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Even if Augustus truly isn’t coming—and that’s what it seems like, right now—it’s not like that’s the best-case scenario for me. He might have been cold enough to spend my heat with me and then leave, but he at least wasn’t actively causing me harm.

When these guys realize I’m not useful to them, they’ll probably drag me out to the vacant, empty festival grounds and sacrifice me anyway. Maybe they’ll even wager to get extra from two souls—me being pregnant counting as double the sacrifice.

Another tear slips down my face. This time, it’s free to travel all the way down, sliding off my chin and landing on my sweatshirt, which is still damp from my run through the snow.

All that effort, for nothing.

I try to suck in a breath but forget about the gag in my mouth. It draws to the very back of my mouth, stifling my breathing and triggering my gag reflex. After all the throwing up I’ve been doing, it’s sensitive enough that I’m instantly nauseous.

My eyes widen. I need to breathe carefully through this. The last thing I want to do right now is throw up when I’m gagged.

Carefully, I try to take a slow breath through my nose, but my body already feels starved of oxygen, and I’m too greedy. It takes too much too fast and I start to cough. But I can’t cough out the gag—it’s there, in the way, tied in place around my head. More tears start to stream down my face, but this time it’s from the fact that I can’t breathe, that my stomach is hitching—

I vomit, stomach contracting, bile climbing my throat. I haven’t had anything to eat in hours, so nothing of substance comes up, but it’s enough to make my mouth sour.

And to clog my airway.

Now, finally, I start to scream. When I rock back and forth, my chair tips over to the side roughly, and I hit the ground hard, my head bouncing off the wooden floor.

My vision swims, but whether it’s from the fact that I’m choking or from the head injury, I’m not sure. Of course I couldn’t just face being tossed in the lunar pool—I had to try and die in the most dramatic way possible.

Gavyn and his men come into the room, all exclaiming various things when they see me on the ground.

“Shit—think she’s seizing or something?”

“Should I untie the gag?”

“Yes, idiot, untie the gag before she chokes to death,” Gavyn snaps, even as he takes a step back, his face going slightly pale at the vomit that trickles out of my mouth.

Despite everything—the pounding in my head, the acid in my mouth, the wrenching pain in my stomach and the man pulling at the gag around my mouth, retching as his hands come in contact with my sweaty, vomit-sticky skin—it makes me laugh. The sight of such a “strong” and “powerful” alpha made queasy by something as benign as a little throw-up.

The moment the gag is free, the man drops it to the floor and backs up, shaking out his hands. I roll to the side and throw up again, nothing but a yellow slime coming out. The product of an empty stomach.

“What the hell is wrong with her?”

If I could talk, I might tell them that I choked on the gag. As it is, I’m pushing away from the mess and getting my feet against the wall. The chair is still tied to my arms, and it’s heavy enough to push my wrists down painfully against the floor.

“Morning sickness,” Gavyn says, authoritatively.

“But it’s the middle of the night!”

Gavyn whacks the other alpha, and he quiets, shooting a resentful look in Gavyn’s direction. I can already see how this is going to play out—Gavyn thinks he can take power by being an asshole. That might work for a little while, but it’s not going to build a legacy the way that Augustus’s family has as alpha royalty.

“Get her up,” Gavyn orders.

The other alpha with him—the one who did not untie my gag—comes over to me. He’s leaning down, just about to lift me up and set me right when something seems to startle all three of them.

They look toward the door.

“What the fuck?” the alpha nearest me snaps, already turning and running for the back door.

“Get more men,” Gavyn calls after him as he blows through it, shifting and landing in the snow, running at top speed on four legs instead of two.

At the same time, the other alpha shouts in dismay, “He was supposed to come alone! You swore he would come alone!”

Gavyn ignores his protests as he rushes for the door, “Get the Omega! Make sure you have hands on her—”

But he’s cut off as the front door slams open—damn near blowing to slivers as it does. It hangs from the hinges, and four alpha kings come pounding through the open door, covered in snow, sopping wet, and snarling.