“We have to help them.”
Jack-Eye steps forward, a hand already reaching for his phone.
“I’ll coordinate a team. We can have wolves there within-“
He pauses, sharing a glance with Caine. The Lycan King shakes his head.
“The closest are all still in Blue Mountain. It would be hours before they get here.”
His beta sighs.
“I told you we should have brought a few more with us.”
“It’s better for them to keep an eye on the brat ruling there.”
Caine runs a hand through his hair, blowing out a breath. He glances at me with a frown.
“We don’t need a rescue team,”
Lyre says calmly.
“It’s just a retrieval.”
“It’s better to be safe-“
“There’s no danger,”
she interrupts him.
“I can vouch.”
He frowns.
Owen clears his throat, and I’m impressed. He’s facing Lyre without shaking.
But then I follow the line of his gaze and realize he’s looking way over her head. She probably isn’t in his peripheral vision.
“I will go. If any soulspliced are alive…”
“I’m going too,”
I announce, starting to rise before remembering the toddler in my lap. The words come out of me without conscious thought, maybe I’m just swept up in the moment. Or maybe it’s the thought of another Bun-like child, trapped in a cage. Maybe without its mother. Family.
“Absolutely not,”
four voices ring out in unison, and I blink.
“You’re no help at all,”
Lyre says, and her gentle tone is at odds with her words.
“You’d be in the way,”
Owen agrees, his arms crossed over his chest.
Jack-Eye and Caine don’t have a follow-up. They’re just standing there like they expect me to follow their every word.
Which I will, because they’re all right. I have no business going around trying to save people. Even if I was completely recovered, I have no skill sets to help out. I’m not particularly strong or agile, and I don’t have magic like Lyre.
“Sorry. I know. I don’t know why I said it.”
Jack-Eye frowns at me, then looks at his alpha.
“You’re staying here, right?”
Caine’s jaw works as he considers, his gaze darting between Lyre and Owen, then back to me.
“Yes. We can’t leave Grace without a guard. But keep me updated. Check in at least once an hour.”
“Not every five minutes?”
Lyre asks lightly, before pressing her lips together so tight they turn white. Her shoulders shake a little, though.
“I’m sure every hour will be adequate,”
his beta cuts in hastily.
“Come, Madame Lyre. Please lead the way to the children.”
* * *
The tension in the room shifts from panicked to purposeful as everyone begins organizing themselves. Owen steps away from the wall, his shoulders squared despite his obvious discomfort around Lyre.
“I might have a place to take any survivors,”
he says, his voice more confident than I’ve heard before.
“But we should hurry. The sanguimancer-she’s dead?”
“For now,”
the rainbow-haired girl replies, making a vague gesture with her hand.
“It will take her some time to recuperate.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
Owen’s so startled he actually looks right at her.
“Years? You destroyed her vessel?”
A faint, one-shouldered shrug.
“Is there any better way?”
“No.”
But he looks more afraid than ever as he leads them out of our safe little cave.
Even Caine looks taken aback, his eyebrows lifted slightly as he watches them leave. Bun shifts in my lap, chewing harder on her collar, oblivious to the atmosphere.
“What’s a sanguimancer?”
Jack-Eye asks, and I lean forward to listen.
“Are they dangerous?”
“She wasn’t particularly challenging-just annoying. They’re blood witches, in the crudest sense of the world. Their own or others’, it doesn’t matter. They use it to feed themselves, bind others to their will, cast nasty little spells…”
Her voice trails off, and I glance at Caine, who’s frowning.
“Have you ever heard of sangwa.. Um, blood witches?”
It’s a term I’ve never heard before.
He shakes his head.
“No.”
Lyre pops her head back in, just before the rock wall closes.
“No touching. I mean it, Your Royal Blockheadedness.”
“I heard you the first time,”
Caine growls.
“And yet I still don’t believe you’ll listen.”
Lyre’s slitted eyes narrow further.
“I won’t be happy if I come back to find Grace unconscious again.”
“Doomed,”
Sara whispers, still dramatically covering her face.
“Good night, Bun,”
I whisper, tucking the blanket around the toddler’s tiny shoulders. Her eyelids droop, but she still fights sleep like it’s her mortal enemy.
“Quack,”
she mumbles, her duck bill morphing back to human lips mid-yawn.
Sara rolls her eyes from her nest of blankets.
“Just ignore her. She’ll be asleep in thirty seconds.”
The feral baby protests with a grumpy babble, but it’s soft.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.