Page 94 of Entombed By Blood
Silas strokes her hair soothingly. “You’re still recovering,” he reminds her. “Be patient with yourself.”
“You’re doing amazingly well,” Finley adds. “No one expects you to be at a hundred percent for a long fucking time.”
"Did you find any trace of Vane at the Lycan Compound?" I ask Frost, leaving the other two to comfort Evelyn.
He gives me a short, sharp nod. "He's there. Chained up with the others. They were discussing interrogating him when he shifts back.”
Silas’s expression turns murderous and the knuckles on his free hand turn white.
“Morwen will want the spectacle of bringing him in,” Evelyn mutters. “That’s the one thing she and Cain have in common—their flare for the dramatic. It wouldn’t surprise me if she drags him in front of our sire at the gala, for maximum impact.”
I rub at my temples as I think it through. Evelyn might have been right about his location, but I’m still not about to send her into a live situation unless it’s absolutely necessary. “Getting him out of the compound will be difficult…”
“But a fuckton easier than if he’s transferred to Cain’s dungeons,” Frost finishes for me. “Eve keeps offering to go and ‘talk’ to Morwenna, but that’s suicide.”
“We need a big distraction,” I mutter, mentally discarding possibility after possibility. “Something big enough to get their attention.”
“I vote for explosions,” Draven replies, drawing a knife out of seemingly nowhere and starting to flip it—catching it by the blade each time—as his eyes take on a glazed, excited look. “Big ones.”
I sigh. “Of course you do.” Draven loves chaos, and blowing up a building would probably make his day. “What about the ghouls?” I aim the question at Frost, but he’s already shaking his head.
“I don’t have time to build up the kind of numbers I used to get Eve out of the Court.” He runs a hand through his shaggy hair, then freezes. “But maybe I can still be a distraction.”
“What are you talking about?” I groan.
“Cain wants me,” Frost shrugs. “He’s been after me for decades. Now he’s sent Eve after me. He’s expecting my head on a silver platter, but what he really wants”—he pauses and flashes us a wicked grin—“is me in his dungeons so he can gloat.”
“So that’s your plan?” Finn says. “Dangle yourself outside the Lycan Compound? Would you like us to gift wrap you first?”
“It’s a good idea—” I begin, but Silas cuts me off.
“No. It’s a stupid idea. I won’t trade our alpha to get my brother back. Vane would kill us for even considering it.” He scrubs at his face with his hands and shrugs off Finley’s attempt to comfort him. “We find another way. One where we all come out of this as one pack.”
The room falls silent, all of us lost to our own thoughts and the weight of the helplessness we’re all feeling.
I sigh and push off from the wall. “We need to eat and rest.” Nothing will get done while we’re still exhausted, sweaty, and emotional from a night under the full moon. “We’ll catch a few hours of sleep, wake up early, and try to figure this out.” I pin Evelyn with my stare. “I have no plans to abandon your sister, but how certain are you that Cain will kill her?”
“He’s bringing her to the gala,” she whispers. “He wouldn’t have announced that if it wasn’t a deadline.”
My fingers press hard into my temples as I try to think, but it’s useless. The full moon fucks over our kind mercilessly, and right now, my body might as well be made of lead. Silas, Finley, and I are useless right now. Unless we want to launch a rescue mission with only half our team—and the unstable half, at that—we’re screwed.
“We sleep on it,” I repeat, making sure to meet each and every one of their eyes so they know it’s an order. “We won’t abandon Vane, and we’ll do our best to save Imogen as well.” Evelyn’s lips purse as I deliver that last line, but she was a general before she was shut away. She has to know that sometimes you just can’t save everyone. “Our best chance at doing both is rest.”
Evelyn
Rest. He wants me to rest? I pace the confines of my room like a caged animal, glaring at the door.
It’s been hours since I told them everything, and I gave up even trying to sleep long ago. I’m exhausted, but my mind won’t let me switch off.
Gideon is focused on saving Vane, and that’s fine. Admirable, even. But it won’t help Immy. Gideon’s caution will get her killed. He doesn’t know my sire like I do, and he doesn’t trust me enough to listen to what I have to say. Even if he did, he has no reason to care about Cain’s least favourite daughter. She presents no advantage to him. She wouldn’t even make a good hostage. Just like everyone else, he’s judged her worthless.
My hands ball into fists. Immy isn’t worthless, she’s justdifferent. I thought Frost would defend her, but even he just shot me an apologetic look and trotted off to follow the other alpha’s orders with the rest of the pack.
I almost regret mentioning her in the first place. Damn Frost for slipping beneath my defences with his familiarity and his big eyes and—argh!
The thirst burns in the back of my throat. As much as I want to ignore it, I know I need to feed. Biology doesn’t care that I don’t want to get that close to most of them right now. Sooner or later, my instincts will kick in and take the matter out of my hands. If that happens, I could end up jumping Frost or Gideon, and I’m angry enough that I might withhold my venom out of spite. For the first time in my life, I curse my vampirism.
Maybe Silas or Finn won’t mind…
