Page 3 of The Stone Curse
“We love you,” Ginia said.
“So much,” Palia added.
“But you need to get out of that bed and on your feet,” Sharniza said, her tone hard and unforgiving. “You owe it to Serath and to Romi, but most of all, you owe it to yourself.”
Romi…How the fuck would I save him now? How would I avenge Serath? “The elite team is gone. No Prasan, no Serath and Selas…” Selas was injured so badly that she’d had to be taken back to Arcadia for treatment.
“Selas is strong,” Touron said. “She’ll heal. But we need to make the motherfuckers who did this pay.”
I looked up at his determined face. “Without an elite team?”
They exchanged glances. “No,” Sharniza said finally. “You’ll have a team. Elite trials are in less than three weeks, and you won’t be taking them alone.”
CHAPTER 2
ONE WEEK LATER
Serath was dead.
I’d lost count of how often that thought stopped me in my tracks.
But if I closed my eyes and pretended hard, then I could imagine him here with me, standing behind me, the heat of his body brushing mine. Sometimes I’d even feel the weight of his hands on my shoulders. And in that moment before waking, when the world was soft, fuzzy, and unreal, his gruff, rumbling voice would tease my senses.
But reality always seeped in, and the tiny voice inside me that refused to allow me to succumb to delusion would remind me of the bitter truth.
Serath was dead.
He was gone.
But I was here, and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t curl up and die. I didn’t have the luxury of crawling into the bosom of my grief and staying there. So I ate, and walked, and talked. Trained andbreathed, all the while carrying an empty place inside me where my heart had once nestled.
Serath was gone, and I would never be whole again.
The only thing that kept me going was Romi. My brother was alive. I’d save him. I’d use everything that Serath had taught me and make him proud.
The tentative knock on my door made my teeth ache. Everything was eggshells and hushed voices. Everything was cottonwool and care, and although part of me understood that my friends were trying to help, that they cared about me, loved me even, the other part, the beast inside was enraged by it.
We were not weak.
We would not fall.
We would find Romi and kill the alpha, avenging our mate.
“Cam?” Curi called through the door. “The meeting starts in thirty minutes. We should leave.”
I closed my eyes and breathed to center myself before pulling open the door.
Curi was in full lastonflex initiate uniform, blue hair pulled back in a knot so that his brutal features were highlighted to their best advantage. To someone who didn’t know him, he’d come across as intimidating, frightening even, but not to me. Not when his dark eyes were brimming with concern. My agitation ebbed. For some reason, it was impossible to stay angry around Curi.
“You good?” he asked.
No. My mate was dead, but I was still breathing. “I’m good.”
He exhaled and nodded. “We just need to get through this meeting, and then we can focus on the mission.”
They’d made us wait one week before calling for a meeting to determine what exactly had happened the night of the cadet exams.
One whole fucking week!
