Page 24

My lips tip into a wry smile, remembering the shock on Caelan’s face when he realized what had happened.

“How close are we talking?”

“Close enough to burn a line across the side of my head near my temple,” I answer, and Gavran’s eyes widen in shock. The fact that he even had to ask tells me all I need to know about how little I crossed his mind once he got me here.

“I assumed you already knew that,” I add. “Lenora put it in her notes. Don’t you read those?”

Soren’s friend throws back his head and barks out a laugh that’s so loud it makes me jump in my seat. Turning to Soren, he shakes his head and grins. “Yer Mate’s got balls. And very little sense.”

Soren returns his grin with one of his own. “I think she’s much smarter than anyone wants to admit.”

His response feels like a warm blanket, and something inside of me starts to thaw. For the first time since I walked into this room, I feel the unfamiliar spark of hope. It’s not much, but I cradle it in my palms, holding it close to my chest.

I need all the help I can get to get through this next part.

“I knew, when I saw Caelan’s injury, that I needed to do something. There was so much blood. A pool of it. I remember kneeling next to him and thinking that there was no way one person had that much blood in their body.”

Wrapping my arms around my middle like that’s going to help, I close my eyes so I don’t have to look at Caelan’s pack while recounting the horror of his injuries.

“I thought… surely it’s going to stop. It has to. But it just—just kept coming.”

I can still smell it even now—copper and iron and the metallic taste of pennies coating the back of my throat like sludge. For days I couldn’t get that taste out of my mouth no matter what I did.

“I put pressure on the wound, but the blood—” I shake my head, like I can somehow shake away the memory. “It was coming too fast, and my hands were too small, so it started to seep between my fingers. I didn’t know what to do, so I ripped off my sweater and wrapped it around his thigh. Right above the wound.”

I can still feel the fabric of my cardigan slipping through my shaking hands. I had no clue what I was doing, but Caelan never once stopped telling me how good I was doing. How proud he was of me.

“I think I read about that once. In a book.”

My voice is raw, but I don’t even know who I’m talking to anymore. I swear I can still feel the way his blood pulsed from that hole in his leg. Red and sticky and unpleasantly warm. An insidious burgundy stream that refused to end. A trickling countdown to death that I had no way to stop.

“Someone—something—there was a sound… A scream, or…” My lips are moving, but I can’t feel them. My face is numb. There’s a ringing in my ears that won’t go away, and the scent of blood and gunpowder fills my lungs with every breath I take.

I’m drowning, drowning in a memory that’s turned into a nightmare. I’m drowning, and I don’t know how to find my way back to reality.

My Omega whimpers. Nest?

No. We don’t get a Nest, remember? Nests are for safe Omegas. Not us.

“Father was shouting, but it’s all—everything’s fuzzy, like watching the world through static. My memories jump and skip. Disjointed and out of order. It just—it will never end. Never.”

“A grand says those missing memories just happen to be when Varenthrall mentions literally anything important,” Vae mutters.

When my eyes blink open, the first thing I see is the smirk on Vaelenor’s face. It’s like getting hit with a bucket of ice-cold water, and all my senses come back online at once.

Painfully.

“There’s nothing more I can tell you that you don’t already know,” I murmur, fighting back tears. “My father hit me. I didn’t see it coming. I should have. His fist connected with the side of my head and then I was flying. And when I hit the marble, the pain was⁠—”

What am I doing? They don’t care about this.

“After that, there was nothing until I woke up in my room.” My eyes land on Gavran. “Not until you showed up with Silas. You know what happened from there.”

With a sigh, I deflate, sinking back into my chair. My body feels hollow, like the last twenty minutes have drained me of everything that makes me, me.

I just want to sleep. Close my eyes, and let the darkness take me, just for a little while.

But when Soren jackknifes out of his seat on the couch, I know that’s not going to happen.