“Did you at least make any headway on the exit?”
“No,” Kendric says flatly.
Bear turns and marches away, swearing under his breath. I don’t blame him, but his lack of concern about the people who haven’t made it makes him seem cold and cruel. Is he cold and cruel or is the face he shows in public just a mask to hide the real alpha?
When I look up, he’s staring at me with something akin to frustrated expectation. It’s like he wants to shake me or yell at me, but instead he remains silent, tension in every part of his body. I can barely see anythingelse; I can almost hear his accusations. You could have helped us. You could have said something, anything. Why won’t you help to save our people?
Cadel stomps up to me and grips the back of my neck, he brings our heads together, but instead of the kiss I was expecting and possibly fearing, our foreheads bang together, but it breaks me out of the spiral that I’d been falling down.
He exhales, and his air becomes mine. I draw in the wild, icy taste of him, losing more and more of myself to him. Bear, the wolves, Ava, Alex, everything is forgotten.
“Keres.”
It’s one word. It’s my name. But there’s so much in that one word that I reach out, grabbing hold of his shirt, holding him to me, because I can’t bear the thought of him moving away from me.
The hand on my neck squeezes slightly, and I close my eyes, wanting to stay like this forever. I flex, splaying my fingers out, feeling the hard warmth of his chest.
“Inside, now,” Mordecai says.
Cadel reluctantly pulls away from me, but those dark red eyes hold mine with a wealth of feeling that leaves me unsure and uneasy. I’m falling headfirst into something I can’t avoid, but I can see the pain that’s coming.
Cadel turns slightly but slips an arm around my waist as we walk back up to the school. I can’t remember if I have ever walked like this before. Maybe my mother did it, but I don’t think so.
“Where were you?” I ask him softly.
“Tried to stop them from following you,” Cadel murmurs, his arm squeezes me tighter to him.
“Debrief,” Legion says to everyone.
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t know what that is, but I don’t like it already.”
Legion flashes a smirk in my direction.
I don’t know; it feels like we might have found a way to be allies, and that feels surprisingly good.
We all file into the same room that Bear used the first time they told me about the Resistance’s plans. It’s small and clean, and now that it’s daylight, I can see that beyond the windows is a courtyard, completely closed off. It’s little more than rubble and overgrown plants, but it gives us the privacy we need.
No one can hear our secret plans.
“What went wrong?” Bear asks coldly.
Legion huffs and starts to pace. “We got out there, heading in the direction you insisted we go in.”
The sharp tone isn’t missed by any of us. Cadel’s arms loop around my waist and pull me back against him. For a moment, I think of resisting, but whatever Bear was about to say is swallowed when he looks at both of us, observing the way Cadel is holding me.
“They found us almost straight away. We ran, but at every turn, there were more of them. They flooded the city, and we could barely stay out of their way. We found Keres and the Ravage Wolf and ran until we lost him,” Legion says matter-of-factly.
I keep my eyes down so I don’t send Legion a sharp glance, demanding to know why he’s left the Anarchy Wolf out of the narrative. That’s a pretty massive omission.
“Did you look for the exit?” Bear snaps.
“We honestly didn’t have a chance, Alpha,” Legion’s tone is bordering on belligerent.
Bear inhales, his chest inflating as he fairly vibrates with fury. “Not good enough,” he says in a clipped voice. “And, you?”
Kendric shrugs. “We went in one direction until Keres found letters from her mother. It seemed important, so we stayed, but the Beta’s Path found us. We all scattered.”
“Is Alex alive or dead?”
