Fiona looked away but nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate you all.” She sounded choked up, and Reed must have agreed, because he scooped her off the couch and left without another word.
“So now what the fuck do we do?” Lucien asked, anger rising as he paced in Elodie’s microscopic living room. “Do we just wait there and be ready for them? Do we go somewhere else and try to avoid the vision?”
“That’s not just up to us,” I reminded him. “We’ve got to call the others.”
“And I don’t think you canavoida vision. Dirge already tried that once, and it didn’t work. That battle is coming for us. We’re going to need to be ready.” Olivia surprised me with her resolute tone, the determined set of her shoulders. “And I think we need to betogether, all of us. I know we all have things to do, to prepare, and politics, blah blah blah. I’m not arguing that. But before that blood moon rises, we all need to be there and present a united force.”
Lucien nodded slowly, considering his mate’s words. “As much as I would love to hide you away somewhere safe, you’ve already proven how invaluable you are when there’s a battle raging. I won’t make the same mistake twice, but Valens is right. It’s not just up to us. You and I will go and call the others. Valens, I still need you and Elodie to go to the council. I know this changes things, but the more information we have, the more prepared we can be for what they’ll throw at us. Maybe if we work fast, we can stop them before there’s bloodshed.”
“Goddess willing,” Elodie murmured under her breath.
“We’ll leave right away. Do they know we’re coming?”
“Yes, I made the call this morning.” He shook my hand and slapped me on the shoulder. “Be safe, and look out for each other.”
“Of course, Alpha. We won’t let you down.”
Elodie and I were back in our borrowed SUV in under an hour, heading to the Interspecies Governing Council building. The drive was tense, but both of us seemed lost in thought of what was to come. There was one thing that still bothered me, though.
“Are you okay after everything this morning?”
She shrugged one shoulder, still staring out at the road slipping by under our tires. “I’m not sure any of us are okay right now. A full-blown supernatural war is about to start. We’ve now got a date and a time limit to figure out how to deal with it, because we know we can’t stop it… No, I’m not okay.”
My fingers gripped the wheel so tightly, it groaned under the pressure. I eased up, even though I wanted to rip the thing free and toss it out the window. Not that it would help, but it might make me feel better.
“And about Fiona’s seizure?” I hated to poke at a sore spot, but I had this niggling feeling she was somehow blaming herself.
Elodie’s entire body went tense and still as a mouse. “I’m definitely not okay about that either. But… Oli says I did everything right. And Galyna is going to work with the enclave to get all of us more medical training. I just panicked.”
“Understandable. If she’d collapsed in my arms, I think I would have panicked too.”
She finally angled her body toward me, and I could see the angry red blush working its way up her neck as she spoke. “But I’m not supposed to, that’s the thing. I’m supposed to know what to do, no matter what happens. Protect them in every situation, give my life if necessary to spare theirs. And I am more than willing to do that.Havedone that, actually.” Her hand dropped to her thigh, where she rubbed at some since-healed wound.
“But this morning? This morning, all I could do was hold her, terrified, and phone a friend. Andother peopletook care of her while I fell apart. It’s inexcusable.”
“Sometimes, I swear to the Goddess, you don’t see yourself at all.” I shook my head, stealing an incredulous glance her way before refocusing on the road.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s not an insult, Firecracker. It’s… a compliment. A big, overflowing compliment. Because all you see is failure on failure on failure, when I see incredible strength, bravery, and love. You fell apart because youlove her. You didn’t want to see her harmed. And sure, maybe that’s not warrior badass one-oh-one, but… you’re still mortal. Not to mention that you didn’t let yourself lose it until she was safe and being cared for by people who knew what to do. You bodily put yourself between her and harm, and you did get her the help she needed.”
Elodie shook her head, winding up for another denial, but I pulled the car off to the side of the otherwise empty road and put it in Park. She needed her head on straight before we got to the council, or else she might miss something. She had to let this go.
“Why are you stopping?”
“Because I think you need us to stop.” I unbuckled my seat belt and put my hand on the door handle.
“No, I need us to complete our mission because that’s our job.”
“That’s not all you need.” I got out of the SUV and stalked around to her side before yanking the door open.
“What are you doing?” she asked, exasperated.
A half grin pulled at my lips. “You.”
“Excuse me?”
I leaned over her, unbuckling her seat belt with ease, pausing next to her ear. “Get out. We’re going to finish what we started before Savvy interrupted us yesterday.”
