Page 215 of Wrath of the Wild Hunt
What a powerthatwould be for her to take. Perhaps he would be her next acquisition if she could ever figure out how to get close to him without being consumed first.
“Let him go!” Markos shouted as the vampires finallyunshackled Ilias and dragged him toward her.
“Gods! The sentimentality of griffins makes you all so easy to manipulate,” she cackled with a glance at all the other prisoners. Men and women whose loved ones were out doing her bidding in exchange for their safety.
“You will not go unpunished for this, witch! Riordan is already aware of the rituals in Erétria. It will not be long before he realizes you have found a way into the Vale,” Markos threatened her brazenly from the wall.
Yes, she had seen the contents of the letters that Ilias and Markos had been sending to Riordan while they were sniffing around her sacrificial sites. It took great power to keep command of the Fuath, and she needed to slaughter countless fey to do it. Keeping those deaths off Riordan’s radar would have been easy if his father and Markos had not followed up on all the missing fey. If Castor Doukas had not sent all his little rat spies to investigate Erétria. Why could Amira have not just taken the bait and blown the whole city into oblivion?
But Jade could not stop even as they began to close in on her position. Not when she needed to continue to fuel the fey queen in Ahnnaòin. She would not usually waste time or energy on something so futile, but it was an excellent distraction for the Wild Hunt. Jade had no doubt that Rian’s Seer might have uncovered her already if not for their preoccupation with Fuath attacking the villages. The Sylvan shields had been a blessing, even if they made channelling to Queen Aoibheal more difficult, because they had kept the Seer blind.
But Queen Aoibheal was dead now, and it would not be long before Rian turned his attention to the Vale again. Jade had no intentions of facing him yet.
Which meant she needed another kind of leverage.
Jade jerked the new ceremonial knife from her belt that she’d had to make to replace the one Riordan burned. She used it to cut her forearm, relishing the hungry hiss the blade made before she licked her blood off the tip. Then she turned her attentionto Ilias as he was shoved to his knees before her with his wings bound.
“Let us see your precious son continue to defy me after he learns that he cannot kill me without killing you too,” Jade smirked before she began to chant.
