake have babies, will they come out looking like
dragons?” he joked.

“Um … I hope not, and anyway, I don’t see
myself as the domesticated type yet.” One day I would love to have
kids, but I knew I wasn’t ready for them yet. Drake and I had too
many adventures to explore.

Meliantha giggled. “You say that now, but
I’m sure things will change. You’re in luck, though; I don’t see
Drake being the domesticated type either. Congratulations, by the
way, and I’m glad you made it home safely.”

I gave her a sideways hug since her daughter
was bundled in her arms. “Thank you, and I’m glad I did, too.”

My eyes then found Ariella and Brayden who
were both on opposite sides of the room. I felt sorry for Ariella
because even though she was smiling and playing with little
Merrick, I knew she had to be upset over my brother obviously
steering clear of her. He had to feel the connection, but being how
he’s always been, Brayden was the only man in my family that found
love as a weakness. Yes, he had women every now and again, but he
kept them a secret when he did. I just happened to always catch
them leaving his place in the middle of the night. I hoped Ariella
could melt that heart of his before she killed him, but the chances
were slim of that giving the death stare she gave him across the
room. Hopefully, they both would come to their senses.

Once I acknowledged everyone, I finally
ambled over to Drake, whose heated gaze had me melting. He pulled
me over by the arm and pressed his lips firmly to mine. “Watching
you yell at our mothers was priceless. I think everyone’s jaws
dropped when you did that.”

“I don’t know why I did it, it just came out
and I kept going with it.”

Drake draped his arm around my shoulder.
“Well, you did great with them. So how about we get this meeting
started?”

I nodded, eager to get it going. “Sounds
like a plan to me.”

Drake glided to the middle of the room and
spoke, grabbing the audience’s attention. “Thank you all for
coming. So many things have happened over the past couple of days,
and I knew we needed to discuss them in private. We don’t know who
to trust, so for now, anything important needs to be discussed with
only us.”

Nods and murmurs of agreement filled the
room. Drake continued once he had the approval from the room, “You
all know about Alston already, and that he was the one who took
Sorcha with the dark sorcerer’s help. Ariella is the next one on
his target, so we need to make sure she’s well protected. I know
more will be discussed once we plan her Guardian Ceremony. However,
something happened last night with Sorcha that concerns us all. The
dark sorcerer came to her in her dreams.”

The room crackled with dangerous energy as
soon as the dark sorcerer was mentioned. Drake eyed me and nodded
toward our families, signaling it was my turn to talk about the
dream. I joined Drake in the middle of the room and explained,
“When the dark sorcerer got my power, he must’ve acquired my
ability to dream walk. Basically, he wanted me to pass along a
message to everyone. He has a mortal army ready to fight, and with
that mortal army will come a slew of iron weapons, and we all know
what that can do to us. He also said he’s hidden the scroll where
no on other than he knows where to find it.”

Calista stepped forward. “How are we going
to defeat him if we don’t know how? We all know our guardian
weapons can hurt him, but that’s it, they don’t kill him. The
scroll was our only hope. There has to be some kind of spell that
could lead us to it.” She turned and addressed Elvena, “Surely
there’s something, right?”

Elvena had her eyes trained on me with a sly
grin on her face. She answered Calista, but kept her gaze
pinpointed on me. “I’m not aware of a spell to do that, child.
Although, for some reason I suspect the new Summer Queen has
something up her sleeve, and I mean that literally.”

Frozen, I stared at her in shock, my heart
pounding in my chest. How did she know that? Drake leaned over and
whispered in my ear, “What is she talking about?”

Elvena smiled and waved her hand in the air,
impatiently. “We’re waiting, child. You weren’t planning on keeping
everyone in the dark now were you?”

“How did you know?” I asked her, stuttering
in disbelief.

“I could sense it the moment you walked in
the room.”

Drake furrowed his brows in confusion. “Have
you been keeping secrets from me?”

“Yes, but I wanted it to be a surprise for
when we were all together.” I laughed and slowly pulled the hidden
object from underneath my sleeve and held it in the air. Gasps
reverberated through the room, along with cheers of excitement.
They all knew what it was.

Delighted, Drake asked, “Is that what I
think it is?”

I kissed him on the lips. “Yes!”

I carefully handed it to Elvena who held it
in her hands and gawked at it for the longest time. If anyone knew
how to read it clearly it’d be her. It was written in the Old Fae
language.

“How is this possible?” Drake questioned. “I
saw you give it to the sorcerer.”

“Oh, I did give a scroll to the dark
sorcerer, but it wasn’t the right one.” I spoke the last part while
glancing at Oren, wondering if he’d catch on.

He narrowed his eyes, contemplating my
meaning, and when he realized what I did he burst out laughing.
“Are you saying he has your letter instead of the scroll?”

I nodded cheerfully. “That’s exactly what
I’m saying. I guess being pissed at Drake paid off.”

“Hey!” Drake interceded. “Do you mind
explaining? I would sure like to know.”

Taking a deep breath, I let it all out with
a sigh. I kept my gaze on Drake when I answered, “Okay, here it
goes. When I went to the Spring Court to visit Meliantha, Kalen,
and the babies, I was so mad at you for being distant with me. I
didn’t expect you to think our dreams were real, but after the
dream where you told me to stay away from you I got angry. I was
mad, so I wrote a letter to you. The morning I was going to give it
to you, you had already left. I kept it and put it in my pouch on
my armor belt. When I got the scroll, I put it in there as well.
Then when the sorcerer came and demanded it, I carefully felt
around and picked the letter in hopes he wouldn’t notice.
Thankfully, he didn’t look at it before he hid it again.”

The room exploded into cheers and laughter
after the good news was spilled. Drake picked me up and swung me
around in his arms. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

“Oh, I know,” I agreed teasingly. “We have
the advantage now. He has no idea we have the scroll, which means
we’re going to surprise the hell out of him when we defeat
him.”

He set me down, and pierced me with a
serious glare. “Although, I think I’m kind of pissed you didn’t
tell me you had the scroll.”

I grinned. “A girl has to be able to have
some secrets.”

“Good luck, Drake. My little sister is
sneaky,” Kalen piped in, joining us. “She was always the sly one in
our family.”

I scowled at him half-heartedly. “No, I
think that would be you. Everything I’ve learned has been from you
and Ryder, but all of my underhanded tactics was because of
you
, Kalen. I guess, in this case, taking after you came in
handy.”

He chuckled lightly. “I’m glad I could
help.”

The conversations ceased the moment Elvena
came into view. She strutted her way to the middle of the room with
the open scroll in her hands. She went first to Calista and grabbed
her hand, pulling her toward Meliantha where she linked their hands
together. Elvena then motioned for me to hold Meliantha’s other
hand while Ariella joined in with mine and Calista’s. The moment
the circle was complete, a surge of raw power flowed through us,
taking our breath away.

“Do you feel it?” Elvena asked, walking
around our circle. From our gasps and wide eyes she knew very well
we felt it, so she continued with her speech, “What you feel is all
your power connecting and strengthening off each other. It’s not at
its prime yet, but it will be when Ariella comes into her full
power. Imagine how strong you’re going to be then.”

Ariella was the one who spoke up. “What’s
going to happen when I get my full power? What does the scroll say
we have to do?”

Elvena reluctantly met our gazes one by one,
and it was perfectly clear that she was keeping something from us,
something grim, but it didn’t seem like she wanted to discuss it in
the filled room. Whatever was written in the scroll wasn’t going to
be easy, that was for sure. I just wondered what it was. Holding up
the scroll, Elvena addressed the room, her soft, angelic voice
echoing off the walls.

“To defeat the dark sorcerer we need the
blood of the Four … the bonded blood of the Four. Which means
Ariella will need to be bonded to Brayden for this to work.”
Ariella groaned and met Brayden’s gaze across the room where he
stood unmoving beside my father, King Madoc. Her groan elicited no
reaction from him, which only made her fume even more. It was
looking like Brayden was going to need some sense smacked into him
after this meeting.

I squeezed Ariella’s hand to give her
reassurance, and she sighed before squeezing mine back. I leaned
into her and whispered softly, “It’s going to be okay. Brayden
isn’t the type to express his feelings, and neither am I really,
but Drake has helped with that. I know he’s feeling the connection,
but he probably just needs more time to process everything. He’ll
come around.”

“I guess we’ll see,” she whispered, gritting
her teeth. Brayden’s gaze was lowered to the floor, and I was sure
he’d balk at the sight of Ariella staring daggers at him. Her icy
and violent stare would make any Winter Fae cower away from her.
She was going to do great in the Winter Court.

“Does it say why the blood has to be
bonded?” Ariella asked. “My blood should still be the same, bonded
or not.”

Elvena shook her head. “No, my child, it
won’t. Right now we have Calista with Fall blood, Meliantha with
Spring, Sorcha with Summer, and you. As of right now you’re Summer,
but we need you to be the Winter.”

Ariella clenched her jaw and lowered her
head. “Thank you. Unfortunately, I get it now.” She released mine
and Calista’s hand and stepped back. The strong flow of magic was
gone with her absence. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get some
fresh air.”

She hastily retreated out of the room,
keeping her gaze on the door while Brayden finally showed the first
real emotion the whole time he’d been there. Worry crossed his
face, but once she was out of the room the blank mask fell into
place. He really needed his ass kicked.

To get the focus off Ariella’s departure, I
decided to speak up. “How is our blood going to defeat the dark
sorcerer?”

Elvena explained, “We need to have a special
weapon made, preferably by Durin since he’s the most powerful of
the dwarves. Each of you will go through the process of letting
this weapon take your blood, the same way you do it in the Guardian
ceremonies. Once the blood has been taken, the weapon will be
indestructible and the sole key in killing the dark sorcerer. When
it pierces his blackened heart it’ll be all over. Every bit of
power he took will be restored back into the land. The Black Forest
will be no more … he will be no more.”

The room went quiet, especially since
Ariella stormed out, and it was hard to get excited about defeating
the dark sorcerer when the couple we needed to complete the bond
didn’t look like they were going to be bonded anytime soon.
However, Elvena hadn’t explained everything, and I had a feeling
she didn’t want us all to know.

When everyone left to celebrate, Calista,
Meliantha, and I stayed behind to question Elvena. “What aren’t you
telling us?” Calista demanded. “You may be able to fool everyone
else, but you can’t fool me.”

Elvena sighed and hung her head. “It’s not
something to worry about right now. There’s still plenty of time
ahead of us until we can even think about making the weapon, since
the current state of Ariella and Brayden’s union is
complicated.”

Her grim expression didn’t imply there
wasn’t anything to worry about. I wanted to know, and I
was
going to find out. I snapped at her, “I saw your face, Elvena, and
it sure as hell appeared to be a look that it was something we
needed to worry about. If I have to take the scroll away from you
and decipher it myself I will.”