"What the hell are you doing?" Thane demands, standing firm despite the blood still trickling from his head wound. "We got to you too soon for Stockholm syndrome to set in."
"Yeah," Whiskey grunts, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "These fuckers have committedat leasttwenty hangable offenses in the last hour."
"Hanging offenses," Plague corrects automatically, because apparently even in the middle of a standoff, he can't help being a pedantic prick. "Hangable implies the offenses themselves can be hanged."
Whiskey blinks at him. "I thought it was hung."
"It's not hung."
Whiskey grins, all teeth despite the blood. "That's not what you said last night."
Plague's eye roll is so pronounced I can see it from here.
Thane clears his throat, the sound sharp in the tense air. "Yeah, as much as I enjoy these little debates day in and day out forever, you mind cutting to the chase and telling me why I shouldn't have Valek drop these psychos?"
"Try it," Raven hisses through his teeth, and I can see his finger tightening on the trigger.
"Don't!"
Cosima's shout jars us all. She's looking at Plague now, those violet eyes glowing with something between defiance and desperation. Still not all there—I can see it in the way she blinks too slowly, the slight tremor in her hands—but fighting to surface.
"I'm the one who drugged you," she says, voice stronger than I expected given her state. "They just got caught up in it."
"Bullshit," I snarl before I can stop myself. No fucking way am I letting her take the fall for this insanity.
Geo scoffs, his scarred face twisting into a sneer at Plague. "Girl's not right in the head, like you said yourself,your majesty." The title drips with enough venom to kill a horse.
"He's right," Raven says, not taking his eyes off his target. "Let her walk away, and we'll surrender."
Cosima glares at them, but I can see what they're doing. Geo and Raven trying to protect her. And for once, we're all on the same page.
Thane hesitates, his dark eyes moving between us and Plague. "You're the one who got kidnapped. Your call," he says to Plague.
The silence stretches like a taut wire. Plague studies us, those cold blue eyes taking in every detail. I can practically see the gears turning in that calculating brain of his.
"You can't seriously be considering letting them off the hook for this," Valek says, and there's an edge to his voice now. Dangerous. The kind that usually precedes someone getting their throat opened like an envelope.
"Not at all," Plague says slowly, and something in his tone makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "But I've been struggling for months to find anyone both skilledandsuicidal enough to replace us."
What the fuck?
"And I have to admit," he continues, a smirk playing at his bloodied lips, "as idiotic and pointless as this little endeavor was, it does prove a level of skill that none of the other candidates have demonstrated so far."
"What the hell are you saying?" Whiskey asks, voicing what we're all thinking.
Plague's smirk widens into something that could generously be called a smile if you squinted and had a head injury.
"Gentlemen," he says to his packmates, spreading his arms like he's presenting a fucking gift, "I believe we just found the new Ghost Alpha Unit."
Chapter 29
KNIGHT
Wraith struggles to his feet.
blood drips from where my claws tore through his shoulder.
his chest heaves.
