Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Sloan
“I’m not waiting any longer,” Sloan said, raising her voice at Croft and Theo. “She’s taken enough from me. It’s time I take something, everything, from her!”
“I understand you’re upset at losing your friend,” Theo said from his seat in the amphitheater. “I would be upset as we?—”
“Upset?” Sloan zeroed in on Theo with a scowl. “I get upset when we’re out of coffee. I get upset when the weather sucks. I get upset…”
Sloan took a moment to control herself. She understood she was acting out of character, but she was done sitting back and letting the enemy dictate the way things were. She was going to do something with or without Azra’s help.
“I just buried another friend,” Sloan said as calmly as her racing heart would allow. “I’m not going to sit here and wait to bury another. I’m not asking you for your help. I’m telling you, out of respect, what I’m going to do.”
The entire time Sloan spoke, it had only been Theo who dared to answer her wrath-laced words. Croft remained quiet. She stared at Sloan as if agreeing with her words at times.
Finally, Croft broke her silence. “I can see that we’re not going to stop you. Part of me even agrees with you, although I understand the folly in that plan. I’m sorry for what happened to Harrison, but leaving to attack Leah in the battlefield is suicide.”
“I’m done playing fair.” Sloan looked at Theo and Croft in turn.
“She wants to ambush me and my squad, then we can do the same to her. I heard your gargoyles are yearning for a fight after being left out of the last one. Give me Cherub and her gargoyle unit. My squad and I can take care of the rest.”
“If I say no, you’re just going to go by yourself anyway, aren’t you?” Croft asked with a look on her face that said she already knew the answer.
“That’s right.” Sloan nodded along with Croft’s words. “This is a heads-up, not a request.”
“We only have a day before she arrives anyway.” Theo threw his hands up in the air. “Not like talking sense into you is going to help. You can’t just wait a day to take your vengeance?”
“Not another minute,” Sloan said.
A wrath she hadn’t known she was capable of had built up in her chest; an anger that was her own, but had somehow been intensified with her loss.
Harrison was one of her own. A soldier, a friend, and then bonded to her after she’d bitten him.
This was personal on a level Sloan didn’t fully understand yet.
“All right.” Croft stood, nodding toward Theo. “Cherub will be more than happy to help, I know.”
“You can’t be serious.” Theo rolled his eyes, then exhaled with exasperation. “But I know you are.”
“The city’s defenses are complete.” Croft passed Sloan on the stairs up to the exit. “Besides, I think I know what Sloan has planned.”
Sloan followed in Croft’s wake up the stairs and out through the meeting room doors. The plan she had been contriving was at the forefront of her mind. With Cherub and her gargoyles helping, they could be out and back before the sun rose.
“If anything happens to them because you made a decision in anger, it’s on you.” Croft stopped to look back at Sloan. “Anger can be a powerful tool, but channel and use it properly, or it will be your downfall.”
Sloan wasn’t interested in getting into a debate with the witch. She merely nodded toward Croft before leaving the capitol building.
“I’m fine.” Doyle looked at Sloan as he pleaded his case. “It was a concussion, that’s all. I can fight.”
“I’m sure you can.” Sloan stood at the city gates, waiting for Cherub to gather the rest of her unit.
When the gargoyle was told of the plan, she had been ecstatic and rushed off to ready her men.
“And you will fight them tomorrow when the bulk of the army gets here. Anything you say will be useless, so save us both some time.”
Doyle shook his head with a heavy breath.
“Harrison’s body was placed in a grave in Azra,” Pia chimed in. “When you’re ready, we can have the ceremony for him.”
“And we will have a ceremony for him.” Sloan refused to think on her dead friend a moment longer. Not until he was avenged. “First, we send a few hundred of the queen’s soldiers his way.”
A rushing sound filled the air, something like the wind during the beginning of a storm, as Cherub landed beside Sloan with a gust of breeze.
All around the courtyard, Cherub’s gargoyles were landing.
As requested, they wore black instead of the normal white uniforms usually sported by the city’s guards, and each held a lance twice as long as his body.
“This looks like fun. How come we weren’t invited?”
Sloan looked over to see Kade and Sasha walking down toward the main gate.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m in.” Kade looked over to Sloan. “I’m in this time. I’m healed and rested. Argue if you want, but I’m coming.”
“Slade is going to be so pissed we didn’t wake him up for this.” Sasha smiled through the dark. Torchlight reflected off her large teeth. “So, what are we doing?”
“I don’t have time to argue with anyone else.” Sloan gave Kade a look, one part pleading, one part stern.
“Good.” Kade walked up to Sloan and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Because all I want to do is listen. What’s the plan?”
“I’m only saying yes because we’re down two members in our squad.
” Sloan had mixed feelings about being kissed in front of a war meeting, but in all honesty, she found herself liking it.
“Listen up. Cherub and her gargoyles will drop us by the enemy’s supply wagons.
We’ll kill the guards there and destroy any rations or equipment they’re carrying.
In the meantime, Cherub’s gargoyle unit cause a distraction. ”
“And to be clear, by ‘distraction,’ she means swooping down and impaling as many of those vampire soldiers we can on the ends of our spears.” Cherub looked at her gargoyles with a grin so sadistic, it even made Sloan uncomfortable.
“This is what we’ve been training for. Let’s make them pay in blood. ”