Chapter 34 – AZAREL #2
"Yes, it's him," Cosima hisses from my shoulder as if she can read my mind. "Don't you fucking dare put me down unless you want him to turn you into soup."
I ignore her, setting her on her feet and stepping forward to meet the monster's charge. No way I'm fighting with her in the line of fire.
"Don't kill him," Cosima warns, and I'm not sure who she's talking to.
He hits like a literal freight train.
The impact drives all the air from my lungs as we crash into the fountain, marble cracking under the force. Water explodes around us, turning the garden into a sodden battlefield. His metal arm swings for my head with enough force to turn it into paste and I barely manage to roll aside.
The other alphas Cosima is traveling with rush to surround her, the big one with the eye patch actually picking her up when she tries to rush forward.
"Knight, no!" she screams, fighting against the alpha's grip.
The white-haired one—Vlakov—watches with obvious amusement. "Hey, he's hungry. I say we kill two birds with one stone and let him eat your shithead ex."
Ex?
Who the fuck is this insolent bastard to her?
I don't have time to process it. Knight's already coming for me again. I manage to duck under his swing, using his momentum against him to stagger him.
But he's not just big. He's fast, adaptable, fucking smart beneath all that rage.
A backhand from his metal claws catches me across the jaw, sending me spinning. Blood fills my mouth as I reach for my gun, survival instinct overriding everything else.
"If you shoot him, I'll never forgive you!"
Cosima's yell freezes me mid-draw.
I look at her and see genuine fear in her eyes. Not for herself. For him.
For the monster that's trying to tear me apart.
"You're worried about him?" The words come out as a snarl as I barely dodge a strike that cracks the stone where my head was a second ago.
She's with them willingly.
The realization lands like a knife between the ribs. My first instinct is to dismiss it as Stockholm syndrome, trauma bonding, whatever the fuck these degenerates did to break her down.
But no. I know Cosima. I've seen her perform compliance while plotting murder behind her eyes.
This isn't that. The way she's positioned in front of Knight rather than behind him… she's not their captive playing along.
She's their leader.
I was so certain I was rescuing her that I didn't stop to ask if she wanted to be rescued.
Knight roars again, the sound rattling the windows of the palace. He catches me around the waist, driving me into the ground with enough force to crater it. His weight pins me down, that metal arm drawing back for a killing blow.
"Knight, stop!"
Cosima's voice cuts through everything. She's broken free somehow, rushing toward us despite the one-eyed alpha trying to grab her again.
"For fuck's sake," he snarls gruffly, scooping her up before she can reach us. "I'm putting you on a fucking leash after this."
Knight hesitates, his fist hovering inches from my face. That moment of distraction is all I need to drive my knee into his ribs and roll free.
He doesn't lunge at me again. Instead, he straightens to his full height, trudges over to where the alpha with the eyepatch has set Cosima down, and she...
She runs her fingers through his hair.
Gentle, soothing, like calming a rabid dog by petting it. And he responds to it, practically melting at her touch.
What the actual fuck?
"What the hell is going on here?" I demand, spitting blood.
"Funny," Plague says, brushing debris off his robes with typical fastidiousness. "I was going to ask you the same thing."
I glare at him, still trying to process the scene before me. Cosima surrounded by alphas like some kind of deranged full-blown pack, treating a monster like a pet, looking at me like I'm her mortal enemy.
"Don't test me, brother," I snarl through my teeth.
"Azarel?"
My mother's voice breaks through everything else. She steps forward, tears already brimming in her eyes as she whispers, "My son. Where have you been?"
The weight of three years crashes down on me. Three years of lies, of absence, of letting her grieve a son who wasn't dead but might as well have been. The guilt threatens to choke me, and the pain as I clench my fist around the bandages does nothing to lessen it this time.
Cosima watches with uncharacteristically cold eyes, her arms folded across her chest like armor. "Your mother asks a valid question, your highness."
The accusation in her voice cuts deeper than Knight's claws ever could. My mother doesn't wait for an answer. She rushes forward, throwing her arms around me. The familiar scent of her perfume, unchanged after all these years, makes my throat tight.
"My boy," she whispers.
I hold her back, feeling the walls closing in. This is the worst-case scenario. The two worlds I've spent years keeping separate have finally collided, and there's no walking away from the wreckage.
I need to get Cosima out of here. Need to explain, to make her understand why I did what I did. But my mother's arms around me are chains I can't break, not without shattering her completely.
And Cosima stands there watching, surrounded by alphas, looking at me like she doesn't know me at all.