She's their leader.
I was so certain I was rescuing her that I didn't stop to ask if she wanted to be rescued.
Knight roars again, the sound rattling the windows of the palace. He catches me around the waist, driving me into the ground with enough force to crater it. His weight pins me down, that metal arm drawing back for a killing blow.
"Knight, stop!"
Cosima's voice cuts through everything. She's broken free somehow, rushing toward us despite the one-eyed alpha trying to grab her again.
"For fuck's sake," he snarls gruffly, scooping her up before she can reach us. "I'm putting you on a fucking leash after this."
Knight hesitates, his fist hovering inches from my face. That moment of distraction is all I need to drive my knee into his ribs and roll free.
He doesn't lunge at me again. Instead, he straightens to his full height, trudges over to where the alpha with the eyepatch has set Cosima down, and she...
She runs her fingers through his hair.
Gentle, soothing, like calming a rabid dog by petting it. And he responds to it, practically melting at her touch.
What the actual fuck?
"What the hell is going on here?" I demand, spitting blood.
"Funny," Plague says, brushing debris off his robes with typical fastidiousness. "I was going to ask you the same thing."
I glare at him, still trying to process the scene before me. Cosima surrounded by alphas like some kind of deranged full-blown pack, treating a monster like a pet, looking at me like I'm her mortal enemy.
"Don't test me, brother," I snarl through my teeth.
"Azarel?"
My mother's voice breaks through everything else. She steps forward, tears already brimming in her eyes as she whispers, "My son. Where have you been?"
The weight of three years crashes down on me. Three years of lies, of absence, of letting her grieve a son who wasn't dead but might as well have been. The guilt threatens to choke me, and the pain as I clench my fist around the bandages does nothing to lessen it this time.
Cosima watches with uncharacteristically cold eyes, her arms folded across her chest like armor. "Your mother asks a valid question, your highness."
The accusation in her voice cuts deeper than Knight's claws ever could. My mother doesn't wait for an answer. She rushes forward, throwing her arms around me. The familiar scent of her perfume, unchanged after all these years, makes my throat tight.
"My boy," she whispers.
I hold her back, feeling the walls closing in. This is the worst-case scenario. The two worlds I've spent years keeping separate have finally collided, and there's no walking away from the wreckage.
I need to get Cosima out of here. Need to explain, to make her understand why I did what I did. But my mother's arms around me are chains I can't break, not without shattering her completely.
And Cosima stands there watching, surrounded by alphas, looking at me like she doesn't know me at all.
Chapter 35
GEO
"So we're allin agreement, we hate him, right?"
Raven's voice carries that particular brand of venom he usually reserves for people who are about to get an intimate view down the barrel of his gun.
"Obviously," Nikolai mutters, adjusting his gaudy red glasses like they're going to help him see through whatever bullshit Azarel's spinning in the other room.
We're holed up in some side chamber of the palace where they keep the inconvenient guests while Azarel gets interrogated by his family. Everything's draped in silk and gold, making me feel like a feral dog someone let into a museum by mistake. The medical staff patched everyone up well enough, but my knee still feels like someone took a blowtorch to it, and every other alpha in this room looks about as rough as I feel.
