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“He’ll kill us,” Frost says, his tone distracted.
“Fuck off,” I snarl at Malix. “You fucked her, too. We all know it. Frost and I came back from hunting, and her scent was all over you.”
“She’s my mate,” Malix snaps. “If I want to fuck her, it’s my prerogative.”
“Was your mate,” I correct him.
“Yeah. Whatever. Another one of your brilliant fucking ideas.”
I grit my teeth and look to Frost for support, but he’s closed off. His gaze is distant, looking beyond me like I’m not even sitting across from him. He’s drawn into himself, more so than usual, and there’s almost something like anger glinting in his icy eyes.
“Frost!” I say loudly, snapping my fingers. “Snap out of it, man.”
His gaze swivels to me, but he doesn’t speak. It’s like staring at a goddamn brick wall.
“So what’s the plan?” Malix grunts, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “You got Amora into this mess. How are you going to get her out of it?”
“It’s not my fault she showed up here,” I growl. “That’s on her. We told her to stay away, and she didn’t listen. If I hadn’t stepped in, she’d be dead already, decapitated by our alpha on his way to bed.”
“Fine.” Malix relents. He’s still angry, his shoulders tight as he scrubs a hand over his short dark hair. “She gets another night. What does our great and brilliant leader intend to do to make sure she has more than just one?”
Frost makes a quiet noise in his throat. “Malix. You’re being unreasonable.”
Malix snorts, baring his teeth. “No, what’s unreasonable is that we poisoned our mate, broke the bond, and removed the little bit of protection we could have given her.”
“You think it would be better for her to still be our mate?” I ask incredulously. “You realize if Quinton knew that, she’d be in even more danger.”
“He wouldn’t hurt her,” Malix insists, as if it’s the honest truth. “Not if he knew she was ours.”
“She’s not ours,” I bite out, my tone harsh. “And even if she was, it guarantees her no protection. Quinton’s goal is to keep his pack safe, and to bring the shadow realm to earth. If hurting her would help him accomplish either of those goals, he wouldn’t think twice.”
Malix scoffs. “How would hurting her keep the village safe?”
Before I can break it down for his dumb ass, Frost speaks with a little more patience. “As our mate, she would be a pawn. A tool to make us work harder, faster, to find a way to bring the shadow realm to Earth. Bringing the shadow realm to earth would allow the alpha to keep his village safe by granting him unending power. And bringing us peace from the unending pain,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
It’s not an afterthought, though. It’s a thought never too far from any of our minds.
Malix’s face hardens, and he stands, staring down at me with steely violet eyes. “I suggest you come up with a plan soon.”
“You could help,” I point out.
“Nah. This is on you. This entire situation is on you.” With that, he turns his back on me and disappears into his bedroom. The door slams shut so hard it shakes the walls.
I sigh and sink back against the chair cushions, rubbing at the tension growing between my eyes. When I look up again, Frost’s door is closing silently behind him.
Great.
I stand up and pad into my own room, although I know sleep isn’t going to come tonight. As furious as I am at Malix’s outburst, I know he’s right. I have to come up with a way to get Amora out of this alive without Quinton finding out who she is—was—to us.
My room is ten degrees colder than the living room, and I still can’t feel my fucking toes. I pause just inside the threshold and give serious thought to sleeping on the couch by the wood stove so I can thaw out, but then I catch sight of something glinting on the floor.
Amora’s knife.
Fucking hell.
A wave of memories assault me, flooding my mind like a tidal wave. When I opened my eyes and saw her face, I thought I was still dreaming. I thought I had somehow manifested her right into my fucking bedroom and could have her in my bed, the way she had been in my dreams.
Until I saw the blade hovering two feet over my chest.
A dozen emotions slam into me all at once as the image of her standing over me, about to end my life, careens through my head. I lean down and swipe the knife off the floor, then plunge it deep into the wood of the door. The sharpened tip sinks in deeply with a thud, and the handle quivers when I release it, making the metal glint in the dim light.
It doesn't make me feel any better.
