Crimes of the Vault

Chapter Seven

The journey back to the Vault was filled with complaint filled chatter from Mac and Reed as the two discussed the meeting and taunted the Kings when they could not be heard.

The days seemed to slip by, they passed through those familiar villages and gave the food they'd caught to some of the farmers and their families, the meat more than enough to feed those families and their neighbours.

The last day was spent riding through the Great Wood, and Tempest found herself stuck in her own head more often than not. She'd listen – or pretend to listen – to Mac and Reed's conversations, giving her opinion when they asked for it but more often than not, Tempest couldn't bring her thoughts on track.

No, her thoughts and her mind were stuck all the way back in the Borealis, sticking with the Emperor. Her mate.

In those days of travel, Tempest ran the prophecy through her mind, the very little that she knew of it. She still couldn't believe the decision the Kings had made, the violent solution to an already violent problem.

"Oi Queenie!" Tempest lifted her head up, catching the way a tree was nearing her horse and guided the animal around it before they could crash. She heard a laugh, two loud laughs from the men accompanying her.

"Where's your head, Temp?" Reed asked her as they broke away from the forest for the first time that day, the humidity of the swamp beginning to swarm them.

"I just can't get my mind off the prophecy." Tempest admitted quietly. "The whole thing gives me a sick feeling."

"You sure that's what's bothering you?" Mac prodded at her side as he came to a trot next to her.

Tempest gave him a confused look, her eyebrows drawing together. "What do you mean?"

"Don't think I didn't notice the looks the Emperor was giving you." He prodded at her side again, causing Tempest to lash out and bat his hand away. "You could have had it good, Temp."

"Tempest could do better than the Emperor." Reed scoffed from ahead of them, glancing back with a twinkle in his eye. "No man is good enough for our Tempest."

Tempest narrowed her eyes at the pair, withholding the urge to reach out and hit them both with a blast of air. "I have no interest in the Emperor."

"Well he sure has an interest in you." Mac continued. "He was giving you the longing-eyes."

"Everyone was staring."

"Yes, but Emperor Sebastian was particularly firm with his eyes."

"He barely took them off of you." Reed added begrudgingly.

"Sebastian." She hated to admit that it suited him. She hated to admit that the sound of it gave her butterflies, made her heart thump a little harder. She hated to admit that she missed the expensive spice that she had begun to subconsciously associate with the Emperor and his beautiful golden eyes.

"It doesn't matter." Tempest admitted quietly. "We're never going to see him again. There's no need for us to ever go back to the Borealis."

"You sound pretty sure of that, Queenie." Mac told her. "But you also seem pretty interested in the prophecy."

"It's just – it's been bothering me. No one recited the actual prophecy; they only paraphrased it."

"An actual telling of the prophecy would be impossible to find without contacting the Witches that told it."

The approached the front gates of the Vault Stronghold, the humidity of the Vault swamps already making sweat bead at the back of her neck as Gar and Michael greeted them with the same vigour and excitement as they always did.