Page 48 of Loving Nightmares
After some nods of confirmation and murmurs of excitement amongst the group, I followed my mates to the jet. They greeted the pilot as I made my way up the stairs and let out a long exhale, happy to be in the familiar cabin. I was equally as thrilled to find a dark box that I knew contained intel from my father.
Opening it up, I cozied up in the seat as my mates got ready for takeoff, Cy joining me to sort through everything. It didn’t take long for me to find exactly what I needed.
“War is back at the base in California.” The one we’d already been to, which meant it was familiar territory. That was good news, at least.
“It looks like he has a heavy amount of troops with him,” Razar said while looking over the papers with Cy.
“That’s unsurprising,” Blackwell growled. “He’s fucking hiding.”
“Pussy,” Damian muttered.
Now was not the time to mention how tough that actually was…right?
“Focus,” Cy murmured from next to me, looking amused. How did he freakin’ know what I was thinking?
“We need a plan, and a damn good one,” I breathed out. “First things first—do we need thesis metasspread out throughout the country? For when his influence breaks? I didn’t even consider that until now.”
“Normally I would say yes,” Saint said, “but the goal here isn’t to break the compulsion over the humans. It will result in that, but our focus is to render War incapable of fighting back so that I can kill him.”
“And once he’s dead, the compulsion should break entirely,” Amun agreed.
Ashur’s gaze darkened. “How close, exactly, do you need to be to War to make this happen?”
“I think just enough to see him, maybe? Both times I did it to god terrors, I was in their presence, so I would assume the same, but we should confirm with some of thesis metas. When we send over our plan and briefing, let’s have our contacts ask them that as well.”
My dad had mentioned to my mates that each of thesis metajets would have a nightmare representative from the institute—ones that were allies despite not normally living with us. And ifhe trusted them, so would I. We just had to communicate the message to them, and everyone would be on the same page.
“So we need to draw him out,” Ashur said.
I frowned. “I don’t want a battle.”
“Unavoidable, but thesis metashave mates for a reason. They will happily fight for them, and it will probably be over before anything serious happens,” Zain said lightly, his tone at odds with the tension in his frame.
“So we draw them out for battle like last time, and then we use thesis metas’power to render him useless, which means we need to keep as quiet as possible about their presence, and then Saint…”
“You leave the rest to me.” Saint winked. “Trust me, Arabella, War will die.”
Oh, I trusted him to do that—just how all of thesis metas, their mates, and families were trusting me to ensure that they would get back home in one piece.
Let’s just hope I could deliver on that.
19
DAMIAN
It wasn’t normallythis cold in California. In fact, I could tell you without a doubt that this was an unnatural chill, caused by War drawing on all the possible power he could. Probably because Arabella’s magic had messed him up, similar to how it had affected Hate, although we didn’t know that for sure—it was just a hope of mine.
As we stepped off the jet and looked around the empty private airport, I could feel the change, and the silence that filled the air told me everything I needed to know.
We were walking right onto a battlefield.
There would be no extra preparation. In fact, War was probably aware we were already here. What he didn’t know was that three more jets would be landing within an hour, filled withsis metasready to take him down.
“We should go straight to him,” Arabella said as we walked across the tarmac towards a dark SUV. Razar grabbed the key from the tire, and I used my magic quickly to search it for any explosives, all of this being done without Arabella even noticing.
“To provide a distraction so he doesn’t feel when the othersis metasarrive,” Zain murmured, because the natural inclinationwas to say ‘absolutely fucking not’ regarding the idea of her going anywhere close to War. I knew we couldn’t avoid it though.
“I have no doubt he’s already aware we’re here.” Saint shook his head in annoyance as we loaded into the car, Razar choosing to drive with Ashur up front. I pulled Arabella against me before buckling her seatbelt. I knew it probably seemed ridiculous considering the situation we were walking right into, but I couldn’t help the protective urges I had towards my cherry blossom.
