AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He gives me nothing. Geez.
But I feel Braxton’s eyes cut sidelong at me, and don’t return his stare. He senses my fear, that whatever call Max just received somehow exposes my negligence. That he knows I gave up and would have allowed my brother to end me. That he knows I let my brother escape.
Max leaves the question dangling long enough that Orson notices. He raises his head from his computer, suddenly aware of the room’s tension.
“Asha,” Max urges, glancing at the door like I'm too dumb to know that he wants to talk to me alone.
I prop myself up on my elbows and shoot him a defiant look. I don’t care if Braxton and Orson are around to hear. One of them’s been inside me and the other, for whatever reason, has my complete and utter trust.Your move, Max.
He sighs, clearly reluctant to share whatever information he has in front of the class. But I stubbornly refuse to budge, guarding the fact I’m intimidated by a one on one aside. Besides, cut the buildup, I want to know right fucking now. I’m not a fan of suspense, it gives me a stomachache. “Have you heard of a faction known as the Raven Pack?”
I feel like a tea kettle point five seconds before it sings. Anger, fear, sadness, panic boil inside me in one terrible concoction so perfectly blended I don’t know which to focus on. I freeze on the mattress, but it feels like my insides are screaming and chasing one another in rapid circles. Thoughts zip through my mind at the speed of light.
The Raven Pack. It echoes in my head like a pan clattering on the kitchen floor.Bastards. If I had let go of my battered hope, all I would have left is a bloodthirsty desire for revenge. And if that happened, there wouldn’t be a single one of them left to rue their craven act.
“I know of them,” I reply through gritted teeth. I can only imagine what they’re up to now. “The Raven Pack was there the night…” I take a deep breath. “The night my pack was slaughtered. They allied with the Blood Mages.”
Orson and Braxton listen in and for them it’s all new information, but Max nods like he already knows. “They’ve taken some of your pack.”
I sit upright. “What do you mean, they’vetakensome of my pack? Hostage? Who do they expect to solicit a ransom from?”
He shakes his head with a look of consternation.That’s not good. I don’t like the way he looks back at me, like he pities me. It’s worse than fear or suspicion. Those I can handle. “Not hostages,” he says. “Slaves.”
The exhaustion that held me in its clutches evaporated. I leap from the bed onto my feet. They lead me towards the door, but Max reaches out to stop me. “Where are they?” I demand.
“Asha,” he pleads.
But all I can see is red. It wasn't enough they came with the Blood Mages and helped capture us. Betraying another pack to fucking animals that use dark magic, but they enslaved some of us? Taking us that night for their own purposes?
And because of my own ignorance, I never checked them out. Never thought to focus on them rather than the Blood Mages and my pack.
How long have they been hurting? Tortured? And I could have saved them.
I shove Max's arm away from me, breathing hard.
Braxton steps in, the two of them holding me back from the door. “You want to get revenge, I get it,” he says, “but now isn’t the right moment. We need a strategic advantage.”
“He’s right,” Max concurs. “We’re all exhausted. We need rest. If we go in half-cocked, it’d be a disaster.”
“Disaster’s been following me now for quite some time,” I counter, “maybe it’s time I face it head-on.”
“Not like this,” says Braxton.
Max shakes his head. “We’re a pack,” he says. In any other circumstance, I might get emotional at that statement, but right now it fails to pierce the anger casting the world in red.
“I can’t let them terrorize my people anymore,” I growl. “Not again."
The idea feels like a razor blade moving through my intestines. Every second they could be hurting, and I'm here with powers capable of dark and terrible things, ready to free them.
No matter who I become after.
“You leave now,” says Max, his voice filled with intensity. “You’ll only fall into their hands.”
“I’ll die before I let them enslave me,” the words are low and threatening. Whispering at just how close I am to attacking these two fools and running.
And I mean my words. Deathiseasier. I've already seen as much.
“Then you’d be of no use to anyone!” Max snaps. He pulls back and sighs frustratedly. “Come here,” he says, walking into the other suite.
