Mira turned toward the door, reaching for the handle before she stopped.
“You know...” Her hand rested on the wood. She didn’t look back. “I would love to see Veyndral someday.”
The word settled in my chest and stayed even as the front door shut.
Someday.
I could wait for that day.
20
— • —
Percival
The green juice was an act of torture.
“Drink it,” Mira said, setting the glass on the coffee table in front of me with a tone not to be argued with.
I stared at the glass. The contents were a shade of green that didn’t exist in nature. Chunks of unidentifiable plant matter floated near the surface, and the smell hit me from two feet away. Underneath all of it is an earthy bitterness that suggested she’d blended a handful of dirt and called it a healthy food.
“I’m fully healed, Mira. Solomon confirmed it. Lucian confirmed it. The wound is closed. My shoulder works.” I rotated my arm in a full circle to demonstrate. “See? Perfect range of motion. Good as new like nothing happened.”
“Drink. It.”
“This feels more of a punishment than medicine.”
She glared at me. The glare that said this conversation had one possible ending and I’d already reached it.
So I drank it.
It tasted exactly how it looked.
My wolf whimpered somewhere in my chest cavity. I powered through, swallowing without letting the liquid touch more of my tongue than absolutely necessary, and set the empty glass down.
“I think I just survived a second assassination attempt. Happy?”
“Thrilled.” Mira picked up the glass and headed for the kitchen. “I’m making another batch for dinner.”
“I will leave this house and run away from this town.”
“Try it. See how far you get.”
She disappeared around the corner. I heard the blender fire up again, an ominous whirring that promised a future full of pulverized vegetables and suffering.
Solomon sat across from me in the armchair, reading through a stack of papers he’d brought from the firehouse. Or pretending to read. His eyes tracked Mira’s movements in the kitchen the way they always did.
We waited until the blender stopped and her footsteps moved to the pantry. The sound of cabinet doors opening and closing. She was searching for more ingredients. We had maybe three minutes.
“The dart.” Solomon set his papers down. His voice dropped to the register that meant operational briefing. “I sent a sample of the compound to a contact in Veyndral through the raven courier. Results should arrive within the week.”
“And the shooter?”
“Can’t track. I swept the tree line twice. No scent or traces. Whoever it was used the same masking agent that hid Hudson for a while.” His jaw tightened. “This wasn’t improvised.”
My shoulder twinged. Phantom pain, nothing more. The wound was sealed, the tissue regenerated, the dark veins long gone thanks to the herbs. But my body remembered the burn of that compound working through my blood.
“So we have an unknown party,” I said. “With access to anti-lycan weaponry, scent-masking techniques, and knowledge of our healing capabilities.”
