Spin.
Locate the garbage can in the corner of the room—one of those fancy metal ones with a lid—and hurl the robot into it with as much force as I can manage while maintaining any kind of control.
The lid clangs shut.
I brace for impact.
The countdown hits zero.
"Beep."
The sound is... anticlimactic.
Not an explosion.
Not fire or shrapnel or the acrid smell of burning circuitry.
Just... beep.
"Malfunction."
Ro's voice echoes from inside the garbage can, somehow managing to sound smug despite being synthesized.
"The joy of teasing the Lawson heir. Hehehehe."
Did the robot just...
Laugh at me?
A snicker from the doorway.
I spin, hand going to a weapon I'm not currently wearing, every instinct screamingthreatbefore my brain catches up to my body.
Blaze.
Leaning against the doorframe, golden-brown eyes bright with amusement, grin stretching from ear to ear like he's just witnessed the funniest thing he's ever seen.
Which, from his perspective, he probably has.
"Did you just get pranked by a robot?" He's clearly fighting to keep his voice down—aware of the sleeping Omega, at least—but the laughter is bleeding through anyway. "The great Kai Lawson, heir to the empire, outwitted by a glorified flying ball?"
I grumble something unflattering about his parentage.
He just grins wider.
"I'm glad the robot has a sense of humor," he says, pushing off the doorframe and entering the room properly. "Means she programmed it with personality. That takes skill."
He crosses to the bed.
Checks on Seraphine with a gentleness that would surprise me if I hadn't already seen how the rest of my pack responded to her. His fingers brush her forehead—checking for fever, maybe, or just confirming she's still breathing—before he straightens and turns to face me.
"What's the plan?"
The question is simple.
Direct.
The kind of question a pack member asks their leader when they're ready to follow wherever he leads.
