“Yeah.” I glance at the bowl. “How long has this been going on?”
“He started the minute I woke up,” Violet says. “Which was an hour ago.”
“You had those disgusting chemicals in your system,” Darius says, staring at her again. “You need—”
“I have eaten more soup than any person should consume in a single sitting.”
“One more—”
“Darius.”
He closes his mouth. Sets the spoon down. Regroups with the dignity of an alpha who has not technically lost this exchange but is choosing to table it. He looks at me and Anne, and his expression carries a genuine warmth that he doesn’t bother to conceal.
“How are you both?”
“Kain will need a few days,” Anne says. “I’m fine.”
“You are not fine,” I say. I can feel her exhaustion and her pain. She is not a trained fighter; the battle took a toll on her.
“I can stand, and nothing vital is missing. That means I’m fine.”
Violet is now leaning toward us in her bed and squinting at Anne’s neck, where my mating mark sits, still raised and new. Her gaze shifts to me. Then back to Anne.
“Anne,” she says softly, “is that—”
“Yes,” Anne says, smiling softly at me.
Violet’s face conveys several complicated emotions before ending up in a big smile. She reaches across and grabs Anne’s free hand. “I’m so glad.”
Darius looks first at the mark, then at me. His expression is harder to read than Violet’s; after all, he is a man who takes his responsibilities seriously, and I spent weeks in his pack under false pretenses. But what finally settles on his face is not reproach. It looks like acceptance. Like a door opening.
“Congratulations,” he says.
And I can tell he means it.
He pulls his chair closer, and his alpha manner reasserts itself. “This has taken a toll on us all.”
“What is the situation?” I ask.
Darius exhales slowly. “Twenty operatives hit headquarters. Close to a hundred came to the mansion.” A pause. “Some were taken prisoner, but most are dead. Rick’s body is in the morgue.”
A heaviness settles in my chest at that. I already knew he’d been killed. I was there. Hell, I decapitated the man. But hearing it stated plainly, in Darius’s voice, in a room where I am alive and Anne is beside me, makes it unmistakably real.
“And the captured ones?”
Darius’s jaw tightens. “Some offed themselves before we could stop them. Poison capsules hidden in their teeth.”
I grimace. That could have been me after a few more years of conditioning.
“We were able to remove the capsules from the operatives who were unconscious when we got to them, before they came around. They are in custody now.” Darius continues. “We’ll interrogate them.”
I nod. “Good.”
“We’ll be monitoring the Covenant. If they try again—”
“They won’t,” I say confidently. “Not against Moonvale. Not after this. They lost over a hundred operatives and at least two handlers in a single operation. What they may gain by coming after Violet again doesn’t justify it, not against a pack that now knows exactly how they work. They’ll cut their losses and give up for now. Or find a softer target.”
“You’re sure.”
