We were halfway across the large field outside the mansion when a sharp pain had me stumbling and falling to my knees. Shan and Emmett cried out at the same instant, their panic filling me. Altair hauled me to my feet and he and Sky herded us along, away from the mansion.
Away from Freya, who was injured.
I didn’t fight to get back to her, only because I knew I was useless in this state. Shan did, but Altair bound him again in shadow. Emmett glanced between me and the mansion, hopeless.
“Fucking trust her, you idiots,” Altair snapped. “Injured or not, she won’t benefit from you running in and ruining the plan.”
Shan only stopped struggling when Em and I each took an arm, keeping him on a path for the city and away from our mate.
It was hard to trust when her despair was coming through so clearly.
FORTY-ONE
Freya
Grey stared down at me impassively, no recognition lighting his eyes. The second he saw me, he should have been compelled to kill Kylan. That was the plan. I’d been betting on it, if worse came to worst.
The way he stayed still in front of me, not making another move, told me all I needed to know. My compulsion had failed. I’d lost all memories of my sister over a flimsy implanted memory, one he’d been able to decipher within hours and determine was fake.
My wound was in agonizing pain and I fuzzily began to mumble words to healing spells. If I let myself bleed, I would pass out. The world was already becoming grey at the edges. He’d missed my heart, but punctured something important. I could taste blood.
“Kill her,” Kylan ordered.
He and Nolan were fighting, but my mate was distracted. Oswald’s shield had fallen, leaving him exposed should anyone else try to attack him.
“I thought you wanted her alive,” Grey said, staring down at me.
His gaze caught on the pool of blood gathering on the floor and his nose wrinkled.
“Not anymore. Too much fucking trouble. Kill her.”
“Got it.”
I stumbled back from the glint of the blade, running into Ozzy and letting him help hold me up. I let my mate back us up until we were against the wall behind the desk. This was closer to where Kylan and Nolan were fighting, but we only had one side to defend. The front. Grey was advancing, taking his time to watch us run from him.
“We haven’t lost yet,”I reminded both myself and my mates through our mental link.
It was still three against two, and the other team was almost done with all the guards. We only had to hold out a while longer, until there was no escape for Kylan and Grey.
Nolan’s struggles renewed, and he pushed Kylan down against the desk. A flame-engulfed blade met his skin and sizzled, forcing him to release his cousin before he could deal the killing blow. “Hurry the fuck up, Grey,” Kylan snapped as his fire grew.
“Why go to so much trouble to capture me if you were going to kill me in the end?” I asked.
Spitting blood on the ground, I tried to buy us time or distract Kylan just enough for Nolan to finish the job.
Kylan laughed. “I didn’t want to kill you. I wanted to break you, but I’m realizing now that’s a waste of my time.”
“More like you realized you couldn’t break me, and didn’t want to acknowledge your own failure.”
Grey was taking his time approaching as I taunted Kylan. Oswald’s shield was in front of us, and I could have begun our offense from behind it, but I wasn’t ready to give up on my compulsion. I’d spent time inside Grey’s head and I knew he tended to go for slow and steady when possible, but there was something off about him. His attention wasn’t on Oswald and I – sure, he was staring at us, but he was tuned in to every movement Kylan made.
I let hope flare as my wound knitted itself back together, the process as painful as receiving the injury in the first place. There was no way of knowing what Grey was going to do. Not until he made a move.
“I haven’t failed if you’re dead,” Kylan snarled.
“You sure about that? If I die, you would have expended countless resources to kill an Omega who wasn’t fucking doing anything to you in the first place. Sounds like a failure to me.”
Kylan was losing his cool, but he was so skilled with a sword it didn’t give Nolan an opportunity to best him. It only made their fight move faster, their limbs blurring as they parried each other’s blows. A shout came from the door to the study, and I bit my lip to avoid cursing aloud. More guards flowed in, keeping Ward and his team busy. None made it past their vine barrier to us, but they wouldn’t be able to clean up and come help anytime soon.
