33. Brylee
33
brYLEE
Sunlight glitters off the windows of my parents’ palace, the white stone walls gleaming as brightly as a fake smile. The same sort of smile I wear as I pass several gardeners running mowers and trimming hedges.
I wave at a few of the guards standing sentinel between the columns lining the massive arched entry. Well trained, the soldiers don’t even make eye contact as they pull the front doors open for me.
Hornets buzz in my stomach, stinging as I slowly walk down the empty, echoing entry hall. Bile rushes up my throat, and I have to pause near an oversized vase because I might just vomit. Better to do it on the tiles than on one of my mother’s rugs.
How do you tell someone their son might be dying?
How do you refrain from screaming at them when you think they’re to blame?
I want to yell until I’m hoarse and then collapse into a sobbing pile on the floor and have my father fix everything like he used to when I was a child.
But that’s not going to happen.
It might not even be possible.
There’s a chance they could help though. A chance they could negotiate a quick ceasefire with Nóthos. Enough time for me to find a way to get some medicine so that we don’t have to lie to people the way we lied to Harper last night. We told her that Ted had food poisoning, and I’m honestly shocked she believed us.
Of course, I don’t think she saw the medicine Caran brought. That right there is another reason I need to go to my parents. So that Caran doesn’t have to keep doing whatever he’s doing…
I wasn’t brave enough to ask, and he didn’t volunteer the information.
But if he’s that desperate, then I need to be too. And desperate times call for desperate measures. I told him I’d take care of it. And I will.
We need more medicine. Enough to actually make a difference.
My eyes squeeze shut and my face contorts as the pressure within builds. There’s a chance…but only if I don’t screw it up.
I’m always on thin ice with the queen, and if I want her to listen and actually hear me, if I want to win her over, then I need to be careful about what I say and how I say it.
Slow deep breaths, I coach myself. No emotion. None.
I try to summon up my courage. For inspiration, I imagine all the things that Alpha Team X has yelled at me for over the past several weeks. Ridge, in particular, is great at alphahole sayings like, “Cry me a river and then swim across it. Try not to drown.” One of his other favorites is “We don’t retreat. We reload.” Picturing his shouting face bolsters me. I think the team might have unwittingly helped me with something I’ve always needed: composure.
Omegas are typically doted on and coddled. I can name more than a few at Darling who are straight up brats when they don’t get their way. I’m even guilty of it sometimes. But at Eros, I’ve had to bite my tongue so many times I’m surprised they haven’t sent me to the nurse for stitches.
And that skill is going to serve me well today as I face down the dragon.
I stare at my reflection in a gold-framed mirror across the hall. My French braid keeps my blonde hair back the way my mother prefers, and I’m wearing a navy business dress suit that my father picked out. While the skirt is a bit stiff, it looks good. Professional.
Taking one final breath and swallowing down any remaining bile, I head for the sitting room. Mother’s butler, a sweet, balding beta named Oliver, is standing with a tablet in his hand—probably the day’s itinerary.
When he spots me, his face lights up and he gives his trademark chip-toothed smile. “Princess Brylee! So good to see you.”
“Oliver.” I nod in greeting. “I’m a little early, but I thought I could just wait—” I’m gesturing toward a small set of chairs in a sunny alcove when the door bursts open and my mother comes storming out, nostrils flaring like she’s about to spit fire.
Her steel gray hair is in a curled updo, and the black business suit she’s paired it with makes her look dangerous. But most intimidating of all is the look on her face. Her expression slams into Oliver with all the ferocity of a speeding freight train. “Get a new contingent over to Sphazo. Those bastards are on the outskirts. Where the hell have our guards been?”
A sheepish soldier slinks out of the meeting room behind her as Oliver does some quick dialing on his cell.
Mother spots me. “Brylee, it’s nice to see you, but I don’t have time?—”
“Unfortunately, it’s urgent,” I state, interrupting her. While the shock of my audacity makes my knees tremor slightly, I lift my chin and am able to keep my gaze steady.
Blue eyes sparking, she jerks her head toward the door she just exited, and then I follow her in.
“Don’t look at the maps,” she instructs sharply as Oliver closes the door to give us privacy.
My eyes dart away from the ground plans spread across the meeting table, but not before I notice several have alarming shades of red drawn near our larger cities.
Anxiety whispers in my ear, but I try to ignore it as I plant my feet and fold my hands. “Mom, I’ve been to see Teddie.”
Immediately, her brow drops, and she gives me a look that could wither the roses outside. “Is that what this is about? I thought you were coming to formally accept Brock’s pack. There are real problems at hand, Brylee.”
Shocked at her sudden outburst and lightning-fast change in topic, I’m dazed for a moment. But as she turns on her heel to leave, my hand snaps out and I latch onto her shoulder. She turns slowly back, embers blazing in her eyes.
Once, her look would have cowed me. Not today. “Teddie’s not getting better.”
She scoffs. “You have no idea what you’re?—”
“No. You have no idea.” I’ve interrupted her twice, but I don’t even have time to marvel at that, because I can already see the dismissive look in her eyes. “Just last night, he couldn’t even stand. He’s not?—”
The door swings open, and both our gazes swivel toward the intruder, ready to make them rue their day.
“Morning!” Teddie stands there in a robin’s egg blue suit with hair that still looks damp. “Sorry I’m late, Mom. Worst case of food poisoning ever last night.” He walks over to her and presses a quick kiss to her expectant cheeks before glancing over at me with a raised brow. “What’s the matter, baby sister?”
I study his face, disbelieving. There are still prominent bags under his eyes and a few broken blood vessels, but those can easily be explained away by his lie. I know for a fact that he’s skin and bones beneath that suit, but the clothes disguise his condition well.
“Your sister here is not only delaying an excellent match with Brock, but her overactive imagination has her wound up. She seems to think you were dying last night. Typical omega theatrics,” Mother says as she takes Teddie’s arm and leads him from the room, her entire demeanor changed.
My mother leaves me behind, but my brother does pull back. “One second. I just want a word with Brylee.”
She gives me a condescending look, as though I’m in for a lecture, before heading toward Oliver. I hear the phrases “over-the-top” and “bring a car for her” drifting back as my brother squares off against me.
“What are you doing?” I hiss between my teeth. “You need help.”
My brother looks toward the doorway to make sure we aren’t overheard, and then he leans down, giving me a hug in order to disguise his next words. “Maybe, but other people need it more right now. A battalion was taken out early this morning. One that was on a secret recon mission.”
“What?” Horror colors my tone, and the maps on the table take on a whole new meaning.
Teddie pulls back, and the look in his eyes is solemn. “The war is going far worse than anyone thinks. And I need to help. Otherwise, you won’t be talking to Mom about medicine and which alpha group to marry. If the Noths take over, they’ll simply fucking claim you.”
A frantic sort of dread throws me off balance as the walls appear to close in around me.
I was claimed before by a group of Noth alphas. Sold and claimed.
The nightmares clamor inside my skull, and it’s a fight to silence them. To make myself the promise that no matter what happens, I’ll never be claimed by Noths again.
By the time I win the battle inside my head, my brother is gone.
I’m alone in a meeting room full of maps demarcating destruction as the windows allow cheery beams of sunlight to shine down on the blood-red battlefields.