104: Phoenix's POV

I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

So many things were going right lately. Our father, and all of his tyranny, was gone. We had a vampire king as an ally. I’d been released by my kidnappers and returned home safely. Darius, Nikolai, and I had gone through our coronation. Ada had accepted us and completed our mate bonds. I had healed fully with the completion of our bond and had seemingly gotten back to full strength while we rested after copulating. Things were good, things were right.

While I wasn’t a firm believer in karma or fate, it did feel like this was the proverbial other shoe dropping. An army of thousands had somehow entered our territory unnoticed. No border patrols had caught them entering the vicinity, and no one had gone missing. That meant they either knew our rotations well enough to sneak an entire army through or someone in their midst was an exceptional magick wielder who had shielded the group from being seen. Both options were nearly equally unnerving.

Nik, Darius, and I had met with Cade and the rest of the members of the council briefly. We were all in immediate agreement that we couldn’t let them get any closer to Oberon Castle. There were too many citizens who could be harmed if they got any closer, which meant we were taking the fight to them.

I was never one to shy away from a fight, but my feelings of unease went beyond feeling like this was the other shoe dropping. Something wasn’t right. It had started as a simple thought right when Cade had told us about what was going on in Ada’s room: *“Run.*” Now, as I pulled on my fighting leathers and prepared to join my brothers in saying goodbye to our mate, it had escalated to nerves radiating through my body. My hands shook, my vision blurred. My heart raced. Every instinct I had was telling me to run away from this and not toward it.

Normally, I would be able to put a name to the feeling and move on. This wasn’t like any feeling I’d experienced before a battle previously, though. It wasn’t like something in me was screaming anything specific. It wasn’t as simple as feeling like this was a set-up or a trap, which it most likely was. It was a feeling of despair— of knowing that something was about to go incredibly *wrong* and not feeling like I could do anything to stop it.

My lungs ached as I sucked in a deep breath and pulled on my forest green leather combat boots. Once they were tied, I walked over to my desk and slid my knives into their sheaths on my thighs. I slid my quiver over my shoulders and gripped my bow firmly in my right hand. I was the only one of us who preferred a bow and arrows over swords or brute strength, and I was quite particular about what I used: it was an ivory bow with etchings of the moon phases along its curve. There was something about the separation that a bow allowed me that I was grateful for. It wasn’t that I couldn’t go into battle with a sword and decimate those around me. But I wasn’t even thirty and was already tired of the bloodshed that keeping a crown required.

Particularly on days like this, when I wanted to remain as far away from this battle as possible. I’d thought about asking Darius and Nik if I could stay behind with Ada. I could most likely have gotten away with claiming that I still didn’t feel well, or that I didn’t want to leave Ada by herself still. The latter was mostly true, though it was my understanding that Ada was far more able to hold her own than any of us had given her credit for originally. The former would be an outright lie, and I tried my best not to lie to my brothers.

So, with my bow in hand, I stepped into our shared living quarters. Darius and Nik were both waiting already, in their respective navy and black leathers. When we would go into battle, we would each have our own sects we would lead. Each of them would be garbed in armor with bands of our colors on their arms so that we could differentiate and ensure soldiers were following proper orders. It had been this way our entire lives, and was one of the few things the three of us didn’t feel the need to change that had been implemented by our father.

Darius tugged on one of his leather cuffs, the long blade of his sword glinting in the light, “Do either of you have a good feeling about this?”

I immediately shook my head, but Nik remained still. His face was slightly pale, his eyes narrowed on a corner of the room. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Darius growled, following our brother’s gaze. A black dress shoe stepped emerged of the shadows, followed quickly by the striking body and face of the vampire King, Fane Rosu.

“Finn,” Nik hissed out the greeting, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to stop you three fools from walking into this trap the Midnight Pack has set up for you,” Finn shook his head, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dress pants, “I don’t know exactly what they have planned, but I know this army is simply a distraction,” he narrowed his red-tinged eyes at me and nodded, “He knows it, too.”

Both of my brothers turned to look at me, and I shrugged. Finn wasn’t entirely wrong, since something within me said to stay as far away from this as possible, but I wasn’t entirely on board with what he laid out either. This made me too uncomfortable to respond.

Nik sighed and turned back to Finn, “We can’t let them get to our people. We have no choice.”

“Very noble,” Finn shook his head, narrowing his eyes at Nik, “I taught you better than that, Nikolai. It will get you killed.”

Darius snorted, crossing his arms over his chest, “Every battle is a potential trap. All three of us could die during this.” My oldest brother started toward the door to the hallway. “It doesn’t change things. We will go for our people, but for now, we have to go say goodbye to Ada.”

Nik’s eyes flickered with a glint of worry, “We haven’t even told her we’re leaving immediately.”

Finn rolled his eyes, “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I had to fight every instinct to run as he disappeared from view. Something wasn’t right indeed.