Chapter One
What does betrayal—true betrayal—feel like?
To me, it was worse than dying. And I should know. It hadn’t been that long since I’d been killed and revived among the paranormal Outcasts. Not that long since I’d discovered I was part of an ancient prophecy and destined to become an elemental queen.
At least the dying part was mostly painless. A knife to my gut and then…bliss.
But betrayal, this betrayal, it lingered. Like lava poured in my veins and left to burn me up from the inside. Like a stake straight to my heart and tugged down so that it tore and tore until I threatened to bleed out.
That was how it felt to stand across from my best friend as she told me she’d murdered me.
“What?” My tongue was so dry it stuck to the roof of my mouth. “What did you say, Iris?”
“I’m the one who killed you.” Tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes. For some reason that was what jarred me from my disbelief. Iris almost never cried. She didn’t have any right to be sad. Not if she’d been the one who’d…If she’d…
I bit my bottom lip hard enough to bleed. I couldn’t believe it. Not my best friend. Not the person I’d trusted with everything for as long as I could remember.
“I’m so sorry, Riley.” Iris took a step toward me, hand outstretched, but I backed away before she touched me. “It was the only way to…There’s a lot going on that you don’t understand. This was the only way.”
I choked out a laugh. “Do you hear yourself right now? Iris, you killed me. That guy with the knife…”
I gestured to where just a second before a hooded figure—the same figure who’d stuck a knife in my gut and left me to bleed out on a public bathroom floor—had appeared, only to vanish once Iris waved her hand. Magic. On top of murdering me, she had magic, something I hadn’t known even existed until about a month ago.
“I have no idea who you are anymore,” I whispered.
“Do we really have time for this?” Hayes said. He grimaced as he pushed off the wall, still sore after taking a blow from Lukas. “You’ve awakened the elemental throne, Riley. Any second, whatever parts of the Dead City were blocked from the surface are going to open up and paranormals from the Conclave are coming down. You don’t want to be here when that happens.”
As though activated by his premonition, the entire throne room shuddered. A tremor of magic shot through me. The palace in the Dead City had been dark and dormant when I’d fallen down here with Jasper and sought the throne of the elementals. But ever since I’d touched said throne, it seemed the palace was waking back up.
“Riley?” Jasper limped inside the throne room. He still clutched the bloody part of his stomach Lukas’ claws had punctured. Only after I’d thrown Lukas off the edge of the palace had I been able to heal him. Our kiss—the kiss where Jasper had almost drained all my magic from me—still tingled on my lips.
He froze when he saw Iris. “Who are you?” His vampirically crimson eyes flicked to Hayes. A growl simmered in his voice. “And what are you still doing here?”
Before anyone could answer, the entire room rumbled again. Loose stones beneath my feet momentarily threw me off balance. The chunks of stone missing from the marble columns began to magically fill in, along with iron trim tracing the frame of the throne room’s ceiling and snaking over our heads.
I heard more rumbling from the city outside and rushed over to the columns. Though there was more light down here than when we’d first arrived, it was still difficult to make out the cityscape of skyscrapers and squat huts below in any great detail.
“Can you see anything?” I asked Jasper as he joined me.
He squinted. His frown grew, which I didn’t take as an encouraging sign.
“More tunnels have opened up in the rock walls.” He started pointing to dark points the growing light hadn’t yet illuminated. “There, there…A lot of places. I can’t tell where they go.”
“Probably up,” I said. I looked toward the ceiling, somehow knowing without a doubt that I was right. “We fell through the floor of the Conclave chamber, after all.”
“You’ve awakened the city,” Hayes said. “Like I said, the others will be here any minute.”
“What do I do?” I said to Jasper, failing to stop a terrified note of panic from creeping into my voice. “I’ve found the ancient’s throne. I’ve finished the prophecy. It doesn’t say what happens after.”
“Riley.”
I closed my eyes for a beat to let Iris’ voice wash over me. The old part of me—the part of my life before vampires and magic and ancient thrones—leapt with joy.
Friend! It said.
No, I firmly told it. Not anymore.
I steeled myself and turned to her. “What?”
She flinched at my chilly tone. “You may not have actually taken the throne. Not yet.”
“Why not? I’m here. I found it. What do I have to do, sit on it?”
“Maybe. But I think it could be more than that. Hayes is right, let’s find a safer place before the others get here, and then maybe we could—”
“No.” I cut her off. “I’m not doing anything with you. I think you’ve ‘helped’ enough.”
“Riley, please—”
I felt Jasper’s gentle-yet-firm grip on my arm. His expression said he knew there was something going on between Iris and me, but he didn’t press for more. “I hear people headed this way. Don’t forget how much the Deathless hate you right now.”
“How could I? They and the Northern Pack, once they find out what I did to Lukas,” I added bitterly.
“I agree about finding a safe place until the rest of the Outcasts and I can figure this out.”
“I’m not going to sit back and let you guys deal with them alone.”
“He’s right,” Hayes said.
“Weren’t you just fighting against us?” I snapped.
Hayes shrugged. I couldn’t tell if he was in too much pain to move much more, or if the answer to his sudden change of heart was too complicated to get into right now.
I waited for Iris to chime in—not that I cared what she had to say—but she remained silent. I could feel her watching me, gauging my reaction.
“I’m staying here,” I said. “When they come in, I’ll—”
“Guys!”
Ari and Leon were running across the throne room floor toward us. I let out a sigh of relief, and even Jasper gave a small smile. He’d told me not to worry, but I knew he was just as concerned after they’d been left above with the Deathless and Pack.
“You’re alive,” Ari said breathlessly. She gripped both my arms and looked me over, searching for any gaping wounds or claw marks. “I’m shocked you’re in one piece.”
“Same,” I said. Despite the total chaos of the battle I’d left, she and Leon both had nothing more than a few superficial scratches. One of Ari’s numerous piercings had been ripped out and dried blood dribbled down the side of her face onto the tattoos across her shoulders and upper arm. I was amazed she’d even been hurt at all. She was nearly impossible to touch in her cheetah form.
Leon grinned mightily down at me, his face framed like the mane of the lion shifter he was. “Dropping through a hole in the floor? You sure know how to make an exit. Should have seen the Deathless and Pack’s faces.”
“It wasn’t that funny,” Ari said.
Leon gave a massive shrug. “Distracted them enough for me to knock some heads around.”
“What about the other Outcasts?” Jasper said. “Do they know where we are?”
“They will soon,” Ari said. “Sawyer made a point to monitor how we were doing. Since we haven’t returned by now, I’m sure a few more of the others will join us eventually.”
“Wherever here is…” Leon said, craning his head around.
When Ari was convinced I hadn’t been too badly maimed, she turned to Iris. “And you are…?”
“Later,” I said. I wasn’t sure my heart could take explaining things at the moment. “Where are the Deathless and Pack right now?”
Leon thumbed over his shoulder. “Right behind us. I’m not one to run from a fight, but you might not—”
“Want to be here?” Hayes cut in. “I’ve only been saying that since the minute I regained consciousness.”
Ari’s eyes narrowed on him, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. “Hold on, weren’t you the one Sienna said broke into the Loft? Yeah…she called you a ponytailed prick.”
Hayes scoffed. “Ponytailed—”
“Is there somewhere we can go until things cool off?” Jasper said, trying to take control.
“We passed plenty of empty rooms on our way here,” Leon said. “Though this place is changing so much, I’m not sure if they’ll still be there when we go back.”
“Good enough,” Jasper said.
“I told you I’m not leaving—” I started, but Jasper’s intense glare halted the rest of the sentence in my throat.
“It’s not weak to make a strategic retreat,” he said.
“I didn’t say that.”
Jasper smirked. “You didn’t need to. You’ve just awakened an ancient magic throne inside of a once lost city after fighting off a powerful shifter leader. Let somebody else have all the fun for once.”
“I agree,” Ari said. “You didn’t hear some of the paranormals behind us. They sounded furious.”
I heaved a defeated sigh and waved for Ari and Leon to lead the way to my totally-not-a-safe-room to hide.
“You two shouldn’t be here either,” I said to Hayes, purposefully not looking at Iris. “I can’t imagine you’re on the Deathless or Pack’s good side right now either.”
Hayes gave me a cheeky grin, the one Sienna must have thought was cute. “Worry about yourself. I’ll worry about us.”
I jerked a nod and started following Ari. Jasper walked with us, but I could tell his wound was still bothering him. Before I could offer to help, Leon wrapped an enormous arm around Jasper’s shoulders and helped him limp along, despite Jasper’s protests.
“I could scoop you up, if that’s easier,” Leon said, teasing. “Carry you like a true princess.”
“Do that and you’re a dead man,” Jasper said, his glare truly murderous.
I hadn’t made it two steps before someone grabbed my arm. I didn’t need to look back to know who it was.
“Let go,” I warned.
“Not until you hear me out,” Iris said. “I know you hate me right now and I totally understand. I would hate me too. But please let me explain.”
“I don’t want to hear your explanation. Let. Go.”
“What I did was unforgivable, but I needed to give you a chance. If I hadn’t, you might have been in even more danger than you are now.”
The embers of my elemental fire magic stirred in my core. My anger fueled them until they stoked into a simmering flame threatening to burst forth from my skin. “I saw you with my parents, back when I first became an Outcast.”
Iris looked shocked. “You—How is that possible?”
“They were distraught looking for me,” I said, ignoring her question. “They thought I’d been kidnapped or ran away. They were working with the police to find my killer and you pretended to have no clue as to what happened to me. You lied to them. And then, when I saw you again…”
My fire grew, threatening to burst into an inferno.
“Even though you couldn’t see me I talked with you. I promised you I would find a way to make things right again. You looked so worried, I truly thought you cared.” I swallowed a sob. “So no, Iris. I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”
“Riley—”
“Let go.”
“Riley, listen, there’s more to it—”
I was done listening. My anger surged. Flames burst from my skin, and though I’d grown a little better at controlling them, and though this was nowhere near my full power, I felt the desire to feed them more, more, more.
Iris yelped and leapt back, clutching her burned hand. Her eyes were wide with terror. Good. I wanted her to fear me. I wanted her to hurt just a fraction of how much she’d hurt me.
I tempered my flames and watched a tear roll down her face. My chest twisted so tight it became hard to breathe.
I walked away before I could risk forgiving her.
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