Four Mates & A Tribrid

Chapter 48

Maeve's POV

She stilled, leaving her in a frozen state. I could barely blink as she whirled around. She held the end of a knife to my neck as claws protruded out of her fingers, her teeth lengthening into spiked points. "How the hell do you know that?"

I tried leaning further away which just made her growl. "He's my mate."

She reared back as if I had slapped her. "He's dead," she said. Although it sounded more as if she was trying to convince herself of that.

I shook my head. "You're Stella, right?"

She stumbled back a step. "Wha- How do you know my name?"

I pleaded to her with my eyes. "Caspian and I are mates. He told me about you-"

A sob caught her throat as she paced in front of me. "No. No. No. No. No."

My anxiety was racking up by the second. "Hey!"

Her head snapped towards me and the sight broke my heart. She was my mate's sister. He thinks that she's dead.

"I need to get out of here," I say slowly.

She shakes her head. "I can't." Her grip on the knife shifts. "He won't let you leave..."

I take the opportunity and run with it. "What does he want with me?"

Her gaze shifts to the door and back to me again. "I'm not completely sure, but he needs a tribrid."

"For what though?" Her eyes look contemplative. "Please," I whispered.

"Promise me that he's alive," she says, retreating and placing the knife back into her bag.

"I promise," I immediately respond. "He still carries your necklace."

Her resolve falls as she gets down to her knees and opens up the book. Her eyes flood, teardrops falling to the concrete floor below. She cursed. "I don't know if you'll be able to get out from down here, the place is a maze."

"You're letting me go?" I ask, feeling relief flood my veins.

She looks up at me with pain-laced eyes. "You're my family now."

I felt my own tears surface. I may not have a sister in body, although she would always be with me in spirit, but I felt love for my mate's sister all the same. "Thank you." It wasn't much, but I meant it.

Stella sighed as she began reading the worn pages. "He needs a tribrid to access the artifact."

It took me a second to register her words. "The what?" I sputter. Why did that sound so familiar?

"It's what my father stole. It's from the 1600s when the war on witches and sirens was at its peak." Why does this all sound vaguely familiar? "It needs a powerful force to access it." She looked up at me. "And that's you."

I felt sick. "Why does Dem-" She looked at me with a shake of her head. "Why does he want it?"

She bit her lip, resuming her reading in the book. "It was something his ancestor created. No one is quite sure what its purpose is, but it stopped the war back then and I can only assume what he's wanting to use it for now."

I took in her words as she placed her hands on my legs. "What are you doing?"

She squeezed her eyes shut before muttering a string of foreign words. I felt magic flare up my legs, sending heat in its wake.

My mouth dropped open as the chains around my legs broke free. "You have magic?"

Her lips twisted in a grimace of a smile. "Little did my father know I was gifted. It runs in my mother's side of the family. That's why he was hoping Caspian had inherited it. Mine didn't come in until after I turned eighteen, so he never found out."