I nearly smiled. “Since when have I been a good soldier?”
“You’ve always been a good soldier, Ziara. That’s never been the problem.” Something softened in his expression, gone almost before I caught it, and then the alpha slammed back into place. “The problem is you think like a general while holding the rank of a private. You act on information nobody else has, and you don’t share it until the fallout hits.”
The accuracy of that assessment stung more than any reprimand.
“Learn to trust your pack,” he continued. “Bring us in before you execute. You don’t have to carry everything alone.”
The irony of those words—coming from the man who’d sent me to steal from a dragon without a single warning of what I was up against—wasn’t lost on me. But I bit my tongue because he was right. This was my chance to tell him of the dragon’s demand for my surrender.
The bloodstone pulsed against my thigh.
“Yes, Alpha.”
He nodded and turned to Rust, already shifting into missionmode. “We need to move inland before the slavers come looking. Rust, take point.”
Mack fell into step beside me as we headed into the tree line. He didn’t speak for a while, just marched at my side with his spear balanced across his shoulders. The tension between us was a butter knife, dull but still capable of drawing blood.
“You climbed out the porthole,” he finally said.
“I did.”
“In the middle of the night. On a ship full of hostile fishmen.”
“Accurate.”
He shook his head. “And I slept through the whole thing.”
“You were tired.”
He paused for a beat that felt like an eternity. “I’m supposed to watch your back. How the hell can I do that, when your back isn’t where it’s supposed to be?”
The hurt in his voice squeezed my chest. “Mack?—”
“I know.” He shifted the spear on his shoulders. “Just... next time, wake me up. Even if I’m pissed at you.” He glanced sideways at me. “Especially if I’m pissed at you.”
“Okay.”
He bumped his shoulder against mine, and I leaned into it, breathing in his woodsy scent. For a few steps, the weight on my chest lightened.
Then my hand brushed the sheath at my thigh, and I felt the bloodstone’s steady pulse beneath the leather, and guilt wiped the smile from my face.
The dragon was out there. Somewhere on this island, waiting. And when he came, I’d destroy the trust I’d just rebuilt.
I would hand him the bloodstone and myself.
And pray that my people survived the fallout.
THE WORLD IS FULL OF CAGES
Arioch
Tyrin’s hand on my shoulder woke me.
I blinked, struggling to make sense of the foreign scents and sounds as I stood. Dawn had barely crested the eastern horizon, painting the sea below our ledge in shades of amber and rose. The air was thick with the sweet resin of the strange trees that flanked our camp, and the pier was empty. The void left by my treasure had deepened overnight. What little sleep I had managed was plagued by the phantom pull of something vital just beyond my reach.
“A ship,” Tyrin said, pointing east.
I followed his gesture to watch a broad, flat-bottomed craft with a shallow draft round the headland, its sails trimmed for the approach. It was not the galleon. This vessel was squat and utilitarian, built for coastal waters rather than the open ocean, and it rode low in the water as though burdened by heavy cargo.
