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I killed her.

I’ve never killed anyone before.

“I’ll take her to the healing center,” Arwan announces. I’m not sure when he made his way to the other side of the training grounds, but I’ve stopped questioning how the royal appears wherever he wants, whenever he pleases.

“I’ll escort her,” Godric growls. His gaze falls to my chest, which is now bleeding.

There is no necklace anymore.

“I’m her sponsor. I’ll walk her,” Arwan retorts.

“And I’m her pack master,” Godric adds.

The two men glare at each other like they’re the next match on the sand. Both have claimed ownership of me.

But neither of them have asked me what I actually want. Instead, they’re having a dick-measuring contest in front of everyone.

“I’ll walk myself,” I say as I hug my broken wrist to my bleeding chest and storm off the training grounds. I can’t deal with this right now.

Both men quietly follow me.

As does the shifter with the camera.

Great.

CHAPTER 23

I’m heading west toward the evaluation tower. I’ve learned after a few scratches from Ulara that’s where the medical equipment and staff are kept. Shifters don’t generally need those sorts of things, but humans do.

Just when the tower grows bigger, the air wavers with blue sparkles, and the path before me shifts until I’m standing in front of the bath springs.

I blink a few times, then turn on my heel to find Arwan grinning at me.

“What the hell?” I ask him.

The veins along his left arm bulge and darken, suggesting he just used a significant amount of magic to teleport us both here.

Show-off.

Godric is nowhere to be seen, which means the royal left him behind.

That isn’t going to go over well.

“Come on. I will tend to you,” he says as he steps up the rounded stones to the baths. “And you can wash off the blood in comfort instead of with that ice water they use at the hub.”

He’s not wrong about that.

I’m torn between marching back toward the tower that is now in the distance and just peeling off all of my sticky leathers and dunking myself in one of the hot springs.

I’m sure it’ll feel much more pleasant without Bianca’s friend slamming me under.

My vision wavers as I recall that they’re now dead.

When Ze’ev had killed two of the shifters, it had been different. He kills all the time, I’m sure. He seemed unaffected, and it was easy to forget what he had done.

But now, I can’t shake the image of Bianca’s body lying motionless as her blood soaked the ground.

I can’t help but wonder if Bianca and Godric were right about one thing.