71. NATE

“You shouldn’t have locked her up.”

I pursed my lips and tried to fight the rising anger. I was trying my best to understand why she felt Lucas shouldn’t have locked Mother up, but I was failing.

“She tried to kill you, love,” Mason growled from his spot at Lucas’s desk.

“What he said.” My eyes narrowed when she opened her mouth again. “Are you still going to defend her after what she did to you?”

Angel glanced away for a second, a sigh falling from her lips. “I’m just…she’s your mother.”

Leaning forward, I took hold of her hand and raised it to my lips to press a kiss on her palm. “We might be related by blood but that’s how far it goes. She has never been a mother to us honeybee, so she doesn’t deserve that title. Understand?”

It took a few minutes for her to answer. “Okay.”

Smiling, I tugged on her arm.

Angel reached out to grab the files on the couch between us and then allowed me to pull her against my side.

“What a way to spend your wedding night, huh?” I muttered.

“There will be plenty of that,” she said softly. “This is a lot more important. We need to fix things before more people get hurt.”

“Spoken like a true queen,” Mason called out.

Angel rolled her eyes and settled more comfortably against my side. She placed the files down on her lap and picked up the top one. My eyes lingered on her for a few more seconds before I turned my focus back to the file in my hand.

Berk had given us all the information he managed to find. There were also a few recordings that Lucas was listening to while we worked through the files.

At the moment we were only looking for information on the portals. Berk made it seem like Mother and the council had something to do with all the portals appearing. I couldn’t understand how it was possible because like Angel pointed out, the realm was created by magic, so it meant that the portals also had to do with magic.

Mother and the council members were shifters, but as far as I knew, they didn’t have the kind of power to intervene with the way things were done.

Some dragons possessed magic, but they weren’t as powerful as the witches and warlocks.

My eyes dropped to Angel’s arm where the bracelet rested.

I had noticed it the moment she entered the throne room, but I thought that Mason had been the one to give it to her. He had denied it and suggested that maybe it was a gift from our people.

Lucas received gifts from the people all the time, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about Angel receiving gifts from the people with the cloud of danger hanging over her head.

Mother was locked up, and she was the main reason for Angel’s danger.

We might have a few haters once Angel’s coronation takes place.

“Maurice gave it to me.”

“What?” I blinked and realized that I had been mindlessly playing with the bracelet.

“Maurice gave it to me,” she repeated. “He said it’s a wedding gift.”

“When did he give it to you?”

She hesitated. “This morning before Mason came to get me.”

I frowned. Nobody had informed me that Maurice had come to visit. I hadn’t seen him arrive. Unless he used his magic to get into the castle.

That sneaky bastard.

“What else did he say?” I asked her.

“He said it will protect me whenever I’m in danger.”

Frown deepening, I raised her arm to inspect the bracelet a little closer. I couldn’t sense any magic coming off it. And I wasn’t sure if we could trust Maurice. He had never given us a reason to distrust him.

Our kingdom was in good standing with his. His father was still the one ruling but he was a good man despite his heritage. He never used his magic unless it was needed.

Maurice was the one who found Angel and then sent her to the club even though he said that he didn’t send her there. But he somehow knew that Angel belonged to us.

Does that mean that we can trust him?

“He told me to never take it off,” she said softly.

“Why?”

She shrugged.

I let go of her wrist and wrapped my arm around her waist again.

There had to be an ulterior motive for Maurice to be helping us. But why would he be helping us? What was in it for him?

Unless he truly wanted to help us.

But I still didn’t believe that he was doing all of it without a reason.

“I think I found something.” Angel jerked upright, flipping the pages of the file a few times before she looked at us.

“According to this the spell that keeps the realm going and all that needs to be…renewed every ten years.”

I leaned forward to take the file from her so I could read it. “I didn’t know this,” I muttered. “The council never told us about this.”

“If we were unaware of this then I take it Lucas doesn’t know about it either.”

“Shit,” I cursed. “We need to figure out how to fix this.”

“Your mother mentioned that you were trained to take over as king, weren’t you taught about this?” Angel questioned. “It seems too important for them to have ignored this.”

“The book.”

Mason hurried over to the bookshelf and grabbed the book with all the information regarding the realm. He flipped through the pages and then froze with a gasp.

“What is it?”

Dropping to his knees by the coffee table, he pushed the files aside and placed the book down. He turned it slightly towards me and pointed to something in the middle of the book.

“Torn pages,” he growled. “Someone tore the pages out of the book which is why we’ve never read anything about renewing the spell.”

I muttered more curses as I jumped to my feet and started pacing.

This was a big fucking problem. Where the hell were we going to find witches strong enough to restore everything the way they were? How many of the original witches were still alive? How many of them would be willing to help us?

My eyes locked on Lucas.

Walking over to him, I jerked the headphones off.

“We found the problem,” I growled. “They have gone out of their way to make sure we didn’t find out about it.”

“What do you mean?”

Angel placed the file down in front of Lucas and backed off.

“The spell needs to be renewed every ten years, Lucas. Our realm is being destroyed by these portals because we haven’t renewed the spell!”

His brows dipped into a frown. “There’s nothing about this in the book.”

“That’s because they ripped out the fucking pages,” Mason snarled, appearing at my side. “We don’t know anything because they’ve been hiding it from us. How are we going to fix this Lucas? Will we even be able to fix it? There are already four portals open.”

Lucas stared at the book, his eyes darkening with anger as the seconds ticked by.

I wasn’t sure if it was fixable, but we needed to figure things out fast before more trouble arose.

“I think I’m going to pay Mother a visit,” Lucas growled as he slowly stood.

“I’ll go with you,” I offered.

“No,” Lucas snarled. “Stay here and see if you can find anything to help us fix this.”