Chapter 38 – AZAREL
AZAREL
"What the fuck do you mean, he'll kill her? She's his daughter, and the bastard's a thousand miles away."
Raven's voice cuts through the air like the blade he's gripping, his golden hair still disheveled from our earlier confrontation. The knife has gone still in his fingers, and his blue eyes lock onto mine with none of the theatrical spark that was there before.
They're all on edge now. Knight's metal arm sparks intermittently, those burning blue eyes tracking me from behind his eerily serene silver mask. Geo and Nikolai are both tense and borderline snarling, even though Nikolai is the bastard who had held Cosima captive himself.
The irony isn't lost on me. These degenerate alphas, this ragtag collection of criminals and monsters, are protecting her.
From me.
The realization scrapes against every primal alpha instinct that demands I tear through the competition. But if they're as loyal as they seem—and the fact that they kidnapped a fucking prince for her suggests they are—maybe I can use this clusterfuck.
I'm clearly not getting rid of them anytime soon.
"Arthur Maybrecht is a monster," I say finally, brushing dirt off my coat with the back of my hand.
Nikolai scoffs, adjusting his tinted red glasses. One of his eyes looks different. Maybe it's prosthetic. There's a deep, nasty scar cutting across his face that goes clear through it. The golden-haired alpha is the only one who isn't badly scarred.
I shouldn't be surprised. Cosima always did like my scars. She spent plenty of time tracing each one, asking about it and kissing it. She…
"No shit," Nikolai scoffs, jarring me out of my thoughts. Hadn't even realized I'd spaced out for a second. "Everyone in the Outer Reaches knows that."
"You don't know the half of it," I mutter, pushing off from the wall.
The movement sends a sharp reminder lancing through my ribs where Geo's fist found its mark.
Multiple times, in fact. The pain helps focus my thoughts, keeps the rage at bay.
"When my cover was blown, Arthur could have killed me.
Should have, by all rights. But he knew I'd be useful in his plans to overthrow the Council. "
"So he kept you around like a good little attack dog," Geo says, his voice dripping with contempt.
My jaw tightens hard enough to ache, but I continue. "He needed leverage. Arthur Maybrecht always has leverage. It's how he's survived this long, how he's accumulated so much power."
Geo's eye narrows, understanding darkening his features. "And when he discovered you were fucking his daughter, he had plenty of it."
The crude simplification makes my hands curl into fists, the bandages stretching taut over my knuckles. But he's not wrong. "More or less. But it wasn't enough. Not for him."
"What do you mean?" Raven demands, the blade spinning once between his fingers before going still again.
"He used Cosima," I explain. "First as a bargaining chip with Monty, marrying her off to secure political alliances. Then with me, once he realized what she meant to me."
Nikolai snarls, taking a step forward. "So why didn't you get her the fuck away from him?"
"You don't think I tried?" The words crack like a whip, my control slipping. "Every plan, every escape route, every contingency—he was always three steps ahead."
"Because the great Azarel's not the military mastermind everyone claims?" Nikolai taunts with a sneer.
"Because he's in her head," I say quietly. "Literally."
The silence that follows presses against the walls. The alphas exchange confused, suspicious glances. Even the giant mutated one that never speaks doesn't seem to know what to think, his brow furrowed behind the silver mask.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Geo demands.
I study them, these alphas who've somehow earned Cosima's trust, trying to decide how much information I'm willing to part with.
I could always kill them.
Dead men speak only to the gods.
"Surely you've noticed she's not always... herself," I say carefully.
Geo's one visible eye narrows slightly. "You mean when she goes into space?"
"Fugue states," Raven corrects from his post leaning against the wall, arms crossed like a barrier, sharp eyes dissecting me for weaknesses.
Geo gives a grunt of irritation. "Know-it-all."
"What, you're saying Maybrecht drugged her or something?" Nikolai's voice carries a dangerous edge. Like he's ready to go in person and chop him into pieces.
"The drugs are part of it," I mutter, the memories clawing their way up my throat. "Meant to control her 'episodes.' But the episodes... they're just a side effect of what he did to her."
I can still see her that day, collapsed on the study floor, silver hair fanned out like spilled moonlight, violet eyes vacant and unseeing. A broken doll, discarded and forgotten.
I'd lifted her into my arms to take her to the hospital, but Arthur had stopped me. "It happens," he'd said with cold detachment, handing me unmarked pills. "She'll be alright."
And she had been, after the medication—but not really. She'd blinked back to awareness, but there was no fire in her eyes, no smoke in her voice.
Just obedient.
Empty.
That was when I first understood something was fundamentally wrong with Cosima, though I didn't yet know the pills were treating symptoms of what Arthur had done to his own daughter.
The memory fades, leaving me back in the present with four sets of eyes boring into me. And then cold steel kisses my throat.
"Enough bullshit. What's wrong with her?" Nikolai demands, pressing the blade that had just been in Raven's hand against my neck, his voice barely above a growl. "What did you let that motherfucker do to her?"
Heat crawls beneath my skin at the accusation. As if I would have let this happen to her. But I refuse to lie down with dogs.
"Cosima has been plagued with nightmares her entire life," I say, my gaze sliding to Knight. The massive alpha's soft rumbling growl vibrates through the room, his eyes burning into mine from behind his mask. "Visions of a monster hunting her. Devouring her."
Knight's growl deepens, but I continue.
"But they weren't just nightmares. She saw things sometimes.
Thought they were visions of things to come.
Hallucinations, or so we all believed." That's where the guilt sinks its teeth in, sharper than the blade pressing into my skin.
"She'd become inconsolable, lost in terror that seemed to come from nowhere. "
Raven's voice cuts through, bitter as poison. "Right. Hallucinations." He gestures sharply at Knight. "Like him?"
My teeth grind together. "I was wrong. About a lot of things."
The words taste like bitter failure, but I force myself to continue.
"Needless to say, these episodes were an inconvenience to Arthur.
The most powerful man in Reinmich couldn't have his only daughter screaming in random fits of hysteria at parties.
So he dealt with Cosima the way he deals with everyone else who won't bend to his will. He forced her into submission."
"How?" Geo's question is barely more than a growl.
"With Cosima's mother, it was the threat of physical violence. Simple, brutal, effective. But Cosima... Cosima required other means." The words lodge in my throat like broken glass. "He had her mind altered. Surgically."
The room erupts.
"What the fuck—"
"You're saying—"
"That sick fucking—"
I seize Nikolai's wrist in an iron grip, because I can tell he's about to lose control and carve into my jugular.
We lock in a trembling standstill, muscles straining against each other as I raise my voice over their outrage.
"It was technology the Refinement Centers had been developing," I snarl.
"A way to deal with omegas who couldn't be fixed through traditional conditioning. Omegas deemed 'Irreparable.'"
"You mean a glorified lobotomy," Nikolai spits, his arm quivering in my grasp as he strains against my grip.
I don't deny it.
Can't deny it.
The truth is worse than any of them can imagine.
"You're telling me Maybrecht experimented on his own daughter?" Geo's voice drops to a dangerous snarl.
"And then some," I say under my breath.
Nikolai moves like lightning, slamming me against the wall again. "And you let it fucking happen!"
"It happened before I ever came to Reinmich!" I snarl back, the impact sending fire through my wounds, fresh blood seeping through the bandages. "She was a child when it happened, barely sixteen!"
He releases me slowly, but the fury doesn't leave his eyes.
"When Maybrecht found out about us, about who she was to me, he realized he could use the implant to do more than just suppress her episodes.
It became a fucking kill switch," I grit out.
"No matter how far I took her, wherever we were in the world, as long as Maybrecht was alive, he could drop her to her knees with the push of a button. "
"And if you kill him?" Raven challenges.
"If I kill Maybrecht, Cosima dies," I bite out bitterly. "As long as the chip is still in her. His contingencies have contingencies. He's not stupid enough to make himself the only failsafe."
Geo's the first to speak again. "So you're saying the reason you went AWOL, turned on your own country, is for her? You expect us to believe that?"
"I don't give a damn what you believe, but yes." No hesitation. No doubt. "I would burn every last inch of Surhiira to the ground, along with the rest of this accursed world, if that is what it took to keep her safe. I'd burn it to the goddamn core."
"Great," Raven mutters under his breath. "Now I'm not the hot one or the romantic one." Despite the jab, he still looks like he's ready to snatch the knife out of Nikolai's hand and finish me off himself.
Wouldn't blame him.
Geo grinds his fist into his palm, cracking his knuckles. "You're making it real fucking hard to justify killing you," he growls through his teeth. "Which is suspicious as fuck."
"You kill me, and there's no chance for Cosima," I warn him. "If I don't report back to Maybrecht in the next two days, he'll know something is wrong, and he doesn't take chances."
Nikolai steps back, wrenching his hand free from my grasp and spinning the knife on his finger. "So what do we do?" he demands. "I want fucking answers, Azzhole. There has to be a way to get that thing out of her."
"Not without killing her." The words scrape my throat raw.
This is the last thing I have time for, shooting down all the desperate theories and plans I've already burned through trying to save her.
"The implant is integrated with her neural pathways, and knowing Maybrecht, I'm sure there's a self-destruct feature.
Any attempt to remove it could prove fatal. "
"Does she know?" Raven asks quietly.
My throat closes like a vise. "No."
"You didn't tell her?" Nikolai snaps.
"I couldn't," I snap back.
"Could've fucking hinted at it," Nikolai sneers. "Could've at least—"
Geo holds up a hand to stop him. "She was way too resistant to getting checked by the medics," he says, almost as if he's talking to himself. "Maybe she's instinctively protecting herself, even if she doesn't consciously know about the implant."
"Surhiira's medical technology is far more advanced than anything in Reinmich," Raven says, hope threading through his words. "Maybe they can do something here that you couldn't."
"I'm not taking that risk," I say firmly.
"And she's not going back to Reinmich," Geo snarls. "Seems like we're at an impasse here."
The threat is clear, and despite everything, I respect him for it. Even if I also want to kill him. They're not backing down.
Not when it comes to her.
"We're already in Surhiira," Raven insists.
"Even if they can't remove the chip, we should at least have her examined.
See what's actually happening. For all we know, Maybrecht was bluffing about the whole thing.
" He pauses, then adds more quietly, "And Cosima deserves to know what was done to her. "
"It could trigger her," I argue. "Between the drugs and the implant, she's already fragile, as I'm sure you've noticed. Her mind could break irrevocably."
"'Fragile' isn't exactly the word I'd use," Geo says flatly, but he doesn't argue my point. "She's made of tough stuff. Tougher than you realize, I think. The world threw itself at her and she met it head on."
"Maybe," I concede quietly.
She is certainly different from the Cosima I used to know. It feels like a lifetime ago. The new Cosima is more like a queen, and these are her knights. One more literally than the others, apparently. Though they carry switchblades and curved metal claws, not swords.
Nikolai's voice drops to a dangerous tone. "Considering you're the one who pushed her over the edge last time with your bullshit revelations, you don't get to make the call on how we handle this."
My teeth ache with the effort of not tearing into his throat. But he's right. I know he's right. Still, the thought of Cosima learning the truth, of watching her drift away from me for the hundredth time knowing this time might be the last…
"Fine," the word grinds out between my teeth. "We'll have her examined while we're here. But I don't have much time before I need to report back to Maybrecht."
"We get Cosima checked first," Geo says with finality. "Find out what the doctors think is safe to tell her."
"Not just any doctors," Raven interjects. "We'll need specialists. The best Surhiira has to offer."
"The question is," Nikolai adds, "can we trust your prick of a brother with any of this?"
I turn my gaze to the corner, to where shadows conceal the surveillance equipment I know is there.
The palace is riddled with them, my father's paranoia made manifest in architecture.
Plague inherited that particular trait from him.
I stare directly into the hidden lens, knowing my brother is watching.
He always is.
"He already knows." My voice carries clearly through the room. "Don't you, brother?"
The silence stretches for a heartbeat, two, before Geo's growl fills the void.
"Son of a bitch, I hate this fucking place. The sooner we get out of here, the better."
"Finally," I say flatly, my lips curving into an exhausted grin, "we can agree on something."