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Joelle’s head ached with a pressure even she couldn’t heal unless she wanted to interrupt the arguments once again. Alexei and Yulia fought over whether the demon hybrids had a legitimate stake in the fight against the Order or not. Their back-and-forth had gone from quiet civility to angry tirade.
“They’re slaughtering our people for being born supernatural instead of human,” Alexei said. “This should be everyone’s fight.”
Yulia shook her head. “Our kingdom has suffered no losses. I’m not pushing my father’s subjects into a war that doesn’t directly concern us.”
“You’ll just wait on the sidelines for the rest of us to take care of the problem for you?”
“The Order has targeted witches and humans for the most part. I didn’t see the witches rushing to help my father’s kingdom when we had cold winters and famine. And humans? Other than marrying into our lines, what good are they?”
Ouch. Joelle struggled to keep her mouth shut. Sure, she didn’t qualify as remotely human given her skin’s symbols and magic light show, but to discount an entire species as nothing more than breeding stock? What had Alexei’s parents been thinking when they’d encouraged a match between these two? Enemies to lovers might play out great on the screen or in a novel, but Alexei and Yulia might literally kill each other.
“What about their experimentation on supernaturals?” Alexei asked. His voice had gone low, and he stared at her instead of Yulia.
A chill went over her skin the same as when one of the voodoo priestess’s ghosts had walked through her. Joelle wanted to run from the room, to avoid this conversation with him. She’d been able to talk with his sister, but she hadn’t imagined telling him because doing so seemed too big to handle.
“You know,” she blurted out. Not her smartest observation, but she couldn’t think past the horror of him realizing how very broken she was.
Yulia interrupted her pity party. “Knowwhat?”
Alexei didn’t answer which meant he’d given Joelle the awful honors of recounting the nightmarish existence that had led to her night terrors unless she downed a sleeping potion.Pretend it’s a report.All facts. No emotions.She could do this. “The Order marks supernaturals for culling.” Her brother had been forced to mark targets for years. She forced down the bile at the guilt over what he’d done to protect her. “The targets that aren’t immediately executed are either slated for later termination or captured for study.”
Narrowing her eyes, Yulia asked, “Explain what you mean by study.” Her accent went thick, making the final word sound like a war crimes accusation.
“Testing the limits of powers, torture, and dissection. For the last, my captor, Noxx, sometimes waited until after death, but most often conducted her analysis while the subject still lived.” Joelle wrapped her arms around herself as if she could block out the memories of the blood, of the screams. “She studied the origins of supernaturals, but the experimentation seemed to mean more to her. As though she was looking for something.”
“For what?” Alexei asked her, his voice soft against the harsh cruelty of her memories. “What could she have been searching for that would’ve been worth so many lives and so much pain?”
“She wanted to unlock the secrets of what makes us different, what makes our magic work. I don’t know why.” Nausea churned in her belly, and her vision swam. Heat seemed to engulf her, and she struggled to maintain her composure. She wanted to shrink into nothingness so she wouldn’t have to relive the trauma she’d suffered day after day, so she wouldn’t be subjected to the scorn on Yulia’s face. Not daring to glance Alexei’s way, not wanting to see how he judged her, she used her breathing to center her—in through the nose, out through pursed lips. Stillness would have to serve as a poor substitute to invisibility.
“How could you?” Yulia practically spat the accusation. “What are you that you could participate in such atrocities? No demon hybrid would for fear of death, and death would be preferable to betraying your kind.”
I am nothing. The old lies that Noxx had told her countless times circled in her mind, and Joelle tightened her arms around her middle, wanting to hold everything inside as if she bled real blood instead of agony. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“We always have choices.” Yulia’s sneer spoke louder than the words she’d left unsaid.You chose wrong.
“Not the topic at hand.” Alexei sounded so cold. “Yulia, what will it take to convince you that the Order needs to be stopped?”
“Protecting our people, defending my father’s kingdom and Tai’s legacy? Those are what I fight for. Demon hybrids? We areallthat matter. No one and no cause come before us. If you had a fated mate at risk, then the rules would be different, but you don’t. So I’m not risking my troops to save some humans or solve a problem that mainly concerns the witches.” Yulia hesitated. “Unless you’re offering something more than political goodwill for my troubles. If you’re open to a true royal alliance between us, then say so. My son needs a strong father figure, and our families have expressed interest in seeing us together. Marriages have been founded on less.”
The woman wanted Alexei. Not for who he was, but for his political connections.
Joelle needed to get out of here. She couldn’t watch him dismiss her as his mate yet again. “If you’ll excuse me?” Her voice came out too weak—the opposite of Yulia’s powerful presence. She didn’t wait for an answer, heading for the door as fast as she could before her legs trembled or the burning in her eyes became tears slipping down her hot cheeks. Escape was at her fingertips, the knob cold and solid under her skin.
“Wait,” Alexei said.
She didn’t turn to face him, didn’t have the nerve to show them how devastated she was by her own foolishness. Yulia had flown from wherever that captivating accent was from—the one that sounded much like Alexei’s when he let his polished façade slip—to rekindle whatever they’d had back when their parents had tried to arrange a marriage. She was his equal, his suitable match, and Joelle…you’re no one. Noxx’s voice hadn’t been this loud in her head for months, but the insidious ugliness crept through her like a virus, stealing the hard work she’d done to believe she was more.
“Kyle wanted to see you.” Alexei’s deep voice rolled over her, the kindness in it chipping away at her defenses as quickly as she could put them up. “To thank you. He’s coming to work with Tai since they’re both telekinetics.”
“I’ll be in the training room. He can come find me, or you can send for me when he gets here.” She’d managed to keep her voice level, a talent earned through years of pretending that nothing could touch her emotions. But the act wore thin, and the exhaustion of wondering how she’d been so naïve pressed down on her as she hurried out the door, closing it behind her.
Eddie stood outside, leaning a shoulder against the wall as though he could wait there forever for her to come out and ask to go somewhere else. His Witch’s Bane shirt with the latest album cover clung to his muscles and rode up over his biceps, hiking the slightest at the hem where he’d holstered his gun. Why couldn’t her body react to him the way her heart sped up when Alexei was near?Stupid heart.
He glanced at her face and straightened as though he were a marionette whose strings she yanked. “What’s wrong?” Eddie’s voice cut through her thoughts like a dagger, making her flinch when she still felt so raw.
She shook her head, unable to put words to her own gullibility. While she could run complex calculations in her head and talk computer coding with the best hackers in the world, she couldn’t read relationships the way everyone else could. Or she would have picked up on the fact that Yulia was more than a royal alliance; she’d come for marriage, for Alexei who refused to acknowledge Joelle as anything more than a house guest.
“What did he do?” Eddie stared toward the room where his prince and soon-to-be princess remained.
