I glared at her and bemoaned my inability to speak. All of us bristled as the white-haired woman stared down at our woman with wide, worried eyes.
Corvus solved my problem by growling, “Get the fuck away from her. She’s not yours.”
Instead of Sadie obeying, her eyes glowed neon red.
She bared her teeth like a wild animal. A warning growl rattled in her chest as she said, “She’s my best friend, so you better fucking watch yourself. I know her better than all of you, and I’ll be by her side long after she’s done with you.”
I narrowed my eyes, and my stomach churned at her words.
“Shit, what happened to her?” Cobra hissed as he staggered over to Sadie. His arm was gushing blood from a stab wound, but he pressed a hand over it and ignored the doctor trying to get him to sit down.
The shifters were a virus.
“Worry about your own people,” Scorpius said, his jaw clenched as he traced his fingertips softly over Arabella’s arm.
Cobra’s pupils narrowed into slits, and his eyes glowed like his mates’。 The jewels embedded in his skin turned into writhing black shadow snakes and gave him the appearance of a madman.
What my Revered saw in these animals was beyond my comprehension.
“She isssss my people,” Cobra hissed angrily at Scorpius, and he took a step closer to the bed like he wanted to fight.
Flames sizzled across Malum’s shoulders, and he stood up and blocked Cobra’s view of Scorpius and Arabella. The shadow snakes writhed faster across his skin, and flames leaped higher.
On the bed beside us, a man screamed as his nose was stitched back on.
“What happened to Aran?” the posh shifter Xerxes asked as he walked over and stood beside his mates. “Jax and Ascher are getting stitched up but are going to be fine.” He stared down at my Revered and furrowed his brow. “Why is Aran not awake?”
John sighed loudly. “For sun god’s sake. She took an enchanted sword to the stomach, but she just needs time to recover.”
A tense moment passed.
“Are you sure nothing happened to her heart?” Sadie asked with concern, the glow receding from her eyes.
“I’m sure,” John snapped at her with annoyance. “We wouldn’t be sitting here calmly if something had. Or are you questioning my loyalty to her?”
“Maybe I am?” Sadie snarled.
He glared daggers at her.
A long, tense moment passed.
Finally, Sadie said, “We’ll come back later when the men aren’t being psychos around her.” She tugged her mates away.
Cobra glared back at us with malevolent snake eyes as he let his mate pull him away.
I scowled back.
She was ours, not theirs.
They’d learn it soon enough.
Chapter 11
Aran
NIGHTMARES
Louch （adjective）： not reputable or decent.
DAY 4, HOUR 18
“We have destroyed all the infected,” I said as I stood at attention in the strategy room—I didn’t remember volunteering to speak.
Everything was blurred.
Shadows and shapes bared their teeth and swallowed me whole.
My back was ramrod straight.
Arms behind my back.
Legs wide.
Head bent in deference.
The champions and generals stood beside me, all of us in a neat, obedient line before Dick, who was projected onto the chalkboard. Lothaire and the mysterious cloaked man flanked him on either side.
Lothaire’s singular eye was focused on me, and he nodded as if he was giving me strength. “Are you okay?” he mouthed.
I nodded back discreetly, then focused on Dick.
It felt like someone else was speaking as I continued to give the report. “The battle spilled out into the perimeter, but the foot soldiers secured the valley—to our knowledge, no infected escaped. A map of the realm was retrieved from the battle. It does not contain coordinates, but shows there are three more compounds in the realm. The angels will use it as their guide.”
“Good,” Dick said casually like we were talking about the weather. “Was there anything else on the map?”
He gestured at the screen, and the projection warped around his wrist and revealed a gold cuff, but when he went still, the skin on his wrist was bare.
Great, now I was seeing things.
“The map? Was there anything else on it?” Dick repeated with a harsher tone, and I realized he was waiting for me to answer.
I squinted.
There was a spot on the map that had been suspicious, but why would the High Court know that? And if they did, why would they ask about it like they didn’t have knowledge?