I smirked as she tried to mother the warriors among her.
“Avery, will you please, for the love of the gods, justshut upand let them do what they need to?” Veli hissed from the corner where she stood.
Avery whipped around to her. “No, I won’t. Not if my sister is about to go on adeathspree and possibly get herself killed.”
“She will be okay. Nothing will happen to her, I promise you,” I said as I gently placed my hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at me, eyes clouded with judgment. “You? Who just lied to us all? Some mate you are to her.” Avery ripped her shoulder from my grasp.
My jaw popped open, and I tried to reel in my temper before it was accidentally unleashed on her when she had only voiced her feelings. “I thought I was doing the right thing. You were all drinking, and I refused to have her out there if she wasn’t sober and battle-ready. It was toprotecther. All of you.”
Her glare softened as she continued to stare at me. “You should’ve been honest,” she whispered. “You should’ve known she would come after you.”
I gave her a curt nod. “You’re absolutely right. I made a bad call. It won’t happen again. That I can assure you.”
As if it wasn’t bad enough that I had to deal with Lia being upset with me, but now her sister, too, and my cousin.
Gods, Cadoria, what the fuck did you do?
“Promise?” she breathed as she held out her dainty pinky finger.
I chuckled, feeling the room shift into something lighter—thank the gods. I held up my pinky, but she ripped hers away.
“I take these incredibly seriously,” she stated sternly.
The corner of my lip lifted. “I would hope so. These are currency around here,” I joked, and she reluctantly wrapped her pinky around mine. Her intense stare and features slowly softened, and I stopped myself from blowing out a breath of relief.
A loud crash sounded from upstairs, followed by a guttural scream of frustration, forcing our gazes to the ceiling.
“What the hell is she even doing?” Veli asked from where she remained in the corner.
“I assumed getting supplies, but now I’m not so sure,” I answered as my heart raced.
“You all reek of death. Who did you kill?” she hissed.
Avery’s eyes flared, and she sniffed the air, which earned her a look from Zae. She turned to Veli. “That nose of yours is terrifying. What exactly does death smell like?”
Veli rolled her eyes and ignored her as she turned to me. “Well?”
I cleared my throat. “We took a prisoner captive, and he is…no longer.”
“Kellan?!” Avery shrieked hopefully.
“His second. Vincent, I believe his name was.”
Her brows furrowed. “I don’t think I know that one.”
Gage took a step closer to her, and her eyes lit up. “He was the one who stabbed Landon.”
Her face twisted with both sadness and fury. “Then I am glad you killed him.” She then smiled up at him, and the sudden change was a little alarming, but so was the past twenty-four hours. We were all out of our minds with grief and shock.
“Lia killed him. We just captured him,” Zaela said as another loud crash sounded.
Avery’s eyes flared. “You know,” she gulped. “I always used to ask her what it was like to kill someone, and she would refuse to talk about it. Perhaps it bothers her more than she lets on.”
I hadn’t known that. In fact, Ihatedthat I was unaware of that little bit of information.
As I delved into our bond that still burned with her fury, I tried to push my own emotions aside to get a better sense of any other sensations my Lia might have been harboring, but I felt nothing.
