"They have Jack?" Luned's voice echoed from one end of the small cave to the other, irritating my ears.

We'd barely hustled out of the clearing before Ossenna's toxic purple smoke engulfed us; but Luned had fled before then and located us a place to hide.

A place without her precious friend Jack.

"Unfortunately," I said, holding in my true retort—my pleasure that the little snake of a mercenary was finally no longer my responsibility. It put a damper on our plots, yes, but I looked forward to the peace and quiet. "Did you not see what that foul prince did to him?"

"Squelch," said Sinclair, mimicking the sword as it pierced Jack's thigh. The image of it lingered in my brain; and even as someone who'd seen their fair share of blood, it was gruesome to watch. "Basically nailed him to the ground. I'd be surprised if he walks again."

Luned glowered at Sinclair; the sort of enraged gaze that would prompt any other mage to flail her alive, but she was beyond caring what happened to herself at this point.

No, she only cared about Jack.

"You let them take him?" She grabbed at my lapels, snarling in a way that so repulsed me, I almost forgot the love I harbored for her. She was emotional beyond anything I'd ever seen, and it made me curl my lip. "You let them escape?"

I yanked free from her grip and brushed myself off. "You think I had a chance to stop it? That I'd predict such an explosion of power from Ossenna? She was exhausted; even the mortals could tell. Never in my mind did I envision her using such forces."

Sinclair, who sat on the edge of the cave, looking out into the jungle, snorted. "You underestimated her by doing that."

"Doing what?" I arched an eyebrow as I turned to him. His face was exposed, Arden's veil pushed up over his forehead.

"Not predicting her explosions of power." He craned his neck to me, his eyes like flaring suns. "I barely know her, and I braced for the worst. That's how we got out of there." He pointed at his chest, returning his gaze to the outdoors. "I detected her surge in power and told you to hurry."

I hated being told to do anything, but Sinclair was so green he'd never figure that out. Not when his mind was inflamed with vengeance. Not when his only mission was to dismantle and kill his parents.

But I still preferred having him with us over Jack. He had the slight advantage of being the fruit of two pure mages. His power glistened, radiated off him in waves, and would serve our purpose better than Jack's rippling muscles ever could.

Not that that convinced Luned. She proceeded to pace to and fro in the small space, ripping delicate icy hairs from her scalp as she muttered under her breath. She couldn't get over losing Jack, and if she didn't buck up soon, it would be to her detriment.

"Darling," I said, attempting to stop her, but she only shoved me aside with much more force than necessary. "Luned, please. I'm sorry your friend was captured, but you have to see the advantage in this."

I saw the advantage, for sure. No more annoying Jack contradicting my every move and fawning over Luned like she'd ever give him the opportunity to love her the way I did. It was a reprieve, and I wouldn't complain about it.

I'd learned my lesson and wouldn't say this out loud, but I had no doubt Sinclair agreed with me. Five minutes in the mercenary's presence, and surely our new mage would have wanted to slit the idiot's throat.

"Yes," said Sinclair, as if tuning into my thoughts. He stood up and joined us, hands behind his back, a strangely solemn look on his face. His dark skin was peppered with perspiration, and his nostrils flared. "Me. I'm your advantage."

Again, Luned looked at him as if she had the ability to toss him aside and rip his head off. Strong as she was, her mermaid powers were minimal compared to what I could do. More so compared to Sinclair's untapped magic and mysterious workings. I doubted even he knew what he could do yet.

The notion made me smirk as I rubbed my hands together.

Sinclair was a bomb. A bulky frame with a furious soul encased in it, ready to implode with raw, crude power. So many things we'd learn about him if we were to test him, dissect him; but we didn't have time for that. Once we won, perhaps.

"But," Luned snagged my wrist, forcing me to look away from Sinclair and focus on her, "our secrets, Otho. Jack has them all, he knows it all, and he..."

I winced, understanding at last why she was so worried. It wasn't that she cared about Jack; she cared about what he knew, what he'd be capable of doing with that knowledge in the wrong circumstances.

I ripped from her grasp and took hold of her chin, instead. I held on hard, likely reminding her of some of the violent sex sessions we'd had. But I didn't want her lust; I wanted her truth. Her trust. "Would he do it? Spill our secrets if tortured a little too much?"

She cringed, trying to break free from my grip, but failing. Her eyes creased as she clenched her jaw. "It would take a lot, I'm sure, but...Gwenore is pissed, Otho. As will be the other mages once they're home, once they piece together what happened."

"They'd torture a mortal man?" Sinclair scoffed, shaking his head. "That goes to prove how disgusting they are. They'd be better off releasing him. Or simply killing him."

I pursed my lips. "A man he is, yes, but Jack is...far from ordinary." They'd both think I meant it as a compliment, but I didn't. Jack's superpower was to annoy me to no end, and that made him powerful in my eyes.

"He's...adept with torture." Luned's gulp was loud, the pressure of her jaw making my hand pulsate. "As in, he knows how to give it well, and how to receive it well, if not better."

The sexual connotation in her words made me grind my teeth. I brutally released her, uncaring as she recoiled backwards, grabbing her throbbing chin to nurture it out of pain.

"He's a thief," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose, "and is skilled in lying and tactics that we know nothing about. They all know that at Acewood Castle. So yes," I growled, "they'd torture him." I glared at Luned. "But what I'd like to know is, will he bend?"

She pressed a hand to her belly as she massaged her achy jaw. Her skin went paler than normal, and I worried I'd been too harsh on her. Too unkind. Much as she irritated me, too, I loved her. I was doing all this to give her the throne she wanted.

The throne that would allow me to do what I wanted.

"I'm not sure," she said, her voice soft, bruised. "You know how fickle he is."

I snorted. "And disloyal." I shook my head. "That answers my question, then. He only follows you and serves your purpose," I gestured at her, "so if they threaten to harm you in any way, he'll reveal all he knows to protect you. Protect himself."

Sinclair blew out his breath. "Then...let him."

Luned's eyebrows lurched up, and I narrowed my gaze on him. "Excuse me?" I said, my nails digging into my palms as I tightened my fists. "Are you suggesting Jack should divulge all our secrets?"

"I'm saying," Sinclair buffed up, leveling the same stern gaze on me, "that if he does, we shouldn't care about it."

Luned's mouth opened wide, but no sound escaped.

I, on the other hand, wasn't so good at staying silent. But much as I craved to shove Sinclair against the wall and demand an explanation, I knew our alliance was fragile, at best. I'd enlisted him to our cause only because it aligned with his own motives of killing his parents.

If I tested that alliance too much, we'd lose him.

"Explain yourself." I crossed my arms to prevent myself from doing something stupid with them—like strangle him until the color drained from his face.

"Plans can change," he said, never once worried I'd come for him. Of course, he'd sensed my rage, but it hadn't scared him. Nothing scared him.

I remembered the day he appeared to me, a young man of eighteen, so thin and frail I mistook him for another person. I'd been watching him since his parents discarded him, so I knew what he looked like; but when he traveled to Acewood, he was...someone else. The son of poor farmers, poorly fed, poorly kept.

He'd ran away, but not without slitting the farmers' throats after the way they'd treated him.

It took weeks for him to trust me enough to let me help him get into shape. I hid him in a room in town, cloaked his magical aura to ensure no other mages picked up on his scent. A few times I hesitated, thinking Arden had known. But then again, Arden wasn't the real Arden at that point, so I dismissed the possibility that they'd caught on to my games.

They didn't know me like the original Arden did.

Sinclair took months to properly heal, and then I began training him. Showing him what his powers were, discovering some of them with him. He was a prodigy, a perfect blend of his mother's atmospheric abilities, and his father's intuition and desire for growth. With all his magic, combined with mine, we had a shot at getting what we wanted.

He and Luned competed for my affections, which explained the slight hostility between them. But she eventually won me over completely. Sinclair became so arrogant and confident about his power that he quit training with me and returned to Spade Island to begin posing as the Baron of the Triplets.

All part of our plot.

Now here he was, on the verge of dismantling everything we'd worked for, because of a puny little mercenary who'd managed to get himself captured.

"We can't change the plan," I said, biting my tongue, forcing my feet to keep steady on the ground.

I couldn't take Sinclair down; not like this. As the student, he'd surpassed me, his master, too long ago for me to even compete with his powers.

But I could knock him down a notch. Teach him a quick lesson. Remind him why he was there, how he'd gotten there.

Me. I'd arranged it all, planned it all, kept it all secret for years.

I was the leader of this team, and he and Luned needed to remember it.

"Well," he said, spinning a string from his cloak around his finger, "then we continue on as expected, but know that they'll be waiting for us. Because if he spills, he will spill. All of it." He eyed Luned, then me, and cocked his head. "I can tell Jack isn't the half-assed type."

"He's not," said Luned, manifesting a glass of water for herself, tipping the liquid straight down her throat. The motion was peculiarly erotic and almost took me out of our serious conversation. "You're right. If he starts talking, he won't stop. And he will bargain for his own freedom."

For a second, I thought Luned was coming around, at last. That she'd stopped seeing the value in Jack and saw that he was instead our downfall.

"So if he spills?" I took a deep breath through my nose, puffed it out through my mouth. The air in the cave was growing stale, which meant we needed to move soon. Fast. "We move past it? We ignore it?"

"It doesn't matter," said Sinclair with a shrug. "Because he's dispensable."

"Because he's—" My eyebrows bunched, then raised with comprehension. "Oh, I see. I get what you're saying now. He's," I weighed the word on my tongue as Sinclair's words started to make sense, "dispensable."

"I don't get it." Luned snuck between the two of us, glancing between us, her mouth down-turned. "Dispensable?"

"They'll think to use him to draw us out," said Sinclair, gaze connecting with mine, understanding traveling between us. "They'll think if they try to extract all the information out of him, that we'll hurry over to retrieve him before he says too much."

"Or that we'll be desperately searching for him, because he's part of our team," I added, a warm cruelty pooling into my stomach. Ah, to find someone on the same page as me—someone who also agreed that Jack was worthless. It was priceless.

It made me see Sinclair in a different light altogether; to see him as our savior, as someone I'd come to respect, in time.

"So you're saying we won't search for him? We won't," Luned lowered her voice, "rescue him?"

"We can't, my love." I took her chin again, more gently this time. "He can talk all he wants, but we won't free him. And we'll let them all believe we will. Let them focus on the wrong plans, the wrong attack, while we make our moves in the shadows."

Her lower lip bobbed out. "But—"

"Listen, my pet." She froze; she knew that my usage of this nickname was rarely a positive thing. "With or without him, we'll win. They're outnumbered and under-powered compared to us. Regardless of where Jack lies, we have Sinclair." I smiled at the ginger-eyed man, inclining my head at his intelligence. "If he reveals all our secrets to your sister, it won't matter. We'll already be far ahead in our coup, and she'll never be able to stop us."

And if she tries, she'll lose her life in the process.

"They can keep him, for all I care." I pressed my lips to hers and smirked. "Because we have all we need now to succeed in taking the throne."

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