Page 82 of The Hero Within
CJ knew that. He'd tell her to keep going, to try and save Lily.
"He'll be safe here. I’ll see to his care. I promise I’ll—" Nnedi's head turned toward the door.
Someone knocked.
"Come in," Eden called, before realizing this wasn't her infirmary.
A huge form lingered in the doorway, his tawny hair bound back in a topknot. Eden's breath washed out of her as she laid eyes on the hulking alpha of Shadow Rock, and Nnedi stiffened.
"A word, my second?" Arik asked, hovering beneath the lintel as if didn’t dare enter the room.
"I'm not your second," Nnedi replied tightly. "I told you that last night. If you can't trust me to lead in your absence, then there is no point in me wearing your claw."
Just what Eden needed—to be caught up in a marriage dispute. She glanced toward the door. "I'll just...."
"I'd like to speak to you too."
You... do?
"This plague," Arik said to her, "how virulent is it?"
"I don't know, but I suspect it will prove highly contagious. Henry Chin said it was manufactured by the Confederacy as a bio-weapon, so I daresay it's meant to wipe out thousands."
Underneath his tan, he paled slightly. "And you think you can find a cure in Cortez City."
"Yes."
"You'll never get inside the city." Arik took a hesitant step through the door, earning a scowl from Nnedi.
"So you said."
"The walls are too high and all the gates heavily guarded. They have barcode scanners to make sure you belong to the Confederacy, and if you don't have a barcode tattoo they won't let you through. They don't like outsiders coming in. Don't want to risk one of them getting loose and telling their little sheep about the truth of the world outside their walls."
"We have to try," she protested.
"I know. Which is why Lincoln and I are going with you."
A second warg filled the doorway, scowling at her with his arms crossed over his chest. He still had a black eye, but no other sign that Colton had knocked him out.
"Wait, what?" Eden gaped.
"You can't leave the pack," Nnedi said abruptly. "Who will lead? Who will—"
"My second will lead," Arik replied, turning that intense focus upon his wife. "I can get Eden and her man inside Cortez. There's a way in and out, though nobody else knows of it, and it won't be fun.
"Shadow Rock is not wholly comprised of wargs," he murmured, returning his attention to Eden. "There are people here who choose not to accept the gift, and the children are vulnerable until they are turned. If I don't help you, then this plague might touch us, even here."
Nnedi caught his arm. "You can't go back!"
Back?
Arik's head bowed, and he breathed in his wife's scent, shifting on his feet. "I'm the only one who can get her inside Cortez, Nnedi. You want me to prove I trust you? You want me to prove you should be wearing this"—he dragged the necklace Nnedi had cast aside out of his pocket—"then you need to let me do this. Let me make amends. Let me protect our pack. Let me prove you have my heart, my trust, my everything."
Holding out Nnedi's hand, he put the necklace on her pale palm and closed her brown fingers over it.
"If you are captured—"
"Then I'll face nothing more than what Eden's man will face," he murmured.
