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“What? It’s true, isn’t it? But all this talk is for nothing, isn’t it?”
The red shine in Kerin’s grey eyes worried me as she turned to face me. The Black Wolf and Lonan weren’t the same things, but for now, they operated under an unholy alliance. Who looked out at me when that red tinge leached in? Kerin, Lonan, or the Black Wolf?
“Is it? I have the keys, don’t I?” I said, shaking them in front of them, which was probably a mistake.
Fuck, Kerin was fast. Her lips peeled from her fangs as she leapt across the table at me, scattering plates and pulling cries from children and women alike. My free hand snapped around her wrist, and I was thankful when I managed to hold her still. The guys clustered around me, low growls building in their chests. Kerin went limp, more or less, in my grip, her eyes flicking to the guys then me.
“You’re a pack. You’re Tirian.”
She looked almost affronted. Punching her square in the face wouldn’t have surprised her as much as this, I was willing to guess.
“You exist, outside of all of this.” Kerin flung her arm
up, gesturing widely to the suite. “You… All of these… No one…” She just pulled herself off the table, unmoved by the fact plates and cutlery came with her, splattering on the rich carpets. I caught her arm when she staggered, righting her, then watched to see if she had this.
“You did bring them,” Arelia said, standing up and staring at Sylvan.
“I don’t know what I brought.”
“But you said. You always said.”
“Fuck, Arelia, I don’t always remember what I said. When the dreams, the visions come, I’m offline. I’m the puppet of whichever god is riding me.”
“But you told me. All those nights, you told me you’d get us out.”
Most women, when they get upset, start to go red and blotchy, getting sniffy and snivelly, but not Arelia. She stood there, every muscle in her body quivering, looking as terrible as a goddess as she stared down the table. Kiralee’s hand reached for her mother’s, and Arelia took it, which drew all of our attention.
“She’s…” Jack said, and I nodded.
We hadn’t noticed it at the start, each one of the women a kaleidoscopic array of beautiful. Every hair, eye, and skin colour was represented in the…sisters or half-sisters at least, so a child with long black hair and bright green eyes like her mother was stunning, but no more stunning than any of the others here. But as my eyes were drawn down, I noted the strong stance in the little girl’s feet, her eyebrows pulled down, her eyes burning into mine in ways her mother’s couldn’t.
“Get us out,” Kiralee said. An alpha rumble in a kid’s voice was the last thing I expected to hear, but the rest of us stood straighter as we felt her will beating down.
“Now, look…” Finn said in what he probably thought was a reasonable tone.
“Get us out,” the child repeated, and then I saw it.
Why would Sylvan come back? His heart seemed to be firmly ensnared by Branwen, but as I looked at Kiralee’s mother, it wasn’t hard to see why he would have. Let your eyes blur, trade the knowing look of Branwen for the rather more nobly desperate one of Arelia, and it was easy to make the swap. My eyes dropped to her daughter. As Sylvan had obviously done at least once.
I looked across at him, saw the completely arid expression on his face as every part of himself was tucked up tight behind the wall he’d built. His eyes sparked when he caught me looking at him, that old devilish smile back for a second, and the gasp across the table said Arelia had seen it too. “Well, little queen? Are you going to ride to the rescue? How can you build your court if you don’t collect some courtiers?”
“I get it now,” Brandon said as an aside. “Seers are really fucking annoying.”
“Welcome to the club,” Slade said, slinging an arm around his shoulder. “What should we do with this weaselly little fuck? Wring every bit of bloody information he has out of him, and then use his misbegotten hide to wipe up the mess?”
“I’m in,” Jack said, arms crossed as he stared at the seer, his gaze flat right up until we heard the first sniffle.
Kerin’s daughter hid low in her chair, sitting between two women who weren’t her mother. She watched the guys with a look that no child should be capable of—pure unadulterated horror. And while that ripped my heart out and stomped it, what was worse was that no one looked surprised at this. The nearest woman, the one who’d apparently killed her kid, put an arm around the little girl, drawing her closer, muttering soft shushing sounds and wiping away her tears.
“We get them out,” Hawk said.
“What?” Aaron said, “This mission is getting—”
“We get them out, all of the women. In heat or whatever, none of them are staying here. Not the others in the outer limits, not the ones in the kitchen, not the ones here.” He fixed the lot of us with a steely gaze. “Don’t give a shit how hard it is, all of them.”
“We may not make it out ourselves if we do this,” Finn said.
“Then we get Jules out as well. These fucks are going to rampage through the city tomorrow?”
