Page 150 of Nash

I shiver. “Who was the man?”

Zar puffs. “Dead men tell no tales.”

The cigars and night-blooming jasmine on Zar’s trellis perfume the humid air. Tourists bustle on the summer streets below. A ship on the river blasts its horn in the distance. And I’m beginning to realize there’s far more to being a queen in this world than I ever imagined.

“Who is Seven?”

It’s been haunting me since my initiation. Nash will tell me in time, but I want to knownow. Something compels me. It’s like a clock is ticking down, and I fear it’s to a bomb.

“I don’t know,” Zar answers truthfully. “He’s a lion in bear’s clothing—that’s all Nick has told me.”

I turn to Delphine, whose stare is trapped on the view of the church spires and glowing city below.

“You know. Don’t you?”

Silently, she nods.

“Will you tell me?”

Silently, she shakes her head.

“But… But…” I stammer. “Why do I feel like I need to know? Like, I’m okay with so many secrets, but not this one?”

Delphine rolls her lips, slowly stubbing her cigar out in a white marble ashtray on the coffee table of Zar’s balcony.

“Please understand,” her French accent soothes, “as my fellow queen, you will always have my love. But as Grant’s queen, he has my loyalty, too. He swore me to secrecy. Seven is my second king, and I cannot betray him.”

For the rest of the night, I fake reading while I sit beside Wren, sleeping on the sofa. We share a white, knitted blanket Zar gently drapes over me, then her, but while she sleeps peacefully, something troubles me until I doze off and awake to Zar making us breakfast. The smell of biscuits, bacon, and coffee makes my stomach growl, but I can’t eat.

Not until I see Nash. Not until he holds me. Not until I cling to him in this desperate need to feel like everything will be okay.

But I can’t fight this maddening feeling like it won’t.

It’s like something is about to explode.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

NASH

Through my night-vision goggles,I see green bodies carpeting the pine wood floors between the pews of the old church.

Turner’s men lie dead everywhere.

The sobs and whimpers of the five teenage girls and two teen boys we found held captive disturb my soul. They huddle in the corner of the sanctuary, where Jace stands guard over them while the others clear the auxiliary spaces of the church.

One of the girls cradles a newborn swaddled in a blanket. She breastfeeds, trying to silence and protect her baby while terror fills her eyes, staring up at our lethal forms.

They murmur desperate prayers in Spanish, so I squat down and take off my goggles. I let her see my face and sincere eyes. I don’t speak the language well, but I try. “Esta bein.” I tell her it’s okay. “Soy padre. Estas seguro.” I pause. “Lo siento. Estas segura.”

I struggle with the language I learned in college, but I need her to know I’m a father, too. That she’s safe, and I’d never let anyone hurt her or them.

Axel storms into the sanctuary. “Turner’s in the wind.”

“You sure?” Jace asks.

“It’s none of these bodies.” Axel points his AK-47 with a Wolverine suppressor at the carnage we created. The suppressor is best at silencing any Kalashnikov weapon. No one heard us coming, killing, and they won’t hear us leaving, either. “They all have two eyes.”

“You think he knew we were coming?” Sire asks.

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