AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CASSIAN
Emily and I had been waiting in the tree line outside the palace for what seemed like hours.
Something went wrong. It had to. Why else were they taking so long?
Neither one of us spoke much. Our nerves were shot, strung out, and pulled in every direction. Too many “what ifs” cluttered my mind, and I didn’t have the mental capacity to think up a conversation. So, we waited in silence, biting our nails and chewing on our lips to keep from pulling out our hair.
If they got caught, I could only guess what would happen. Aside from the obvious—punishment by death or imprisonment—a trickle effect would ensue. The queen would surely tell the High Council, and my pack would suffer the consequences. There would be no way to gain an alliance, we’d lose the alliance with Newt, and Radolph would probably get in trouble for his beta. Meaning, no way to end Samara or the curse.
“Should it be taking this long?” Emily asked, her arms crossed and hugging her body. She wore Ember’s shirt, so she was probably covering her midriff.
I shrugged. What else could I say? I’d never broken into the queen’s palace to steal confidential information. The worst part was Newt wouldn’t even tell us what this information was, so I had no idea the gravity of our actions. Were we stealing a secret family recipe or documents relating to war?
No idea, but my guess was with the latter.
“Come on, Grif,” I mumbled under my breath. Yeah, I give him a lot of shit—especially when it comes to Emily—but I would never want any harm to come his way. Whether I was ready to admit it or not, Griffin was my friend, my brother. He wasn’t an official member of our pack, but I thought of him as such. Maybe after we were through with the fae realm, I’d ask him if he wanted to join.
I paced around the tree once more, putting a trail around it where my feet had already traveled 50 times that night.
“What’s going on?” Emily asked. I faced her, and she pointed toward the palace, squinting her eyes.
Guards were going haywire, running back and forth, inside and out. Shit! If they were caught, none of them would have the powers to even defend themselves.
We crept closer to get a better view, but too much chaos kept us from seeing anything significant. What if they were in trouble? They might need our help! Emily and I needed to get inside and save our friends. But what if I was wrong? Maybe charging in there would blow their cover and get us caught up in a whirlwind of crazy. My mind darted back and forth, like a Ping-Pong game inside my brain. Do it, don’t do it.
“What do we do?” I asked Emily, my voice trembling more than I’d like to admit.
Emily stared ahead; her eyebrows pulled down tight. She remained quiet for a moment, watching the scene before her at a distance. “We wait.”
I nodded, trying to maintain even a fraction of the level of calm that she had.
“Wait until we figure things out. For all we know, this could be unrelated to them. Doubtful, but it’s possible.”
She must’ve had the same game of Ping-Pong going on in her own mind and had visited the same possibilities.
“What if they get arrested?” I asked.
“Then we bust them out.”
A simple answer that was much more complicated. “And what if they kill them?”
Emily’s head jerked over, facing me with a look of bewilderment. Had she not considered that possibility?
“They won’t,” she answered with such certainty, I wondered if she was at all worried about that outcome. How could she not be? I sure as hell was.
We watched the chaos in silence until a voice from behind startled us. Nearly jumping out of our skin, we turned around to see Ember standing alone. “They’ve got ‘em!” she shouted. “They’ve got the guys!”
“How are you here and not there?” I asked, my eyes darting from Ember to the palace. “How’d you get out?”
“They think it’s an attack from the rebels, probably talking about Newt. The guard thought I was a human traveler and told me to leave the palace before I got hurt.”
“Well, what about Griffin and Rohan? You didn’t even try to save them!” The accusations flew from my mouth before I could filter them. But seriously, how could she leave them? Why wouldn’t she fight alongside them?
“Griffin and I talked about it beforehand. He said if they were caught, come back to get Emily and make a distraction.”
“I don’t remember that,” I said, thinking back to the dozens of plans we’d made earlier.
“It was when Newt went on that twenty-minute rant about the queen tearing down his begonia garden to put in roses.”
