Colton~~

Seong-ho cracks his neck, I swear, for the fiftieth time, as we walk out of the hotel into sunlight. At this point it's unnecessary.

"Would you stop scowling at me?" he snaps. "It's your fault I was tied to a chair for over half a day."

"I was right there beside you the whole time."

"It wouldn't have happened if you hadn't hesitated." He storms past me for the car. We've been going back and forth on this since Iris and Erik left. We both tried to get free, even resorting to Seong-ho causing his chair to tip over. I have to hand it to Iris—she knew what she was doing when she tied those knots.

Having to remain there until a maid found us wasn't ideal, considering how despite our best efforts during those fifteen hours to refrain from relieving ourselves we failed. I'll leave it at that.

Exhausted, I get in the driver's seat. "I didn't hesitate."

Seong-ho's phone is turned on and in his hands, a charger connected to it. "All you had to do was drag the knife across her throat. Quick. Easy." He says that now, but I know he's relieved I didn't kill her. "I then would have had you to help me overpower Erik." He lets his phone fall to his lap and looks out the window. "They're thirteen hours away, heading west. I don't know how we're supposed to catch them. We'll only be able to track them for two more days."

I try not to let his words worry me as I pull up Brydan's contact info.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling Brydan."

"Why?"

"You can't start blackmailing someone until they know you have stuff on them. You know all about that, right?"

He glares and curls himself into the seat, resting his head against the door.

Brydan answers on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Are you on speaker?"

"No. What do you want?"

"I was just wondering how it feels to betray your best friend and the entire Society."

Silence. I can't even hear him breathing.

"Brydan?"

"What is it you want me to do? I know how this works."

"Erik's heading west. Do you think you can keep Jonas away from that side of the country?"

The phone beeps. He hung up.

"How did that go?" Seong-ho mutters.

"I'm not sure."

A text pops up on my phone.

Brydan: Jonas just walked in. We're at the old Estate so I'm going to need to know which state specifically.

"What state are they in?" I ask my cousin.

"Utah."

Colton: Stay away from anywhere around Utah. Nevada, Idaho, and Arizona should be avoided.

Brydan: Don't make me do this, Colton. Your brother is my best friend.

Colton: Obviously you don't want him to find Erik and Iris, so in a way, I'm helping you out.

Brydan: You're disgusting.

Colton: I'm not the one who's the traitor.

Even if I can't find them again, as a brother I don't want Jonas confronting Erik. I have no doubt in my mind, Erik would have pulled the trigger on us. For Erik, Jonas represents his loss of freedom, him becoming Tresais, his captor. He hates Jonas now, and I don't want to try to think about how much Erik would hurt him if given the chance.

"We need to go now if we want to stand a chance at catching them."

I frown down at my phone and fasten my seatbelt. "Can you plug in my phone?"

Without a word, Seong-ho takes it and attaches it to the other charger. I get ready to back out of the parking space when my phone rings.

"It's Bently," Seong-ho says.

I hold out my hand. "I'll take it." Seong-ho passes it to me, and after hitting answer, I raise it to my ear. "Hello?"

"You know we do know you went looking for Erik, right?"

I rub my face. Vienna was supposed to cover for me. "How?"

"Is it just you and Seong-ho?"

"Yes."

"Put me on speaker."

Switching the phone to speaker, I hold it between Seong-ho and me.

"Seong-ho told me about Brydan lying to Jonas in Tennessee."

Seong-ho yells, "Bently!" at the same time I say, "You did what?"

"I was bored and Bently was texting me." Seong-ho scoots as far over in his seat as possible. "I didn't think he'd tell you." He gives a pointed glare at the phone.

"We'd already assumed as much before Seong-ho let it slip where you were."

Seong-ho is hopeless, absolutely hopelessly. I manage to compose myself before asking him if he's planning to tell Jonas.

"No. We know that Jonas isn't going to do anything to Iris if he finds her, and he won't come home until he does. This country needs stability, and August, Sebastian, Percy, Tobias, Enzo and I have all agreed Jonas is no longer mentally stable enough to be Preeminence."

Too many thoughts rush through me to process them. "You know what you're saying can very well be treason?"

"We want you to be Preeminence, Colton, and Jonas, Douze. For the sake of the country."

The Preeminence. Me? I can't take that from my brother. He's trained his whole life for it. He's given his life to this role.

"It's time to place the Society—the country—over family. Do we have your vote, Colton? Seong-ho?"

"You have mine," Seong-ho says, causing me to give him an incredulous look.

"You need nine votes. What of Riley and Eli?" I ask. "Do you have their votes?"

Bently sighs. "Riley will never agree, but we're sure Eli will. He and Jonas are on rocky ground after Eli's comments regarding Iris. If you both come home, we can go after him together. He's with Riley and Jonas, but the two of them won't be able to stop the vote."

"What about Erik? He's still loose."

"Erik's too dangerous to be our Tresais," Riley says, and Seong-ho rubs the back of his neck. "We'll transition Raffiel into the Order after the vote is done." Raffiel is next in line. He's August's younger brother. He was born too late to be in the Order. The Order was set when Eli was born, the youngest of the twelve of us. "Will you come home and vote with us?"

Saying yes means betraying my brother more than Brydan did. But the Society before all. Jonas is jeopardizing us by searching for Iris himself. He's deprived the Society, the country of the leadership of the Preeminence. I was trained to make those difficult decisions, to make those decisions that leave me uncomfortable.

I'll always feel guilty if I say yes, but I know that becoming Preeminence is what I must do.

"You have my vote, Bently."

There's a Pinterest board for Expiration Date. My username is MikaelaBender, and the board is called Expiration Date.

Instagram: @mikaelabender

#Bookstagram account on Instagram: @oflightsandfaeries

Twitter: @MikaelaBender

TikTok: @MikaelaBender