Suddenly, the main door of the room slammed open, thudding loudly as it smacked into the wall behind it and drawing my thoughts to the present.
“They’ve taken Kyella.”
The words bounced off the walls, echoing Tristan’s voice through the room. My entire body went stock still. My heart momentarily stuttered, horror and adrenaline slamming through me. Shocked silence fell over the room, and I slowly turned to look at the man in question.
What did he say?
It couldn’t be what I thought.
That was impossible.
No one hadtakenKyella. I had just seen her. I had just touched her. Kissed her. I had ensured she was safe.
But hadn’t I felt that something was off? Hadn’t I been worried about this exact shit? I blinked, trying to process not only what he was saying, but also my reaction to it as well as the information I needed from him. The most important being where she’d been taken to.
Taking a moment, I looked Tristan over, searching for any sign of a lie on his face or in his body language. But he looked out of breath and almost sickly pale, one hand braced on the door he’d slammed open with the other clutching at his pectoral just below a wound that bled profusely.Fuck.His wife was attempting to stop the bleeding, working on wrapping it up, but it seemed to be a work in progress since he hadn’t stopped to let her fix him up completely.
Their daughter trembled and clung to her mother’s skirt, staring up at her father with so much worry it made my chest squeeze uncomfortably. My analysis of his state occurred in less than a heartbeat, but it felt like much longer as I tried to prolong the reality of what he was saying.
“What did you say?” I demanded, somehow the first to pull out of our collective trance.
“Someone attacked her. I heard her scream and walked out into the hall only to be hit with a dagger. He dragged her away. He took her—”
“Where? Where did he fucking take her?” Elijah was suddenly in front of him, grabbing his collar. Tristan paled even further at the rage reflecting in Elijah’s expression.
I went to step forward, mostly to pull Elijah away from him. I wanted the answer as much as him, but Tristan was injured, shaking as blood ran down his front. Kolvar shook his head from where he stood next to me, suggesting I don’t disrupt, as he watched the situation unfold in silence.
Silence was rare for the man, and I’d known him long enough now to know that he was holding something back until he received more information.
“I don’t know. I was knocked out when I fell to the floor after having a dagger embedded in my fucking shoulder,” Tristan bit out as Elijah dropped his collar and stepped back, nearly shaking with a fury that coated his expression.
A boiling sense of rage grew underneath my skin made it hard to focus, let alone listen to what anyone was saying. It felt as if I was hearing every other word through a wind tunnel, so I clenched my fists, desperate to gain any level of grounding.
“How long was he out?” I asked Bailey as she looked away from her husband’s injury momentarily. She quickly turned her attention back to it, wrapping it in a skilled way that led me to believe this wasn’t his first injury. Recurring injuries wouldn’t surprise me, knowing he’d lived under Malakai’s rule in the past.
“Twenty minutes, perhaps,” she said after a moment. “I tried screaming out for someone, but no one came.”
That didn’t surprise me. People were either preparing for the possible attack,orthey were here in the strategy meeting. There wouldn’t have been anyone around—was that why they had been so confident in their bold action?
“They took her down the stairs,” Rina spoke up in a soft, shaking voice as she stared at the floor. “We tried to call for people—”
“This is not your fault,” Myrin said with a gentle shake of her head toward the little girl. “You did everything you should have.”
I looked toward our leader and saw fury burning in the depths of her eyes at the news of Kyella’s kidnapping. I could tell she was trying to control her reaction, but I think all of us had seen the start of a friendship that Ky and she had formed, so it was obvious she felt very strongly about what was going on.
Stronglywas an understatement for how I currently felt—I didn’t really have words to describe the emotions within me that scrambled over one another to possess me, to darken my thoughts.
Confusion. Rage. Panic. Fear.
How did Malakai's men even manage to get into the castle? Had they hurt Kyella? Was she okay? How much time did we really have to sit in this room, debating when our woman was in the clutches of our enemies?
Fear won out in the end. Paired with the adrenaline that coursed through my veins, it felt like my heart would beat out of my fucking chest.
Fuck. What if they took her back to Malakai?
“We need to intercept them before they get on that ship.” Kolvar’s voice rang out, seeming to snap the room back into action.
“If they aren’t already there,” I hissed, pacing toward the window, feeling a modicum of relief at the sight of the small ship still bobbing just beyond the harbor. If it hadn’t been there…Well, I think I would have lost my shit at that point.
