Chapter 28 – NIKOLAI
NIKOLAI
The roar that tears through the desert air freezes us all mid-fight. It's not just loud. It's fucking primal, the kind of sound that makes your hindbrain scream at you to run, hide, or die.
Knight. Has to be. Nothing else on this godforsaken earth could make that sound.
Whiskey's arm is still locked around my throat, his bicep pressing against my windpipe. He's trying to pop my head off like a fucking champagne cork. But even he pauses, his grip loosening just enough for me to suck in a partial breath.
Then I see Raven take off running toward the sound like his ass is on fire.
"Are you seriously abandoning me in the middle of a fucking fight?" I roar after him, my voice rough from Whiskey's chokehold.
But that's what Raven does, isn't it? He runs. Always has. Left me years ago without a backward glance, and now he's doing it again. Some patterns never fucking change.
I drive my elbow back into Whiskey's gut with everything I've got. He lets out a wheeze and his grip loosens just enough for me to wrench free and leap up onto the cliff face, my boots finding purchase on the rocky outcropping.
"Hey, I wasn't finished kicking your ass!" Whiskey bellows from below, still catching his breath from having it driven out of his lungs.
"In your dreams, government mutt!" I snarl back, already hauling myself up past a startled Plague who looks like he can't decide whether to grab me or get out of my way.
Smart man chooses the latter.
My muscles burn as I scale the cliff, but I've climbed worse in worse condition. The wasteland doesn't coddle weakness, and neither do I. By the time I reach the top, my hands are scraped raw and my shoulder's screaming from where one of Whiskey's punches connected earlier, but I barely notice.
Because there's Raven, frozen like a statue about twenty yards ahead.
I follow his line of sight and slump with relief. Cosima's there, conscious and on her feet. Not fully there—I can see it in the way she sways slightly, the unfocused glaze in those violet eyes—but alive. Standing.
That's when I notice what's wrong with this picture.
Geo's got his gun at his side, looking around like he's scanning the trees for something.
It takes me a second to realize why he's not aiming at Thane.
The Ghost looks like he's been on the wrong end of a beating.
No weapon that I can see. Raven's aim keeps shifting between Thane and whatever Geo's looking for hidden in the trees and cliffs, and considering everyone else is present and accounted for, that means…
Valek.
The psychotic bastard is well hidden, would've missed him if I wasn't looking for threats. White clothes blend with the pale bark of the dead palms and stone, that rifle of his catching just enough sunlight to give away his position.
"Put the gun down," I snarl, raising my weapon to aim at Valek's position. "We've got you surrounded."
Valek's laugh echoes off the rocks, that manic jackal sound that makes my skin crawl.
"Oh, Nikolai. Still playing the hero? How unlike you.
" His voice carries that singsong quality that means someone's about to die.
Usually messily. "I've been watching long enough to know our one-eyed friend's gun is empty.
And while pretty boy there could probably shoot Thane about as fast as I could shoot any of you.
.." He pauses, letting the threat hang. "You're not quite fast enough, are you? "
I grind my teeth hard enough to crack. Hate that he's right. Raven's always been the faster draw between us. So is Valek, the slippery fuck. My specialty is brute force and tactical planning, not quick-draw contests.
Behind me, I hear Plague and Whiskey scrambling up the cliff. Once they catch up, we'll be outnumbered three to five, and Valek will call my bluff faster than I can blink.
"Let the omega walk away," I say, keeping my voice steady despite the rage boiling beneath the surface, "and we can settle this like men."
Another of those skin-crawling laughs. "There's only one omega I'm willing to fuck myself over for," Valek says. "And she's safe at home."
"Hopefully," Thane mutters under his breath, and even from here I can see the way Valek's eyes narrow at that single word.
I catch Raven's gaze, and an understanding passes between us.
Years of fighting side by side, of knowing each other's moves before we make them.
He's going to take the shot at Valek, switching his aim from Thane to where I've got the psycho pinpointed.
We don't have any other options. Not good ones, anyway.
Not unless Knight hurries the fuck up. Is he still fighting Wraith? I hate that I'm almost worried about him.
Shit, I'm getting soft.
Raven's eyes flick toward Valek's position, the movement so subtle anyone else would miss it. But I know him. Know how he thinks, how he moves, how he—
"Enough! Everyone stand down. That includes you, Valek.
Plague's voice cuts through the air like a blade, commanding and absolute. The prince may be disheveled, with blood on his face and a dislocated shoulder, but he still carries himself like royalty.
Valek's head snaps toward him, disbelief written across his sharp features. "You can't be serious."
But Plague is already moving forward, Whiskey right behind him. They both look rough, but there's something in Plague's expression that makes my trigger finger itch.
"What the hell are you doing?" Thane demands, standing firm despite the blood still trickling from his head wound. "We got to you too soon for Stockholm syndrome to set in."
"Yeah," Whiskey grunts, wiping blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "These fuckers have committed at least twenty hangable offenses in the last hour."
"Hanging offenses," Plague corrects automatically, because apparently even in the middle of a standoff, he can't help being a pedantic prick. "Hangable implies the offenses themselves can be hanged."
Whiskey blinks at him. "I thought it was hung."
"It's not hung."
Whiskey grins, all teeth despite the blood. "That's not what you said last night."
Plague's eye roll is so pronounced I can see it from here.
Thane clears his throat, the sound sharp in the tense air. "Yeah, as much as I enjoy these little debates day in and day out forever, you mind cutting to the chase and telling me why I shouldn't have Valek drop these psychos?"
"Try it," Raven hisses through his teeth, and I can see his finger tightening on the trigger.
"Don't!"
Cosima's shout jars us all. She's looking at Plague now, those violet eyes glowing with something between defiance and desperation. Still not all there—I can see it in the way she blinks too slowly, the slight tremor in her hands—but fighting to surface.
"I'm the one who drugged you," she says, voice stronger than I expected given her state. "They just got caught up in it."
"Bullshit," I snarl before I can stop myself. No fucking way am I letting her take the fall for this insanity.
Geo scoffs, his scarred face twisting into a sneer at Plague. "Girl's not right in the head, like you said yourself, your majesty." The title drips with enough venom to kill a horse.
"He's right," Raven says, not taking his eyes off his target. "Let her walk away, and we'll surrender."
Cosima glares at them, but I can see what they're doing. Geo and Raven trying to protect her. And for once, we're all on the same page.
Thane hesitates, his dark eyes moving between us and Plague. "You're the one who got kidnapped. Your call," he says to Plague.
The silence stretches like a taut wire. Plague studies us, those cold blue eyes taking in every detail. I can practically see the gears turning in that calculating brain of his.
"You can't seriously be considering letting them off the hook for this," Valek says, and there's an edge to his voice now. Dangerous. The kind that usually precedes someone getting their throat opened like an envelope.
"Not at all," Plague says slowly, and something in his tone makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "But I've been struggling for months to find anyone both skilled and suicidal enough to replace us."
What the fuck?
"And I have to admit," he continues, a smirk playing at his bloodied lips, "as idiotic and pointless as this little endeavor was, it does prove a level of skill that none of the other candidates have demonstrated so far."
"What the hell are you saying?" Whiskey asks, voicing what we're all thinking.
Plague's smirk widens into something that could generously be called a smile if you squinted and had a head injury.
"Gentlemen," he says to his packmates, spreading his arms like he's presenting a fucking gift, "I believe we just found the new Ghost Alpha Unit."