Page 108 of The Girl in the Forest

Daegal paused at my side. “You have my permission to do what you wish with Ago. Although the wall would be a better punishment.”

“I’m not sure how to put him there,” I admitted.

With a bow, Daegal said, “I’ll do it for you.”

My legs trembled. I was nearing my limits, and we still had to find a way out that didn’t involve fighting. Like a child knocking a wasp’s nest with a stick, I’d agitated the vampires without thinking about the result. Barend was turning away. The shield guarding the doors was disintegrating. Vampires disappeared, leaving gray wisps behind. The female—Set—approached us. “Come with me.”

I’d released Ago to Daegal, so I didn’t hesitate. Set led us down a darkened stone corridor, then into another until we reached a private apartment. My nerves were jumpy. I couldn’t catch my breath. Set swept inside. I counted three vampires following in our wake, supporting Julien between them. Brin was helping Laura with Levi, while cradling her injured hand. Anger bristled from Set. I was drowning beneath the questions flooding through my mind. I’d used too much energy between the shadowy mist last night and then fighting the vampires today, and I still hadn’t processed what we’d learned about Amal, and how that changed everything.

The furnishings in Set’s apartment were clean and modern. Egyptian artifacts provided a counterpoint to the couches and slung chairs. The vampires stretched Julien on a pristine couch. The female bent over him, tending the wounds.

And despite being in the safest place I’d been during the past several days, I was more terrified now than I’d been facing Barend. The queen could penetrate High Citadel whenever she wanted. She could be hunting us now. And the vampires who still wanted a faille—the next time I attacked them, they’d be better prepared.

From the refrigerator, Set pulled a transfusion-styled plastic bag of blood. She held it to Julien’s lips, helped him puncture it with his fangs. “You need to leave,” she said. “My spies tell me creatures are advancing, miles away, but in this direction. I need you to take Julien with you. He isn’t safe here.”

“You’re Julien’s sire?”

For an instant, warmth flashed in her dark eyes, and her lips softened. She brushed at his hair. “Julien was always the rebel, even when he was human. That righteous streak drew me, when perhaps I should have recognized the danger. It wasn’t fair to him.”

“Do you keep your human personality when you turn?” My knee jerked with nerves or the urge to run, and I craved normal, something that didn’t carry the weight of the world with it.

Set shrugged. “Some do. Most don’t. We can be far more depraved than what you witnessed today. The arguments have only begun over this situation with Amal. She threatens our survival. Yours, too. Some say leave it to the wolves to solve, since the original sin was theirs. Others say we meddled, and the sin is now ours.”

“What do you say?”

“That taking an asp from a basket is a power play only if you believe the asp’s bite won’t kill you.” She looked at me. “You are what she could have been.”

I had no idea what Set meant. Amal had opened some door, and I was stepping through to reap some vengeance.

But the woman I’d only heard screaming in my head made more sense to me. The images she’d projected on the cave wall had been personal for her. The creatures that stormed through a meadow, through Azul, the outpost in the Carmag, even Sutter, were an extension of her fury, and perhaps even her grief over being used. Rejected by a king she might have loved, who punished her in the most vicious way by taking half of her entire being away. Her wolf… obliterated. I understood some of the pain wolves went through when their wolves fell silent. I couldn’t imagine how that felt to a queen, dying in the snow.

“Let Cybelle help you,” Set said. She was staring at Levi as he struggled to sit in one of the wooden side chairs. I thought he was afraid of dirtying the elegant upholstered furnishings. His jeans had damp bloodstains; the wound in his leg had reopened.

The blonde vampire—Cybelle—took Levi’s arm, helped him to a soft loveseat. She bent to straighten his leg. Laura hovered. Cybelle looked up at her.

“He has not healed as you expected?”

“I think they treated the bolts with something to slow the healing.”

“I suspected it the first time I treated him.” She looked at Levi. “May I cut your jeans? I may have something that will help.”

Levi lifted a hand. I read the exhaustion in his eyes before his head tipped back against the thick cushions. “Leave me here.” His voice was hoarse. “I’ll only slow you down.”

“No one stays behind.” I pushed a hand across my eyes. “We’ll rest here as long as possible. Then we keep moving.”

“I should split from you.” Brin stared at her hand; a vampire was wrapping her wound. “Let them chase me.”

“What’s with all the self-sacrifice?” Maybe teasing was inappropriate in that moment, but it was one way I diffused anger.

“You were ready to let them turn you for us,” Brin accused. And she’d said, fuck yeah. Because she’d known what I would do.

I tried to smile, but tightening my muscles made my face hurt. “I faked them out.”

“We came together,” Laura said firmly. “We go home together because I’m not explaining to Gray why we didn’t. Come home, I mean. Leaving one of us… no.”

She was shaking, and I didn’t even have to think about it when she rubbed the scars on her wrist. She was remembering her escape from the Alpen. And the girls who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—help themselves.

A pain started in my temple and stabbed behind my eyes. Cybelle had cut Levi’s jeans and was spreading an ointment on the puncture wound in his thigh. Then she wrapped the wound tightly. The white bandage was stark against his skin. I realized I was unable to pull my gaze away. My mind kept jumping back and forth between tan skin and white bandage. Laura was watching me curiously, as if she suspected I was on the verge of panic.

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