Meanwhile, my eyes flick to Viktor, sharpening. He has to take me to the queen? Well that doesn’t seem so bad, that’s where I was going anyway. Assuming I’ll get there alive and unhurt…Gods, I wish I were telepathic and could ask Fox to explain the subtext I’m undoubtedly missing.
“Come on,” Viktor says, in an almost friendly tone. “Give us the witch. We’d rather not fight you over it. It’s a shame to lose good wolves fighting amongst ourselves.”
Instead of stepping away from me, Fox moves closer. He puts a hand on my arm and shoves me backwards away from them. “You can’t take her,” he finally says, voice like steel. “She’s mine.”
There’s a ringing silence that lasts so long I think that maybe they’ve slipped back into telepathic communication. All the soldiers are staring at me, even the one still in wolf form. A few look confused or angry, but the others look…hungry.
“She’s yours how?” Viktor asks, looking at me closely for the first time, his gaze raking up and down as if he’s searching for something.
“Exactly how you think,” Fox growls.
“That’s impossible.”
“So is escaping Dyaspora.”
They stare at each other for a moment, then Viktor swears under his breath and shakes his head. “Fuck me. Well, the alpha will want to see you. Both of you.”
Fox grabs my hand, but doesn’t look at me as he replies. “Lead the way.”
Fuck.
I knew it was possible that we’d run into wolves eventually—it’s the thing I was most worried about—but I didn’t think it would happen so soon, or that I would know any of them.
I know Viktor from before Dyaspora. He was an asshole then, and it seems that forty years hasn’t done much to improve him. For a moment I thought he might be the alpha now, but evidently not. I can only hope that whoever is in charge doesn’t know me, because the absolutely absurd lie I just told to keep them from killing us on the spot will probably get us killed anyway.
I knew the moment the words left my mouth that I shouldn’t have told them Aurelia is mine. It’s impossible that she could be, and I’ve just opened us up to even more scrutiny.
It was the only thing I could think of that might protect her, but I’ve probably only made things worse. The second someone realizes I lied we’ll be worse off than we were to begin with.
I should have just killed them all and left. Six against one—two, counting Aurelia—would have been difficult, but not impossible. Now we’re going to a camp full of hundreds of wolves, and there’s no way I can fight all of them.
I had no idea magic is illegal now. That sure as hell wasn’t the case when I left. Magic has always been hated in Thermia, but it wasn’t outlawed entirely. The only person with the power to do that would be the queen…why would she outlaw the very thing she uses to keep control over all of us?
Beside me, Aurelia stumbles over a root, and one of the wolves yanks her arm to keep her upright. My jaw clenches, teeth grinding against each other.“Fucking touch her again and I’ll rip your arm off,”I bark inside my head.
The soldier drops Aurelia’s arm and tilts his head toward me, baring his neck.“Sorry.”
I force myself to turn away from the other wolf before I completely lose my shit and tear his arm off anyway, just for fun.
“How far is the camp?”I ask Viktor silently.
He startles, and shifts his eyes to focus on me. “We’re fifteen minutes out.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You let a wyvern get that close to camp?”‘
“Fuck off.”He glares at me. “Don’t bother trying to run for it.”
I snort a disbelieving laugh. “You know I never run.”
He glances sideways at me, giving a tiny nod of acknowledgement. “True, but you didn’t have a mate back then.”
I hear the disdain in the word “mate” and smirk.“You sound jealous.”
He snarls again. “Fuck you.”
It seems I touched a nerve.
I smile, allowing myself to feel smug, especially since I’ll probably only get fifteen more minutes of this before they realize Aurelia isn’t actually mine and kill us both.
