everything slipping.
Nikolai snarls.
"Stab him again and I'll fucking gut you."
Geo's voice joins his. Almost a bark.
"He'spack. Back the fuck off."
a hand on my shoulder.
don't know whose.
don't care.
everything's fading.
try to say Cosima's name again.
try to call out to her.
try to tell her I'm still fighting.
comes out as broken growl.
broken like me.
I failed.
I failed her.
Chapter 44
RAVEN
What the fuck just happened?
The guards drag Knight's unconscious body toward the door, his metal armor scraping against the pristine floor with a sound like nails on a chalkboard. Six alphas strain against his dead weight, their muscles trembling with the effort.
He spoke.
Knightspoke.
His first word torn from a throat that shouldn't be able to form words at all, and it was our goddess's name.
Cosima.
Screamed with such desperate, broken devotion that my hands won't stop shaking.
I can still see it. Knight attacking that chrome equipment, roaring at his own reflection like it was another threat. He didn't recognize himself. Didn't understand that the destroyed face staring back through all that blood was his own.
Gods, I've never seen him without the mask before. I knew it was bad, but knowing andseeingare different things, even drenched in blood so I couldn't make out any specific features other than exposed sharp teeth and muscle and torn eyelids and shredded flesh.
Blood everywhere. So much blood.
And through it all, her name.
His first word, forher.
