Azarel fights.Gods, does he fight. He breaks one of the chains binding him around the chest and his elbow connects with one guard's jaw, sending the beta sprawling. Another lunges for his legs and gets kicked across the room for his trouble. For a moment, I think he might actually break free.
Then the fourth guard jabs the needle into his neck.
He doesn't drop right away. His struggles slow, his movements turning sluggish as the drug floods his system. But his eyes remain locked on us—on me, Geo, Nikolai—burning with fury and desperate certainty.
"You'll have her blood on your hands," he rasps, the words slurring as unconsciousness drags him under. "All of you. And I'll come for you. I swear it on the goddess. I swear I'll?—"
His eyes roll back. The guards catch him before he hits the floor.
The silence that follows is suffocating.
I can't breathe properly. Can't think past the echo of Azarel's words, the image of Knight's terror-filled eyes and the sound ofhim roaring—no,screaming—Cosima's name, the conviction in both of them that felt less like threats and more like prophecy.
What if they're right?
What if we just fucking signed Cosima's death warrant?
"Raven." Nikolai's voice, rough and uncertain in a way I've never heard before.
I turn to find him and Geo both staring at the table where Cosima lies unconscious, her chest rising and falling in a slow, drugged rhythm. She looks peaceful. Fragile. Utterly vulnerable.
It's just a scan.
Necessary, non-invasive, harmless.
Unlike the chip in her brain that Maybrecht could apparently use as a detonator at any moment.
But is it really?
"Your Highness," the beta woman in the gray coat asks, looking to Plague. She's standing by the machine's control panel, her expression professional and neutral above her veil, like Dr. Rami's. They both seem vaguely shaken at the most, despite half the room being destroyed and puddles of sticky blood still covering the parts of the floor that are still being cleaned.
Plague glances at them. "Yes?"
"How should we proceed?" the beta asks.
Plague hesitates, glancing at the doorway where both Azarel and Knight were dragged away. "There's absolutely no reason a mere scan would affect anything."
"Your brother seems to disagree," I grit out. Doing nothing isn't an option either, but now, I'm not even sure this is the right path forward. "AndKnight."
"Azarel is paranoid." Plague's words come out sharp. Defensive. "He is no longer the same man he was when he left Surhiira. His time in Reinmich has clearly had an effect on his psyche."
He pauses, his gaze sliding to the doorway.
"As for Knight," he continues in a softer tone. "The trauma he endured, the experimentation… after everything he's been through, there's no surprise he reacted the way he did to seeing his omega sedated. Allowing him in here was a mistake. The same would have happened if it had been Wraith and Ivy in their places."
The logic is sound. Rational. It mirrors my own thoughts closely enough it should be all the confirmation I need to feel like we're doing the right thing for Cosima.
But my gut screams otherwise.
"We should wait," I hear myself say. "Do it later. When?—"
"When?" Geo cuts me off, his voice rough. "Any second now, Maybrecht could find out Azarel's gone AWOL. We can't just sit by and wait for him to press the kill switch. And the little lady made it perfectly clear. She chose this, even knowing something's up."
He's right. Iknowhe's right.
But that doesn't make the fear churning in my stomach any less visceral.
I look at Nikolai, hoping he'll back me up. He's staring at Cosima with an expression I know well. Love tangling with logic. The peril of inaction warring with the risk of choice.
