“Hunter whore!”
“Tie her up next to him!”
“Someone grab her!”
Hands clamped around my arms, pulling me away from Adam, and he morphed into the officer I rarely saw. In a deft maneuver, he flung himself between me and my attacker, and the soldier who’d grabbed me was immobilized with his hand wrenched behind his back.
“No one touches her!” he snapped. “She is one of us!”
“Not if she’s fucking a Hunter, she’s not,” someone from the back bellowed.
Agreements tore through the small room.
“That is enough!” roared a voice from behind it all.
The horde went silent and leapt to attention, saluting their general as he made his presence known. Theo moved, and the crowd parted to allow him a path to the front. The officers guarding the stockade saluted him as he approached, including Adam, who blocked my view.
At the front of the crowd, Theo spun, his stiff arms behind his back as he addressed them in his military bark. “Everyone to the assembly room.Now!”
The soldiers fell back at once, all of them crowding the single staircase that led to the main level.
Once the room was empty, Theo turned to his officers. “You will not leave your station at this door.No onegets through. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!” they shouted as one.
Theo turned to look at me, still standing behind Adam.
“Lieutenant,” Theo said. “Move aside.”
After a beat, Adam dropped his guard. I met Theo’s stern expression with a hard one of my own. “Let me see him.”
Theo’s jaw worked. “What were your orders, officers?”
“No one gets through!” they said as one.
“That includes you, Reeves,” Theo said. “Get upstairs.”
My teeth ached with how hard I clenched them, but I followed Theo like a scolded puppy, glancing back once to the door that led to Lucas. Adam’s warm gaze latched onto me, and he winked.
Once I was alone with Theo, he side-eyed me. “Williams has been alerted to the situation. She’ll be here as soon as she can. Scott will need to stay in lockup until she arrives.”
“When can I see him?”
He sighed. “Let’s get through this first, alright? I’ve called everyone for the announcement. I want you to wait out of sight.”
We arrived at the stage entrance of the auditorium in short order. The low hum of voices vibrated beyond the closed door. Theo stationed me in the small antechamber to the side of the stage before heading inside. The crowd quieted at once, and Theo’s heavy steps trod across the wood.
“Listen up, soldiers,” he said, his voice carrying through the room easily. “You’ve heard the chatter, and I’m here this morning to make a few things clear. Today, I bring you news of a significant development. Last night, five Blood Colonels were killed in a high-risk rescue mission.”
Three seconds of silence preceded a cacophony of shouts, gasps, and whoops of joy. The noise quickly died when Theo continued on: “It’s an enormous victory. Monumental. And the assassin, the one who risked his life to rescue one of our own, was none other than Colonel Lucas Scott.”
Hisses and boos followed this announcement, and I peeked around the corner to see Theo raising his arms to silence the room.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Theo said. “He’s the worst of them all. Cold-blooded killer. Hunter. NAO supporter. What you don’t know—what I’m telling you now—is that he’s ours.”
A stilted hush.
“For the past year, Lucas Scott has been working for the Defiance. Our advantage? It’s due to him. Their armory? Him. Lily Wyatt? Him. The Ohio River? Him. The prisoner rescue? Him. Every trap they walked into and every convoy we intercepted were all thanks to him.”
