Before any of us can answer, the door opens with the kind of slowness that says whoever's on the other side knows they're walking into enemy territory.
Azarel steps through like he owns the fucking place.
Fair enough, I guess.
He's cleaned up since the garden brawl, traded his bloody cloak for the clearly expensive yet plain black clothes I've seen some of the higher ranking guards wearing rather than the royal gear Plague and Revi have on. Interesting.
The bruising on his jaw from Knight's backhand is already starting to purple, but he wears it like it's nothing. Like getting his ass handed to him by a mutant alpha is just another Tuesday.
His eyes—those same pale blue eyes that bastard Plague has—scan the room before landing on Cosima. Something shifts in his expression, raw and desperate but quickly masked behind his former composure.
I'm starting to understand why Cosima, as perceptive as she is, never clocked this guy as a prince in hiding. Revi acts like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and even Plague has that bearing that only comes with the scepter of royal authority shoved up your ass, but Azarel…
He's something else entirely.
I've known men like him all my life. Hard men. Soldiers with cold, dead eyes and the kind of steel in their spine that would drop a hundred innocent men without hesitation, all for the sake of the mission. There's a certain brand of unmistakable confidence that only comes with a bone-deep conviction that you're serving a purpose far greater than your own, and he has it.
The only question is, who the fuck is he working for? Arthur Maybrecht? What little I know of the fucker makes it seem unlikely he's capable of inspiring that kind of loyalty.
"May I speak with you?" he asks Cosima, and his voice is different from before. Quieter. Like a lion trying to whisper when his nature is to roar. "Alone?"
"No."
The word comes out of three mouths simultaneously. Mine, Nikolai's, and Raven's. We don't even look at each other, don't need to coordinate. For once in our fucking lives, we're completely on the same page.
Knight's snarl is loud enough to rattle the decorative vases on their pedestals, his metal arm sparking as he flexes his claws.
The message is crystal fucking clear.
Over my dead body.
We move without thinking, all four of us shifting to put ourselves between Cosima and Azarel. It's instinct, pure and simple. The need to protect what's ours from a threat, even if that threat is wearing Surhiiran finery and asking politely.
Azarel's jaw tightens, but he doesn't back down. "I'm not going to hurt her."
"Like you weren't going to hurt her when you threw her over your shoulder and tried to take off with her?" Nikolai's voice drips with enough venom to kill a horse. "Real reassuring, your highness."
"I was trying to protect her," Azarel snaps, and for the first time since he walked in, that mask cracks a little. "From all of you."
"Protect her?" Raven laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Is that what you call lying to her for years? Letting her think you were someone you're not?"
Azarel's jaw tightens enough to creak. "You don't understand?—"
"We understand plenty," I cut him off, my hand drifting to where my gun would normally be. Won't stop me from ripping his spine out. "You're a lying sack of shit who abandoned her when she needed you most. End of fucking story."
Azarel's eyes flash with something dangerous, and for a second I think he might actually try to go through us and give us an excuse to kill him dead right on the pristine marble floors of his childhood home.
But then Cosima sighs, the sound heavy with exhaustion that goes bone-deep. "I'll talk to him."
We all turn to stare at her.
"Cosima—" Nikolai starts.
She holds up a hand. "It's fine."
"He tried to fuckingkidnapyou," Nikolai snarls, his voice rising. "Not even an hour ago. Or did that head trauma make you forget already?"
She rolls her eyes, though I can see the exhaustion beneath the surface of that attitude she wears like fucking armor. She's running on fumes, has been since that dissociative episode on the train, and every minute she stays upright is probably taking everything she's got.
