Page 24 of Veradel
For now, I lift my head to officially address my pack.
Iknow you’re all wondering what’s going on.” Lucan straightens to his full height and stares around the room, making eye contact with every single werewolf with an intensity that crackles through the air.
I take deep breaths, calming my nerves in the face of so many pairs of amber eyes.
“Well,” an older man with graying hair to the left speaks up, “you’ve been keeping us in the dark for months. We don’t know what to think.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s my fault. But I also know you’ve been gossiping with each other enough to get the basic facts: that Saskia is the first human from Xantera who has ever managed to escape alive, and she’s here with us now.”
His reassuring hand rests on my shoulder, but it doesn’t do much to relieve the weight of everyone’s gaze on me, judging, thinking, assuming.
“Whatyoumightnot know,” Lucan continues, “is that she also showed the rest of her people the truth about what’s happening to them and their Chosen Ones, and now the citizens are rebelling.”
Instantly, murmurs swell throughout the room. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, all too aware that the way Lucan phrased that makes me out to be more capable than I really was.Ididn’t show the people of Xantera the truth—Eleni and Claudia did. And we’re still no closer to helping them without any way to get through the Wall.
Still, a few of the gazes assessing me turn from skeptically curious to… admirable. Like they think I’m some kind of hero instead of just a human.
But some still don’t look convinced of anything.
“How do you know they’re rebelling?” a female voice to my right pipes up.
“Saskia and I went up to Eversnow Peak,” Lucan explains. “They’re fighting in the streets. Buildings are burning.”
The one named Gabriel, whose face is already turning a mottled black and blue from Lucan pommeling him earlier, keeps an obvious expression of distrust trained on my face.
“You actually fell off the top of the Wall?” he asks me, cutting through all the muttering until it dies away. “And lived?”
“Yes,” I answer quickly, startled. Maybe I shouldn’t have spoken, but how else would I be here now? Lucan bristles beside me, but Gabriel’s only asking a question, not accusing me of anything, even if the sentiment lurks beneath his actual words. I just don’t understand what that accusation evenis. “But Lucan caught me.”
Instantly, dozens of amber eyes flick toward Lucan. Eyebrows raise, and Taika assesses me with a slight tilt of his head from the corner, his hands clasped patiently in his lap. It dawns on me, then, like a fist to my gut, what some of them might be thinking, just as another male leans back in his chair with a scoff.
“How do we know she’s not a spy?” he asks the room.
The female sitting next to him nods in agreement. “Maybe she was lowered or let out.”
Actually, that sounds more plausible than the truth.
I stiffen and turn my head up to Lucan, but he doesn’t need to make eye contact with me to know I’m losing my burst of confidence. Instead,he chooses to stare down the female with such a withering expression that I’m surprised she doesn’t crumble to dust under the weight.
“Icaughther, Kyra. I watched it happen, heard it happen. I’ve been inside Saskia’s head for months. I have full faith she’s not a spy. If you want to discuss the fact that I’ve kept you out of the loop, then let’s talk about that. Because I’m to blame for the secrecy.”
Vivian’s words ring through my head again:he wanted to keep you all to himself. Heads turn to their neighbors, shoulders dropping, but no one speaks.
That is, until Gabriel mutters under his breath, “It doesn’t matter anyway. If she doesn’t have the key, we’re back to square one. Like we’ve always been.”
Lucan tenses behind me again, but thankfully, Vivian pipes up before another brawl can break out. “Not necessarily,” she says, crossing her arms from across the table. “Saskia has insider information about the vampires and the nature of Xantera. This whole time, we’ve only been able to guess what’s been happening within that Wall, but now…”
Every head in the room turns back to me, blinking expectantly. I swallow, realizing they’re waiting for said insider information. The details of my everyday life back in Xantera are unfathomable secrets to these werewolves who have been living on the outside for centuries. And Lucan, it seems, hasn’t told them anything about the information he’s gleaned from our previous conversations.
I glance over my shoulder to find his eyes pinned to me, and when he reads the question brewing in my own eyes, he nods. A strange sense of gratitude swells in my chest over the realization that he chose to keep our entire relationship private up until this point. Letting me take the lead on what I want to share or not.
Clearing my throat and digging deep for more courage, I address the rest of the room with my chin a little higher.
“The vampires breed us carefully to achieve the perfect number of humans to satisfy them. Not just their needs but their greed. They control every aspect of our lives—from who we’re supposed to love to where we work to what we eat—and they make it seem like an honor to give our blood. There’s this thing called the Choosing…”
Over the next hour, I spill everything to every listening ear, watching the mixture of expressions morph from shocked to appalled to outragedall over again as I spew the details that sit in my stomach like rocks. The Cardinal Rules. Sanctuary Sunday. “Keep your spark alive.” Even Gabriel’s mistrustful twist of his mouth ends up in a clenched jaw when I tell them about our names and how they’re chosen—something I’ve never thought was abnormal until now.
“Your parents really don’t name you?” Soren asks, wrinkling his nose.
