Beginning of Chapter 33

Quinn

They sacrificed themselves for her, allowed fangs to sink into royal flesh, allowed claws to mar beautiful skin. For an Alpha that they hated, the vampires had risked it all. Why? The word had repeated in her head, tongue thick and flopping. She hadn't allowed herself another breath then, not until her lungs had clawed at her chest and the beat of her heart had seemed deafening in her ears.

The first inhale had tasted wretched, sweetened with rust, drenched in the vinegar tang of hurt Omega. The gurgle that had escaped her lips had been inhuman, pathetic and filled with ruin. Her vision blurred, contorting, tear-blinding destruction. All she could see now was the agony etched into their brow, trembling through their bodies, quivering through their wounds.

And then the blood.

The awful, awful blood.

She now knew what the air tasted like when her Omegas were in pain, what it felt like to see them crumpling to the ground. And the scent of fear was as dreadful as Elysian had described—a wretched sort of flavour that had her torn between the need to end it, and the want to pull them into her arms and beg for something she could only describe as a solution.

Omegas. Her mind repeated like a curse. Hurt because of me. In pain because of me. Dying because of me. I want to hold them close. I want to protect them. I want to take away their pain.

It should have been me.

The concept, the idea that they would save her was foreign, so painfully, achingly odd that Quinn couldn't understand their actions or her feelings, settling on her shoulders like a new sort of weight. She couldn't fathom the reasons why they'd go to such lengths. Quinn should have teeth in her neck and claws in her belly, and yet here she was unharmed and protected.

It was all her fault.

Her fault that they weren't thriving in their nests.

Her existence in Euodia's body was a butterfly's wing in the sand and now a tornado had formed.

Destruction, death and ruin.

She stood shaking through the heartbreaking moments when the two had sagged into the arms of the medics. And her heart ached when Zen knelt by their side, fingers on their pulse, unable to look at her, unable to meet her gaze. She was choking in it all, a mortified gasp, a sudden realisation.

Her mind was in pandemonium, was in chaos.

Her fault.

What would this mean for her?

What would this mean for a forsaken Beta?

What would this mean for the Alphas of this world?

All her fault.

"Zen," she'd whispered, the quietest plea, a whimpering call. A moment of utter selfishness for the girl that was breaking inside of her. Please, she'd wanted to say, what should I do? What can I do? Tearfully, she wanted his reassurance, wanted him to tell her that they would be fine, that she would be fine. She wanted his arms around her. "Zen, I..."

She wanted his confidence.

And yet he did not look at her, had not flinched to her response. Gone was the man who had yearned for a ring on her finger, a man with a smile on his face whenever she called his name. The tension in his shoulders was all that she needed to see to understand that his mind was occupied, that it did not have the space to consider her position, her existence. And she'd silenced herself, choked back the words as the soldiers swarmed the trio and carried them away.

Zen could not care for her, she realised then with sharp, aching clarity.

Zen was not her mate, he was theirs.

And right now, she was merely an outsider.

An outsider that had caused their pain.

She was left in the inky snow that burned her knees, pressed into a squat with a gun to her neck. Her head had been bowed, and she was numb when they clamped the collar over her neck, dead to the world when they locked her wrists together. She paid them no heed when they pushed her into a vehicle with bars and no windows.

Another enclosure.

Her mind was playing the things that she knew, the things that she had read, all murky and hazy from time. Icarus should have children, little half-fae cherubic boys with white wings. He should be curled up with them in his nest, sleepy and satisfied. Elysian should be in the kitchen, an apron around his waist, sugar smeared on his cheeks and flour sticky between his fingers. Those babies should be clinging to his arms, should have him smiling so hard his cheeks burned. He should have one curled in his embrace. Their nirvana, their paradise.

Where was it?

Three years after the war, three years after the book, and here they were, childless, broken and hurt.

How much had she changed?

And why had everything changed?

Why were the Lonely consuming the city like flies, like zombies, like the harbingers of death? Had she opened the gates of hell when she'd taken Euodia's body? Had she ruined the balance of the living and the dead? What sort of devil had followed Quinn into this world? What had she done?

Gods, it was all her fault.

Her eyes had been covered, chains to her ankles, chains to her wrists. She'd spent an eternity on a chair, swallowed by her thoughts. And her body had been thrown, discarded into a cell that clattered shut when she rose from the grimy stone floor. It didn't take a fucking genius to understand what had happened, what was going to happen. The soldiers said nothing when she'd called, hands on the poles, begging for an answer. No one spoke to her, and she'd sat back to stew on it all.

The pressing issue now was the fragility of an Alpha's reputation.

The people had seen their kings protect her; the people had seen the extent of those injuries. Did they not like what they had seen? Did they scorn the fact that she had been protected by Omega blood? That she had seemed to manipulate their kings? And that seemed to be the case, for the soldier's eyes were hard cold, unwavering steel. Her thoughts were all that she had, pressed against the straw with icy walls as a companion, with rusting iron to her limbs.

Anxiety churned within her.

What did it mean if the hours crawled, the seconds pulsated and still Quinn remained in a cell for something that was not her fault? Her emotions bubbled and surged into a ghastly terror that had her fingers shaking. Her tears welled, lips quivering at the thought of it all.

Death.

Were Elysian and Icarus dead?

They had survived worse. Surely Elysian wouldn't die from a mere wound to his arm. But a Lonely was death itself—a host of diseases, a walking spread of infection. The teeth to her flesh had scarred. To a weaker being, it might be poison to the blood. Her mind had jumped to Float, and it whispered at the back of her brain, clashing against the restraints of the collar now so charged with anti-magic it weighed heavily on her skin, bruising her neck.

Medicine. Her mind searched for the memories. What medicine could she provide that would be better than the work of a fey? What could Float find? What could she purchase? Nothing that they didn't already have. Nothing that was stronger than the work of the fey. Her nausea grew with time. If she remained in this cell, it meant that the magic of the fey was not working. That their healing did not work.

And why?

Her heart was breaking, her pants increasing, her mind spinning. She'd not fed them in days. Elysian had spent hours standing before her bedroom, starved and sipping on blood that was not hers. He'd wanted her comfortable, had risked his health and his safety. Icarus might have taken a gulp, but even that must have been shared with Elysian.

How much had they drank? How weak were the vampires?

The two were frail, and more stubborn than the rest of them.

Fuck.