Call of the Siren(54)
Amara had wanted to stay and wait for Ronin, but she’d recognized that Brynn needed her more right now. Good thing, too. He couldn’t imagine how pissed she’d be if she found out Ronin had gone to scan out the portal on his own.
“So what’s going on?” Maya asked.
Keegan and Dagan filled the two of them in on the events of the past several hours. When Dagan got to the part about Belpheg, Taeg’s brows furrowed. He stalked across the room and snatched up the whiskey bottle, taking a heavy swig before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“What the fuck does this fae want with us?” Taeg asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Keegan replied grimly.
The ring of Dagan’s phone shattered the momentarily silence. He slid it out of his pocket, then lifted his gaze to the rest of them. “It’s Ronin.”
“Put it on speaker,” Keegan ordered.
“Hey, where are you?” Dagan answered. “I’m back at Keegan’s condo… Keegan, Taeg, and Maya are here. Let me put you on the speaker.”
Keegan only waited long enough for Dagan to push the button before saying, “Where are you?”
“Back in the state,” Ronin’s voice sounded out.
Keegan exchanged a glance with Taeg. “Back in the state?”
A beat of silence. “I took the portal to the coordinates we were given.”
No less than Keegan had feared, though he was still pissed about it.
“You’re an asshole,” he growled at the same time as Dagan muttered, “You stupid fuck.”
Taeg let out a somber chuckle. “I happen to agree with both of them, but perhaps the better question right now is, what did you find?”
“Let out to a small Romanian village,” Ronin responded.
Keegan lifted a brow. “Romania?”
“We were just there less than two weeks ago,” Taeg muttered.
“Yeah, well…I flew around until I spotted a castle. ‘Bout a half an hour from the village. It was teaming with the essence of Others.”
Keegan scratched his jaw, scruffy with several days’ growth, and leaned against one of the armrests of his black leather sectional. “You think this is the place?”
“No doubt about it. There was an invisible shield surrounding the place. I tried to fly through it and ended up getting bounced back like I’d launched myself into a bowl of Jell-O.”
Damn it. Keegan shook his head, trying to quell his anger at his brother. “So you just fly right up to the freaking place without any care for the fact you might be stepping into a trap?”
“I was careful,” Ronin countered defensively.
Yeah, right. “I wonder if Amara would agree.”
Another beat of silence. The Ronin asked, “Is she there?”
Much as he’d like to let his bastard brother stew in worry, Keegan said, “No. She went up to the hideout with Brynn, Aegin, Bram, and Reiver.”
“Oh.” The relief in Ronin’s voice was palpable. “Listen, I was too far to say with 100 percent certainty, but there was a man walking the grounds, and he looked a lot like Mammon.”
Keegan bit back the automatic growl that threatened to rise in his throat. No need to note how his brothers stiffened at the mention of Mammon. That fuck was definitely on the top of their least favorite person list.
“It’s no less than we expected,” Keegan finally responded. “We know Mammon was broken out of jail by some dark fae, and who else but the guy we’re hunting had enough power to do that?”
“So…” Maya strode over to where Dagan stood by the bar. She tugged the whiskey bottle from his grip and took a delicate swig. “What are we going to do?”
Ronin took an audible breath. “I scouted the surrounding area.”
Taeg let out an angry growl and started to pace the room. “Ronin, you’re an asshole.”
“You can ream me out for that later,” Ronin said drily. “The shield surrounds the property like a snow globe. It covers the castle and the surrounding grounds, including the forest fronting the castle and up to the edge of a wide lake that protects the entire backside. Several acres of land.”
“Okay.” Resisting the urge to let out a loud sigh, Keegan scratched his chin. “Any suggestions?”
“We’ve still got the sword,” Taeg offered.
Several months ago, right after Keegan and his brothers had captured Mammon, Taeg had begun to search for an item that could destroy the Book of the Dead, the ancient spell book Brynn was bound to. When her ancestor had created it, he’d made it from indestructible metal, but it was far too dangerous an object to continue existing. Especially since Brynn was connected to it.