Seven men were kneeling inside the cell, hands bound in front of them and brown bags over their heads.
“How the fuck am I going to identify the traitor if I can’t see their faces?” I asked harshly.
Traitor.
Who I still didn’t know.
Nausea churned in my lower stomach.
“That’s the second part of your test, my sweet Z.” He dared to venture a step forward, hand raised as if he wanted to brush my hair, but Lupe’s threatening growl stopped him in mid-stride. He glanced at the large Shifter with only mild annoyance before turning back to me. “You have five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” I asked in disbelief. “I have at least a few hours until my timeframe is over.”
Tavvy clicked his tongue, shaking his head. “Rules change. Timelines change. You now have five minutes. If you don’t choose by the end of the allotted time, the chains around their necks will tighten and kill them.”
I was shaking so hard that I thought I would pass out. Not even Lupe’s hands on my shoulders could provide me comfort.
The seven men...
Wait? Seven?
I narrowed my eyes, and my gaze immediately latched on a pair of dark hands, directly in the middle.
Horror filled me.
“Ryland...”
Tavvy laughed maniacally, throwing his head back. In the next second, he was behind the seven prisoners and removing their hoods.
The first three were the red-heads I had noted before, including the young teenager, but the fourth was my Shadow mate. His eyes burned with a ferocious anger, blood coating the edges of his lips. Around his neck, a silver chain dug into his skin.
His scars were more pronounced now that he couldn’t hide behind his shadows. They covered every inch of his dark face. His cheeks, his forehead, his lips, through his eye. There wasn’t an expanse of skin on his face that wasn’t mutilated.
He turned towards me, and the anger ebbed immediately, replaced with relief.
“Z, you’re okay,” he whispered.
“What the hell?” I took a trembling step forward. My fingers went to my bottom lip. “How did this happen?”
“The damn twins,” Ryland said, venom spewing. “They ganged up on me. Put this collar around my neck that prohibits the use of my powers.”
I had never heard of a collar like that. With that weapon...it was a game changer. The Alphabet Resistance would love to get their hands on it.
It was no wonder only the royal families had access to it.
“Enough!” Tavvy moved to the end of the line and removed the hood off the last man. “Choose who to kill before the five minutes are up, or else they’ll all die, including your mate.”
“Just pick one,” Lupe whispered into my ear.
But what if I accidentally chose an innocent man? How could I live with myself? What type of person would I be if I chose myself and my mates over innocent people? It wasn’t a person I wanted to be.
“Four minutes,” Tavvy said cheerfully.
My eyes flickered over the men present, absorbing every detail. The scatter of freckles on Man One’s arms. The abnormally long hair that might’ve made me believe he was a Shifter if I hadn’t known he was a human on Man Two. The missing finger on Man Three. The tattoo on Man Four. The unblemished skin on Man Five, and the scars zigzagging Man Six.
Something niggled at the edges of my mind, a memory. I reached for it desperately only to have it slip through my fingers.
“Three minutes.”
“Shut the fuck up, Tavvy,” Lupe growled.
Six men. One traitor.
Nine fingers.
The random thought came to me suddenly, Jax’s ramblings echoing through my head.
“I have five fingers on one hand. Four on the other. Five plus four equals nine. And nine is the number. I heard the devils talking. Five plus four equals nine. Nine fingers. We need nine fingers.”
It was the senseless ramblings of a mad man, wasn’t it?
I gazed harder at the man missing a finger. He had garnet colored hair with streaks of black in it. His hair was longer than the others, and his face was unremarkable. Nothing about him screamed “traitor”, yet I knew. I knew it as surely as I knew my name was Z and I had seven mates.
“He’s the traitor,” I whispered, lifting a trembling finger in the man’s direction. His eyes widened in horror even as the other men collapsed in relief. One of the older men began to sob.
“That’s quite the accusation,” Tavvy said, tsking at me. “Do you have proof to back it up?”
“Do I need proof?” I responded harshly.
I had to rely on myself, my sixth sense. It had never led me wrong before, and I knew it hadn’t this time.
“I suppose not.” He shrugged like he couldn’t care either way.
“Now let my mate go.” My hands were clenched tightly into fists, nails digging into the palm of my hand.
“Isn’t it funny,” Tavvy drawled, “that the magical binding spell placed on you to protect us doesn’t work on Ryland as it does me. I wonder why that is?” When I merely quirked a brow at him, he met my gaze with a malicious smirk. “The spell the Mage King put on you would have you running to his rescue at this very moment, not strategically playing my game. It just confirms what I always suspected.”
“What did you suspect?” I asked, though his words caused a chill to brush through me.
“That the seven perfect princes aren’t actually related to the royal family.” Behind me, Lupe’s breathing hitched. Ryland had gone rigid where he sat, still in my peripheral vision. I didn’t dare pull my gaze away from Tavvy’s to read the expressions on my other two mates’ faces.
“Enough of that.” Tavvy waved a hand dismissively and stepped behind the man I had deemed a traitor. He pulled on his red hair sharply, and the man let out a cry. “Why don’t you tell the beautiful Z here what you did to betray the crown.”
The man began
