I refuse to see my father sedating me as a kindness, even though it has let me drift through my heat, floating on the surface of a sea of pain.
Two thuds sound outside my door, but I’m too deep in the haze of my heat to think too hard about them—until a Soldier stalks into the room, his scribe raised, my men behind him. All but Luca. Saints, my frayed mind thinks the worst when the Soldier approaches.
No.
The Soldier has brought them here to kill them in front of me. My punishment for slashing my father’s face. My chest tightens, as heavy as a stone, and my eyes heat as I begin to sob. My worst nightmares are coming true, and I’m cuffed to a bed, not caught in an omega trap.
My affinity…
I’m too weak. Too weak to stab pain into the Soldier’s mind, giving the others a fighting chance.
And then the Soldier removes his mask.
Luca.
His long blond hair is mussed, and his pale green eyes wild.
I sob all the harder at seeing his face. At seeing my men all here with me.
I reach out for him, and he comes to me, releasing me from the handcuffs. I fly into his arms, weeping against his neck as I gulp in his scent.
“Fuck, princess. Your heat came?”
“Early,” I croak out.
My pack surrounds me, their scents washing over me, but they’re bitter from fear, laced with tension. I feel it down my bonds, now so strong since my pack is here with me.
Marcus lingers at the door, watching the hallway, but he spares me a glance that fills my heart with hope.
They’realive.
“Come on, love,” Cassian says in a low voice. “We’re getting you out of here.”
I whine for him, and he comes to me, cupping my cheek in his hand. He presses a kiss to my lips, pouring all of his love and relief into it.
Ian comes up to me and takes my hand, pressing a kiss to my heated palm. “We’ve got to go, my darling. This has to wait. I know you need us right now, but you have to be brave. We don’t have much time.”
I nod up at him, understanding the need for haste through the haze consuming my mind. Now that they’re here, I can let go. I can let it overtake me.
Ian makes quick work of the collar around my neck, casting the same spell we used to unlock them previously. The cool metal unlatches from around my neck, and he tosses the inert collar to the bed.
Luca dons the mask again, but I don’t shudder. Saints, he’s so brave to wear it again. If he were caught… No, I can’t think like that. Not now when they’re rescuing me.
Luca lifts me into his arms as Marcus drags two bodies into the room. Soldiers, stunned into oblivion. Maybe dead. I don’t spare a second thought for them.
The moment we’re out the door and into the hallway, Ian takes the scribe from Luca and traces out wards that will take the Soldiers hours to break. In the hall, I see the headmaster, and I frown, but I’m too lost, too adrift to consider why he might be here.
In Luca’s arms, I sink deep into the confusion of my heat, slipping in and out of consciousness once more. The sedative is still making me slow, but I’m safe in my alpha’s arms. We walk through the hallway and eventually descend severalflights of stairs, Luca taking great care so as not to jostle me in his arms. Darkness surrounds us as we make our way to… to where? I don’t know.
Ian lights the end of his scribe, but it’s such a dull glow that I can’t make out anything about our surroundings.
I’m carried for what seems like hours, but it could be only minutes, half-awake in Luca’s arms as I drift. Luca’s scent in my nose is like salvation, juicy cherries and dark red wine. It wraps around me, stilling some instinctual part of me.
Marcus is just close enough that I smell him too. The wintry scent of pine is just enough to calm the wild fear making my heart race. He holds a stolen scribe aloft, though not lit. I can just make out his features over Luca’s shoulders in the too-dim light of wherever we are.
He won’t let us be caught and captured once more. My stalwart protector won’t let any harm come to me.
I’m carried along, eyes closed now, strained from trying to make out our surroundings by the low light of Ian’s scribe.
