"This feels right," I mutter to Nikolai as we stand side by side, unable to resist taunting him a little. "Just like old times."
"Shut up," he growls, but there's something in his voice that wasn't there before. Something almost fond.
Whiskey fires first because of course he does. No finesse, no strategy, just pure Columbian bravado. Nikolai dodges with the fluid grace of someone who's been shot at more times than he can count, then barrels into him like a fucking freight train.
They go down hard, trading punches with the enthusiasm of men who genuinely enjoy violence because there's nothing else going on inside their heads.
And sure, I enjoy it, too, but only because I have daddy issues and a personality disorder. Sophisticated reasons.
Meanwhile, Plague advances on me with that stolen knife, moving with deadly coordination despite the lingering effects of Cosima's poison.
"No hard feelings about that whole kidnapping thing, right?" I dance backward, narrowly avoiding a strike that would have opened my throat. "An eye for an eye and all that. Or am I getting my religions mixed up?"
Plague's expression remains frustratingly neutral as he presses his attack. "Wouldn't know," he says sarcastically. "I've always been a bit of an agnostic myself."
He nearly takes my head off with the next swing. Only years of practice save me, muscle memory kicking in as I draw my own knife. My gun stays in my left hand, a constant threat as we circle each other.
Behind us, Nikolai and Whiskey fight like barbarians, all brute force and grunts. No style whatsoever. At least Plague has technique, even if he is trying to kill me with it.
"You have skill," Plague observes, parrying my thrust with insulting ease. "But you lack focus. A clearly defined leader to unify you."
I laugh, the sound bouncing off the cliff walls. "What do you think we are, a fucking boy band?"
"I assumed you were a pack, considering you're clearly willing to die together," he says, because every fucking word out of this asshole's mouth is a barb.
He raises a valid point, though.Arewe a pack? The word feels strange. We're just a group of damaged alphas drawn together by a goddess. That doesn't make us pack.
Does it?
Movement in my peripheral vision alerts me to danger. Whiskey's got Nikolai in a headlock, muscles straining as he tries to choke him out. Without thinking, I fire a shot that grazes Whiskey's bicep and would have hit his skull if Plague didn't tackle me viciously at the last second.
"You're welcome!" I call across the chaos, kicking the other alpha off me.
"Had it under control, peacock!" Nikolai shoots back, then proceeds to shove Whiskey a good three feet away out of sheer spite.
The fight shifts, opponents changing as we adapt to each other's movements. Suddenly I'm facing off against Whiskey, who looks at me with a quizzical expression that seems out of place on a battlefield.
"Settle something for me," he says, oddly conversational for someone who just shot at us with a fucking rocket launcher. "Back at the Alpha's Alpha... who was the 'cute one'?"
I preen despite myself, letting my gaze trail over his glistening, bulky torso with obvious appreciation. "You, of course."
Something shifts in his expression. Surprise, maybe. Then a smug grin as he puffs out his chest. "Huh." Then, louder, directed at Plague, "Told ya!"
Plague attacks me with renewed vigor, apparently offended by my harmless flirtation with his mate. "Relax, your majesty," I laugh, dodging a particularly bloodthirsty swing. "My whoring days are over! I'm not interested in taking your boyfriend."
"Husband," Whiskey corrects automatically, throwing a punch at Nikolai that would have taken off his head if he didn't dodge at the last second.
Plague stops mid-strike to stare at him incredulously. "Since when? And if anything, you'remyhusband."
"What's the difference?" Whiskey asks with a shrug.
Nikolai and I exchange a look.
"I hate to interrupt your foreplay," I say, taking aim at a bunch of mutated thorny fruit hanging from the tree above that look just the right size and density to crack a skull. "But I'm going to need you both to hurry up and die."
Plague's eyes widen as I fire the shot and he barely manages to dive in time to shove Whiskey out of the way.
The fruit explodes, pulp spraying in a sticky arc that catches the edge of Plague's sleeve. The look of pure disgust on his face is almost worth the swift retribution that follows—a blur of movement ending with his knife slicing through the air where my throat had been a heartbeat earlier.
