But then, I remember why I am here, and I hurriedly glance to the side.
Guilt sits heavy in my stomach. I could hurl.
“Good speech, bat.” Daire pats Lanlin on the shoulder.
Lanlin flinches.
Nebet bares her fangs. “You would give up everything that we have worked toward for decades…?”
“Everything we haveallworked for,” Ruin adds, ashen.
“I would give up everything,” Lanlin simply replies.
“For the sake of a fae whore and his cheap wolf?” Nebet sneers. “Have you forgotten that monsters and assassins don’t bond?”
“As my Omega put it so diplomatically,” Daire’s eyes gleam with fury, “fuck off.”
Lanlin turns to Daire in surprise, before he gives him a vicious grin.
Daire returns it.
Suddenly, the doors to the audience chamber crash open.
I lick my dry lips.
Lanlin flinches, before holding himself unnaturally still in a way that I know well — a pretense of casual calm to hide panic and trauma. Now, I’m expecting something truly monstrous to come barreling through the doors.
What is more intimidating than Omegas in veils and magical ribbons or cult leaders?
A pack of feral vampires? The seven feet tall commander of the Eternals with a rabid Shadow Human as his Blood Lover on a leash?
I’ve only heard myths about Shadow Humans who can shift into deer.
They sound freaky.
They’re prey and not predators. They don’t even have sharp teeth or claws. What’s that about?
I blink in surprise, when a tiny female Beta walks regally and calmly into the audience chamber. She is middle aged and beautiful with high cheekbones and bronze skin. Her shroud of black hair tumbles around her shoulders.
Even though her head is raised high like this is her throne room, she is dressed plainly in all white with no jewels, as if she is a servant.
The only embellishment is a malachite glittering green crocodile badge pinned to her robe.
Yet she doesn’t break eye contact with Lanlin for the entire long walk from the back of the audience chamber to the front.
She doesn’t prostrate herself, bow, or kneel.
She’s no servant.
Instead, her cruel, calculating gray eyes sweep across Daire, before narrowing, as she studies me sitting in the throne.
Her lips thin.
She raises her hand before she calls. “Sobek. Horus.”
Instantly, at her summons, two Alphas — Sobek and Horus — march behind her into the room.
Alphas obey Betas…?
