Page 20 of Loving Nightmares
“He had an exit plan all along,” Ashur said as the healer left the room, reading my mind.
“War?” I sighed. “Yes, he did.” One that we hadn’t planned for, overconfident in our ability to capture him.
The minute he had recovered from his rage of losing the humans, he’d been gone. In retrospect, it didn’t surprise me that he had prepared for this—after all, it was what the man was known for, and he did have an expansive knowledge ofsis metas. In fact…
“I don’t think he was angry about the bonds as much as her magic affecting him,” I said, thinking about the way his magic had fizzled momentarily as hers had slammed into his.
“I felt it,” Ashur said, a look of awe on his face. “I felt what her magic did to his—it damn near suffocated it, like a flame being blown out. There was absolutely nothing he could have done to protect himself from it besides leave.”
“Do you think he’ll get sick like Hate did?”
“Probably, but he may have already thought of that.”
“Hopefully the humans will give us some insight into his plans moving forward,” I murmured in thought.
Following the breaking of the compulsion, the nightmares had gathered all the humans and brought them into the institution. There had been so much confusion that none fought against us; they had come willingly. I had no doubt that now that things were getting settled, they were starting to feel fear, but at the time a primal instinct had sent most humans running or had left them in a daze, absolutely frozen. Which was why the outside of the institute looked barren and desolate, the massive holes in the ground and blood the only sign that a fight had taken place.
It was almost eerie, looking down out the window at all of it. It had been less than twenty-four hours, and the afternoon sun was shining down on the grounds as if it was a normal day.
“They probably don’t know more than Keres, but it’s worth a try. Plus, we can give them a message for when they return to the other humans,” Damian said as he entered the room, returning to check on Arabella. I stood and nodded towards my chair, needing to pace and think through everything anyway.
“We’re going to need a story,” I agreed. I may not have had a great grasp on present human society, but even with the compulsion broken, confusion, fear, and hatred would probably still exist. I would like to think not, but War had probably needed some type of foothold to attach his influence to, even if it had just been the fear of something ‘different.’
“Do we know how long he’s been influencing all of them?” Ashur asked.
“We could ask Keres,” Damian suggested. It was a good idea. It would be important to know because at the end of the day, even with War’s influence, it was possible that we would still be facing a society that wanted absolutely nothing to do withnightmares. I ran a hand over my face before putting my hands on the window ledge and staring out.
Society was so much more complicated now than it had been before, and it largely had to do with technology. When I had been pharaoh, it had been easy to send out a message to the masses, and while that could be done now, there were ten million other messages being sent that ours could get lost in. I couldn’t imagine how complicated true warfare was in this day and age.
I looked back at Arabella, appreciating how easily she handled all of this. While the ‘no fear’ element worried me when it came to my precious human, it also left her with a clear head that served well in situations like this.
“How many have been injured? Precious will want to know,” I asked Damian, whose gaze was riveted to Arabella.
“Injured with the new weapons? Around twenty-five or so, but more than half have already been treated,” Damian explained. “The bunker was just opened, so there are a lot more hands to help, especially from the Class D nightmares down there.”
I nodded, glad that the number was so low. I knew Arabella would have preferred zero, but considering the extent of the battle and how many humans had died, the fact that we only had twenty-five nightmares that could be considered ‘seriously’ injured was commendable. We had won this battle, and while it was hard to remember that right now, I planned on emphasizing that to Arabella.
The battle had been won because ofher.
“I need to see her!” The determined young voice had me turning towards the door, where Blackwell was barring someone from entering.
“She’s unconscious. This isn’t really a good—”
A head of silver hair slipped past Blackwell, the nightmare offering the small girl a confused look as she rounded the bed and immediately sat on it, taking Arabella’s hand. This was the youngsis metawe had saved—Nia, I believed was her name.
“She probably won’t be up.”
“I know,” the girl said. “I felt her use her magic. I’m not here for her to wake up; I need to help her.”
My brows furrowed. I didn’t know how she planned on helping her…
A silver orb came off the girl’s hand as she closed her eyes and magic saturated the room. I had no idea the extent of this girl’s experience with her magic, but we watched as her silver glow transferred to Arabella, and I immediately noticed color returning to her cheeks, her magic once again beginning to shimmer under her skin.
After no more than a minute, Nia pulled back. “Okay, she should be up soon.”
“What did you do?” I demanded.
“She gave her some magic to heal,” Ashur said, tilting his head as he stared at our mate.
