Chapter 19
NINETEEN
DEVLIN
T he leader of this camp was a human named Stefan. He appeared to be about my age, with light-brown hair, broad shoulders, and a bearded face.
He was also desperately in love with my mate.
I could tell that within seconds of meeting him.
The fucker ignored me completely, took one of Z’s hands, and pressed his lips to the back of it with a whispered, “Liberator.”
Z, for her part, looked immensely uncomfortable as she removed her hand from his.
“Nice to meet you…?” She trailed off pointedly, one of her eyebrows arched.
His eyes gleamed, evidently pleased that she wanted to know his name. “Stefan.”
“Nice to meet you, Stefan.”
He practically swooned, as if she’d invited him to an orgy instead of merely saying his name.
I fucking hated him.
My bitterness only amplified as Stefan led us to a tent near the middle of the camp and chose to walk directly beside Z. They were so close that every step had their shoulders brushing.
Jealousy unfurled deep in my gut like a noxious weed, growing until it consumed me from the inside out.
“Quit glaring,” Ryland murmured, his voice coming from directly beside me.
I hadn’t even realized the bastard had arrived and was beside me.
“You can’t tell me you don’t see it,” I hissed back.
Killian, who stood on my other side pushing Dair in his wheelchair, frowned. “Are you talking about the fact that Stefan is in love with our mate?” His nose wrinkled. “I can practically taste his hormones.”
As if on cue, Stefan casually brushed his hand down her arm.
All of our eyes homed in on that minuscule touch.
“Don’t be so obvious,” Ryland said, moving so he was hovering directly in front of me, the shadows consuming him completely.
“Why’s that?” Though Lupe directed his question at Ryland, his glare remained fixed on the dumb human.
“Because we’ll be the first suspects when his body is discovered.” Ryland said those words calmly. Too calmly.
Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Ryland could be a scary motherfucker when he wanted to be.
“We can’t just kill him,” Dair said—always the peacekeeper. Then, from up ahead, Z laughed at something Stefan said, and the mermaid prince frowned. “On second thought, go ahead.”
“We need to get used to this type of thing,” Killian insisted. “Z is…Z. It’s impossible for people not to love her.”
“I think I liked it better when she scared people away,” I muttered.
Agreements chorused around me.
We finally reached the camp’s headquarters, and I was moderately surprised to see it looked almost exactly like the tent at the last camp. The only difference was the color of the table—this one was a dark shade of mahogany.
Stefan, the annoying fuck, pulled out a seat for Z at the head of the table, and she took it with a tentative smile. He then proceeded to push her in. And was I mistaken, or did his hands linger on her shoulders before he claimed his own seat?
In the shadows surrounding Ryland, a blade gleamed like moonlight, the tip aimed in Stefan’s direction. Lupe saw it at the same time I did, rushed towards the shadow, casually grabbed the other man’s arm, and forced his hand back down.
“No stabbing,” Lupe growled.
“A little stabbing,” Ryland countered quietly.
“No. Fucking. Stabbing.”
“We should get this meeting started,” Z said, and cleared her throat to garner our attention.
Lupe cast Ryland one last pointed look before claiming the seat opposite Z. Since Stefan already sat to the right of her, I chose the seat to the left, settling myself in and turning my attention to the map.
“Stefan, how far away is Aaliyah’s army, according to your spies?” Z asked.
Stefan straightened nearly imperceptibly, the fawning man from before replaced by a stone-cold warrior.
“At the rate they’re traveling, they’ll reach the capital in just under a day,” he answered.
As he spoke, the flap to the tent pulled back, and five nightmares stepped inside. Two were mages, one was a vampire, one was a shifter, and one was a genie. They all claimed the empty seats around the table.
Stefan turned to them briefly. “Z, allow me to introduce you to my lieutenants. The mages are Bri and Zander.” He pointed to a tiny, waif-like redhead and then a muscular, bald man beside her. “The vampire is Kelsey.” This was directed at a middle-aged blonde with a very, very pregnant belly. “The shifter Jolene. She’s also one of our best healers.”
The older woman blushed and ducked her head.
“And the genie is Matthias.”
The final man was the oldest of the group by far, appearing to be in his late sixties or early seventies. His hair was already completely gray, and prominent wrinkles framed the skin around his violet eyes.
Z leveled a shrewd gaze around the table, studying each of the newcomers intently. I wondered if she was thinking about our conversation in the van.
After a long moment, Z nodded stiffly and said, “Thank you all for joining us.”
The mage introduced us as Bri offered a hesitant smile.
“Thank you for giving the humans a fighting chance.” At Z’s look of disbelief, Bri blushed and ducked her head, her red hair streaming forward to obscure her face from view. “I married a human woman. In secret, of course.”
“Is she here?” Z asked hesitantly, and Bri looked up, her smile widening, turning more genuine.
“She is! But she’s with the kids right now.” Bri gestured towards where the playground was. “She works at the school here.”
“Now, before you ask, let me make it clear that all of us have a reason for being here.” Matthias’s voice sounded gruff. Raspy, almost. “We all have a human…or multiple humans…that we care about. We don’t want to see them killed, hurt, or enslaved.”
“The way the humans are treated is disgusting,” Zander added.
Despite being the largest of the group, he spoke softly, contemplatively.
Z once again glanced over the faces present, gauging their sincerity, before she nodded once. “All right.”
She steepled her hands together and leaned forward slightly. Stefan’s eyes immediately dipped to the cleavage revealed…before immediately snapping upright when Lupe began to growl.
Z, oblivious, continued. “So what do we know about these creatures? Does anyone have any idea of what they are?”
Kelsey, the pregnant vampire, shook her head. “I’ve pored over all of the texts we have and can’t find a single match.”
“If it’s like any of the other monsters we fought, it might not be in any book,” Lupe pointed out. “Most of them have been extinct for centuries.”
Kelsey stood and moved towards a bookshelf near the back wall of the tent. It took her only a second to find the book she was looking for.
“This is a bestiary written over two hundred years ago.” She carefully lowered the heavy tome onto the table. “There are hundreds, if not thousands, of creatures in this book—most of which I’ve never heard of. I started going through the book but have yet to find a match.”
Lupe’s eyes gleamed with hunger. If I didn’t know that Z was his entire world, I would think he was seconds away from leaping over the table and confessing his undying love to the book on the table.
“May I see it?” Lupe asked.
Kelsey handed it to him. “Be careful,” she warned.
Lupe began to scroll through the book with painstaking gentleness, his fingers ghosting over the brittle yellow pages.
Kelsey returned to her seat with an audible huff, one of her hands coming to rest on her protruding belly.
“You need to take it easy,” Bri chastised gently. “Brett will kill us if you overexert yourself.”
“Brett can suck a dick,” Kelsey murmured, though her tone held a note of fondness.
Z cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably. “How far along are you?”
“Seven months,” Kelsey answered with a heavy sigh. “But it feels like forever. So many goddamn tests and appointments.”
“Jolene is a trained doctor, both for humans and nightmares,” Stefan explained to Z, his hand flexing on the table as if he wished to reach for her. “She’s been helping Kelsey through the process.”
“I’m doing what I can,” Jolene confessed. “But…”
She nibbled on her lower lip anxiously.
“But?” Z prompted.
“No one knows what the fuck is going to pop out,” Kelsey said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, furrowing my brows.
“There aren’t a lot of cases of a nightmare and a human having a baby,” Zander said. “Hell, I don’t know of any, now that I think about it.”
“Me neither.” Jolene shook her head solemnly. “And I’ve been in the medical field for forty years now.”
“I wonder if we’re just not aware of their existence because they’re forced to remain hidden.” Stefan tapped his chin in contemplation. “Or maybe this is evolution in the making. Maybe the world knows that things need to change.”
“Well, at least I’m not alone in my misery.” Kelsey rested both her hands on her stomach and leaned back, kicking out her feet. She locked eyes with Z and smiled. “I apologize if I’m putting my nose where it doesn’t belong, Liberator, but how far along are you?”
What. The. Hell?