Page 44

RADA

The eastern sky was turning an alarmingly bright shade of blue by the time I returned to the fence, trailing mates.

Kellin had stayed in the water after we discovered that through our completed bond, I was able to somehow carry the sea with me, a fact that sounded as odd as it felt. As long as Kellin was in contact with the ocean, I was, too. At least a little.

He’d promised to meet me inside the iron fence in his seal form later on, after I’d shed a horrifyingly embarrassing tear at leaving him so soon after our bonding. I was a mess.

I’d thrown all of their clothes into a pile before my newest claiming mark had dried, adding soft strands of kelp that I vaguely remembered saying “smelled like Lusca,” and dragged branches across the sand for some sort of framework for the collection before I came out of my haze and tore it all apart.

All of us were alarmed at how desperate I’d grown to build a nest over the course of the night. Their concern itched in my mind, splinters of worry I couldn’t reach to pull out.

Goran had escorted me to the edge of the jungle, mumbling about me needing him. “I need you like I need a splinter in my ass. Go work on the raft.” I waited for him to retreat, then crossed the bare space between the jungle and the fence. I couldn’t hear or see anyone around.

That changed when I grasped the iron bars, preparing to pull myself over. “Well, what have we here, Karl? An Omega outside of her cage.”

I let go and turned slowly, taking in the two Alphas who stood in front of me. They’d both drawn their knives and wore matching, wicked smiles on their ugly faces.

“Good morning, Vallen, is it? And Karl.”

“Good, you know our names. You can yell them when we fuck you.”

I snorted and glanced around for the third Alpha, but Frol wasn’t there. Two to one? I liked my odds, but I didn’t like the line of sight from the barracks above. There was only one priest on guard, though, and he hadn’t raised the alarm. Wait. The torch beside him wasn’t lit, and it hadn’t rained last night.

I glanced up again to make sure. The torch definitely wasn’t lit, and the priest that had been there a moment before was now gone.

I forced my attention back to the threat at hand, just as Karl reached for me. I ducked away smoothly, and he stumbled on the slippery obsidian beneath our feet.

“Hold still, bitch.” His tone was sharp and filled with his Alpha bark.

“Or how about I don’t?” I rolled my eyes and sidestepped him again, palming my obsidian shard.

They blinked at each other, like they couldn’t understand how I hadn’t buckled under the Alpha command.

It was hard not to just kill them both and be done with it. I could almost see it: them lying in a tidy stack with their throats slit, the blood a pretty red against the black stone and traces of green nearby. I felt an odd amusement in one of my bonds and made a mental note to ask if any of my mates could read my actual thoughts, and not just my emotions, at a distance.

If they could, I might have some explaining to do about how much pleasure I derived from things like imagining the deaths of my enemies.

Ah, well. A girl needed hobbies.

I shifted my stance when Karl sniffed, and made a face. “You don’t smell as good as the one we’re waiting for. She’s a ripe little peach.”

Vallen grunted. “This bitch’ll do until the peach starts yelling for us to come fuck her.”

The thought of them touching Rielle had me imagining more than blood. I ran the edge of the shard across the bundle of herbs in my pocket. “You’re not going to touch me, you dumb arserag. For one thing, your lord would know.” I craned my neck to show the damned claim Edan had left. Karl immediately backed away, uncertainty in his piggish eyes.

“Maybe we’ll just hurt you then,” Vallen muttered. The scent of feral Alpha was thicker around him, and I knew he was about to attack. “You gotta be punished for sneaking around.” He lifted his knife and slashed at me.

I wasn’t scared, though my mind was clicking through possible outcomes. If I killed them here, and they were found, it might make the Omegas’ and the children’s escape harder. They had dozens of guards on this side of the ridge, and who knew how many more on the western side. It would be tomorrow night before Dustin and Lachlan brought the boats. Even if I found some way to make the guards’ deaths look natural—the poison on my shard’s edge now was one way to accomplish that—their deaths would have more guards’ eyes on us.

So much for keeping a low profile. I needed another solution.

For a split second, as I ducked under Vallen’s next clumsy attempt to grab me, I felt a pang of longing for Alexios. He was the one who’d always helped me come up with less-lethal solutions to sticky problems. That vow of non-violence had helped more times than I’d thought it would.

Hells, I just missed him altogether. And when another Alpha appeared beside the two I was dancing around now—who were fucking barking at me to stop moving, damn them! So rude, and so ineffective—I really missed him.

“Frol, grab her!” Karl shouted. At the same second, Vallen surprised me by throwing a handful of black sand at my face. I didn’t have my cloak, which usually shielded me somewhat, and when I closed my eyes to keep from being blinded, I felt arms wrap around me from one side.

“Frol help,” the Alpha announced in Pictish at full volume, lifting me off the ground. He was massively strong and had pinned my arms very effectively, but I’d learned how to wriggle free of burly Alphas back when I still had milk teeth.