I take a slow step closer and simply let the darkness within me leak into my gaze, my pupils expanding until the world is nothing but the shadows I control.
“I said you areun idiot.” I allow my voice to ripple through the air like a physical blow.
One of his henchmen lunges forward with a sharpened piece of piping, aiming straight for the wolf’s throat. Bevan meets him halfway.
Despite the poison still singing in his veins, his instinct is impeccable. His fist connects with the man’s jaw in a perfect, brutal arc. The bone gives way—crack—and the Guilder is down before he can even grunt.
Keeping Thad locked in a mental prison, I watch the wolf move. He’s slow, his coordination hampered by the dregs of my poison, but his instinct is a primal thing that doesn’t need a clear mind to function.
The hall turns into a blur of motion. The second Guilder charges, but the wolf grabs the man’s shirt and slams him into the concrete wall with a force that makes the light fixtures rattle.
As he hits the floor, Taliesin spins to engage the third, who was trying to circle around his flank. Dropping into a deep knee-bend, metal whistles harmlessly over Bevan’s head.
I almost smile as he stands again, driving the heel of his palm into the man’s solar plexus.
Wheezing for air, the Guild man struggles against Bevan’s arm as it presses his windpipe shut.
Now, where was I? Ah yes, Thad.
He’s frozen, hands trembling. I place my cold hand on his forehead and reach into the soft, malleable parts of his mind. “You want this attack to stop,” I hiss, leaning into his ear. “You are desperate to get all the Guild men back to their blocks where they belong. Spread the word, make it happen.”
Thad falls to his knees beside his broken crew, face turning a sickly, translucent gray as his mind fractures under the weight of the compulsion.
I straighten my cuffs, looking at Bevan as he stands over three broken bodies, chest heaving. “Efficient, but messy. Shall we continue?”
I glide past the whimpering Thad, the wolf following in my wake, heading toward the screams of the service-tunnel block.
The peasants are revolting, as they say.
32. AURORA
Ihate waiting.
I hate being left behind, ignorant of what’s happening out there.
Left to go “sit pretty” in the corner.
Ugh.
It’s too much like the entire rest of my life.
I pace the length of the enclosure, unable even to concentrate on dance. Fuck. It has to have been at least three hours since François and Tally disappeared into the gloom. Three hours of waiting for news.
How are Alanna and Carson?
Is anyone else injured?
Please, Gods, don’t let any of…my people get hurt.
My people.
Yeah, they’re my people. The “people I care about” list seems to be growing dangerously long and in Quo that’s a liability.
Back in Havengard, that list had a grand total of one name on it—Cosmo. It was safer that way. Lonely, but safe. Now?
I fucking care.
Turns out, a lot of the inmates are just good people caught in the gears of a shitty system. I know this because Sky is theundisputed queen of gossip; she even managed to worm Layla’s backstory out of her during a long shift in the laundry.
