Chapter 10 Arabella
Chapter Ten
ARABELLA
I now realized what situations he was referring to.
Murmuring to myself and shaking my head, I sat on Amun’s lap while patching up the gash on his eyebrow.
I knew it was in the nature of nightmares to fight, and none of them seemed bothered by it, but I still didn’t like the injuries on Razar or Amun, even if small.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised—Razar didn’t know how I was feeling, so he assumed I was injured… but I was still mad at him.
Although ‘mad’ was an extremely loose term. I had still patched up the cut on his left cheek and kissed him, but other than that, it was the complete silent treatment.
Sort of.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her give you the silent treatment,” Damian mused, looking elated as Razar damn near pouted.
What did he expect?! He’d hit first.
“It’s refreshing,” Blackwell agreed, taking a sip of his drink. I didn’t know what it was, but I didn’t think it was alcohol despite the fancy glass.
“You and Damian have deserved every single time that’s happened,” I pointed out as Amun gently ran a hand up my back. I noticed briefly that the mark on my arm was lined with a gold that hadn’t been there before, like a slight shimmer. I loved it.
I had to assume it had to do with our mating, an explosion of power that had sent all my mates coming to find us.
“I can vouch for that,” Zain agreed, making me smile.
“I’ve never gotten the silent treatment,” Saint boasted, the cocky smile on his face making me nearly sigh like I was…well, stupidly in love. Which I was.
He wasn’t wrong, though. It was really hard to stay mad at Saint, especially with how damn persistent he was.
“What is the silent treatment, exactly?” Ashur asked. “Is it when Arabella refuses to speak to you?” I could tell by the furrowing of his brow that he didn’t like the concept of that at all.
“Yes,” Zain confirmed.
Cy appeared next to me with a bottle of water, and I tilted my head back so he could press a light kiss to my lips. Amun tightened his hand on my waist but didn’t react otherwise.
“I am not giving Razar the silent treatment,” I finally said even though that’s exactly what I’d been doing, pulling back and looking at my night terror. “I would have just preferred you checked how I was before you attacked Amun.”
Razar rumbled but didn’t respond. He obviously disagreed but had made the wise choice to keep his opinion to himself.
“I don’t mind, precious,” Amun promised, and I honestly believed him. I think he had fun fighting the others, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
Once the last butterfly bandage was secured, I stood and pinned all of them with a look. “Well let’s try to not hit one another until after we figure out this situation.”
“The situation with all the humans in the next room?” Zain asked helpfully.
I nodded and looked towards the observation window.
While this wasn’t our normal command center, it was a similar setup and overlooked a room with nearly fifty humans in it.
Around eighty percent of them were being attended to by healers, their confusion and fear apparent.
While the nightmares that were healers had a more soothing disposition, they were still terrors and inspired a natural reaction in humans.
Which was why we weren’t going in there.
Fear wouldn’t get us the information we needed.
Instead we’d identified two men who were ‘leaders’ within War’s command, and they were being brought into the conference room we were in.
Both exhibited lower amounts of fear, at least according to Razar, and I was hoping they would be willing to share some useful information.
I knew Saint had ideas on how to make that happen, but for right now we were going to keep it to a casual conversation.
“How have they been reacting to and talking about the nightmares?” I asked, watching as security approached the two men in question.
Men who seemed relatively calm and were trying to console and comfort each of the other humans there, probably trying to walk them through what was happening.
I noticed a slight bit of caution and fear when security approached them before their gazes darted upwards to the one-way glass.
“Nothing negative, mostly an understandable amount of caution given they don’t remember how they got here,” Blackwell explained. “Which doesn’t bode well for the other information we hope to gather.”
Wonderful. Hopefully they’d be able to remember other details about their time with War.
My jaw tightened as I considered what my mates had told me about War not only having an escape plan, but that his forces were spread throughout the country.
This was far from over, and we needed to get a handle on it now.
There were way too many nightmares in harm’s way, and just because it was gone from our doorstep didn’t mean we could turn a blind eye.
“Who is staying in the room with me?”
All of them stared at me in confusion, and I huffed. “Guys, they’re going to be terrified—”
The door opened and my mouth shut as security brought in the two men. My mates positioned themselves on one side of the room, clearly having no intent of leaving. As expected, both men paled.
“Hi there,” I said as cheerily as I could manage, hoping to ease their fear. “Thanks for coming up here.”
“Didn’t think we had a choice,” the first man through the door said.
I immediately categorized him as not only the older one, but the more experienced one.
His salt-and-pepper hair was combed back neatly, and while his uniform had debris, dirt, and blood on it, he stood with authority.
Despite his words, he didn’t seem combative, just uncomfortable.
“We all have choices,” I said easily, leaning casually against the table.
The other man just stared at me in shock.
“I’m sorry—” He paused and continued to examine me, his gaze focused on my face. “Are you human?”
“Yes,” I said, not bothering to explain further. “I’m human.”
He blinked, his eyes rounding in surprise as he ran a hand through his hair. “You…you’re in charge here?”
“Part of the team that leads the institute,” I corrected, “but sure.”
“This gets more confusing by the moment,” he breathed out.
“Excuse him, he’s in shock,” the older man said. “I’m Commander Strike, and this is Officer Luis.”
“Nice to meet you both. I’m Arabella, and this is my team here at ISS.” The men briefly looked at my mates but quickly diverted their gazes back to me. I knew they thought it was the safer option, but with the way Saint’s shadows were playing across the edges of the room, I wasn’t so sure.
“Is it nice to meet us?” Strike demanded, mustering his confidence. “We attacked your institute, and while we don’t remember how we got here, it’s clear that we’ve hurt nightmares—”
“Let’s slow down,” I interrupted, motioning for them to sit. I took my own seat, pulling a knee up as I tried to figure out how to go about this.
“Let’s start with what you last remember,” I suggested.
“Yesterday, I believe,” Officer Luis started, “we were at a meeting and were introduced to a visiting Commander—Gunnar. There was a big explosion, and that was the last thing I remember.”
“Same,” Strike agreed.
I froze as something occurred to me. “What month is it?”
“February.”
Holy shit. Was it possible… I heard Blackwell ask them what year it was, and my eyebrows shot up at their answer.
Two years ago. Two years and several months of lost time.
Now Strike was beginning to panic. “Why do you ask?”
“Because more time than you think has passed,” I murmured.
Which meant that the humans under War’s control were truly not in the right state of mind.
I mean, we already knew that, but this was worse than any of us had imagined.
How much of MAM had been because of War? How long had he been influencing them?
I knew they wouldn’t know, and right now it didn’t matter—we could deal with those questions later. Right now I needed to know about the immediate threat.
“Like how much?” Luis asked, his voice faltering.
“We can pin that down after we talk about a few more things,” I said, hoping to keep their focus here with me for just a few minutes more. “I just want to make sure we all stay safe,” I added as they shared an uncertain look. Both hesitated but ultimately agreed.
“You were part of MAM before this, then?” I asked.
“MAM?” Strike asked, and I could tell both he and Luis were genuinely confused by the question. “We were part of the US army. MAM is the militant anti-nightmare group, right? We keep tabs on them, but they are fairly small.”
Oh, this was bad. Now the rapid advancement of such a small hate group made more sense.
I turned to my mates. “Let’s have my dad arrange for Irina to explain what’s been going on, or at least be present.”
“What’s going on?” Luis repeated, his voice turning more demanding.
“You were part of an attack, but not as part of the military,” I explained gently. “Somehow you ended up as a member of MAM.”
Strike offered me an incredulous look. “Why would I do that? My daughter-in-law is a nightmare; she and my son got married a few years back.”
“There’s a lot we need to sort out,” I agreed, looking down at the table as I thought through what else I could ask them.
I didn’t think they’d know anything truly useful, at least not regarding War’s future plans, but it was obvious that the humans were in as much danger from War as nightmares.
Which meant there were now two groups of people he was after.
He truly wanted a massive world war. His hold was huge, and with what I now knew about the other nightmare communities being surrounded, we needed to act, and soon.
“Thank you for talking to me,” I said finally, meeting their confused gazes with a small smile. “We’ll have someone come brief all of you soon and clear up the confusion.”
They both nodded, Strike looking like he wanted to argue, but at that moment security opened the door to lead them out. I waited patiently as they left, and as the door closed, I let out a groan and put my head down.
“Well, this is a shit show,” Saint said.
“I had no idea how deep his reach was,” Ashur added solemnly. “My understanding is that he gained access, resources, and people from the human military to supply the anti-nightmare group?”
“That’s what I got from it,” Zain muttered.
Razar exhaled sharply, running his hand along my back as Cy squeezed my thigh in a comforting move. I could hear Amun pacing behind me, and Blackwell and Damian were silent as they thought through the implications of this disaster like me.
After a long moment, I lifted my head and exhaled. “Alright, we’ll get them briefed, but let’s handle the current issue—War is a threat to humans and nightmares alike. We need to break his hold on everyone and then go from there.”
“Kill him,” Saint said matter-of-factly. “I’m killing him.”
I wouldn’t argue.
“We know how to break the bonds,” I breathed out, “but a battlefield is different from an entire nation. I can’t do this on my own.”
“You aren’t on your own,” Cy said immediately.
“But we don’t have the same ability as you—” Damian admitted.
“—and you aren’t pushing yourself that far,” Blackwell finished.
“I know,” I whispered. I looked out the observation window, feeling a compelling urge to protect all of the humans and nightmares that were under threat from War. Realization hit me. “I need more sis metas.”
“That may be a problem since we only know of one other, and she’s a child,” Saint pointed out.
I nodded and then froze, remembering what I had seen before passing out.
“Actually… Remember how I felt a connection to other sis metas, past and present, the first time I used my magic? I think the same thing happened this time, but it was odd. I think I saw a large group of them. It was faint, and I couldn’t tell where they were exactly, but I swear they were there…
And then they flickered out of existence. Almost like they were—”
“Shielding themselves,” Ashur said, finishing for me. “In a large group, that could be possible. From what I remember, sis metas have a lot of defenses against nightmares, including the ability to hide themselves. It’s sort of a built-in protection.”
They actually made a ton of sense.
“But War said he hunted all of them down, right?” Zain asked.
“He did hunt many of them,” Saint agreed. “Although, there was a time, and I wasn’t on Earth or corporeal for most of it, so Ashur or Amun probably have a better grasp on this, even though I hate to admit it—”
“But there was a time,” Ashur said forcefully, interrupting Saint’s rambling, “when there were entire populations of them. It was how nightmares grew so fast and so powerfully, because Class A nightmares were able to mate.”
“If they had Class A mates, wouldn’t they have put up more of an obstacle when it came to War?” I asked, though even as I said the words, I knew something was off with my logic.
Saint chuckled. “No—despite giving these guys a fair fight, I could kill all of them.”
“Saint!” I admonished. He just shrugged.
“Not me,” Ashur mused.
“How about we don’t talk about killing one another,” I said in a huff—again.
“I’m going to try to use my magic again,” I said, ignoring the glaring contest between Ashur and Saint. “Just enough to focus on my connection to the sis metas and see if I can find out where they are. If we can find them and they’re willing to help, we may be able to beat War once and for all.”
“I don’t want you to pass out again,” Cy said, his eyes pleading.
Walking over to him, I wrapped my arms around his torso. “I promise it won’t hurt me at all,” I said softly.
I just hoped I was able to keep that promise.