Chapter 29
brYLEE
The wind streaks through the air and transforms everyone's hair into flapping ribbons. Overhead, the moon glows a soft dove gray. Dawn hasn't fully broken yet as I stand outside a side exit to the palace with Alpha Team X, as pale and lifeless as a ghost.
I've cried and held tight to each of them.
Begged them to run away with me.
But their sense of duty far outweighs my own.
They still believe in this country. In Hypso.
In these stupid fucking orders.
They have faith in a way I don't know if I ever can again, and a bitter taste invades the back of my mouth every time I think of my mother.
I haven't had the heart to tell them about my confrontation with her.
What if it distracts them from the fight?
What if it fractures them the way it has me?
Kylian appears in front of me, his dark eyes gleaming intensely as he reaches up a massive, calloused hand and cups my cheek. My body reacts to his touch and his scent instantly, and I lean into his caress.
"Don't go do anything I wouldn't do," he says.
While part of me wants to clutch at his hand and dissolve into tears, I shove aside that urge as I nuzzle my cheek against his warm palm. Somewhere in my deepest depths, I manage to drum up enough strength to keep the moment with him light and airy.
"You mean like sneaking onto all-omega campuses and digging through underwear drawers? Or like gorily mutilating enemies on the battlefield?"
His eyebrows drop. "How about don't do anything I would do."
I grin wider, but the expression is laced with an ache that digs deep. His free hand comes to my hip, and he steps closer, tilting my head back and giving me the softest kiss imaginable. The gentlest, most reverent brush of his lips.
It's not the sort of kiss that I would have expected from him, but there's a raw vulnerability to Kylian's gentleness. As if the softness buried beneath the wild, brittle layers of crazy is only for me.
Mine.
My beautiful, perfect scent match.
My mother is trying to rob me of him, to steal him and the future I want away.
I reach up and wrap both of my arms around Kylan’s neck and then yank him down into me so that our kiss grows angry and feral.
He gave me his tenderness, but I steal his crazy. His unhinged wildness. With every tiny inhale between biting kisses, I fill my soul with the maniacal bits of his, the parts I'll need to survive.
We're both panting when I finally release him.
I hardly get the opportunity to stare into his eyes before Ridge plants himself in front of me and picks me up. The angel-faced alpha wraps both of my legs around his waist. In contrast to Kylian, he dives right into our kiss, dominating my mouth with his as his hands squeeze my hips.
He's forceful and controlled, changing our tempo at his whim, showing me exactly who's boss in a way that leaves me dazed and turns my limbs to putty.
Ridge doesn't even set me down. He simply pulls his head back and pivots, handing me to Luka. Without a word, the leader of Alpha Team X gestures to Kylian, and the two of them pick up massive duffel bags and head off toward the barn that is the palace's parking garage.
"I—”
"He's not good with goodbyes," Luka says, redirecting my attention to him.
I reach up and cup the light scruff on his face and drink in his warm, coffee-colored gaze.
"Me either. I don't want to say goodbye," I whisper.
Luka leans closer until the tip of his nose brushes the tip of mine. "We'll be back sooner than you think."
Next to him, Colter adds, "We're pretty good at killing. Might not even take a week."
"That's not—"
Luka silences my protest with a gentle but insistent kiss.
His lips roam over mine until my lips part and his tongue darts in.
I don't know if it's his scent or his precision, but he's a magician who somehow erases every worried exclamation stacked up in the back of my head.
They just explode in a puff of smoke as his kiss overtakes everything.
When he pulls back, he stares at me with a firmness I'm not expecting. "Be careful. And stay in the castle. Stick with guards at all times. Keep my true love safe for me, all right?"
My throat clogs up so suddenly and fully that all I can manage is a tiny nod. The tears spill out as Luka hands me to Colter, who switches me into a bridal carry when tears completely blur my vision and mat my eyelashes together.
I cling to the huge man's shirt desperately, so tightly that my knuckles start to ache. My nose is buried against his heart as teardrops turn into shaking sobs that I fight against. Fight against and fail.
Colter holds me gently and patiently as I ugly cry in his arms. And of course he has a tissue ready when I'm done. Of course. Because he's too perfect.
"I've soaked your shirt," is the first broken phrase I manage to choke out.
"It's all right," he tells me.
When I look up at him, my entire body trembles from the aftershocks of crying. From frenzied despair.
"I need you to come home," I croak up at him.
He nods, and his eyes are glossy beneath his skull mask. "And that's exactly why we will. Because you need us."
And my scariest, sweetest alpha bends down and plants a solitary, chaste kiss on my cheek before he sets me back on my feet.
He turns and starts to follow all the other men toward the barn, but I call after him, chest tight.
"That's it?"
When he spins back around, his words are an arrow to my heart. "I won't kiss you goodbye. But when we get back, be ready…"
And then the last member of Alpha Team X disappears under the shadows of the trees.
My heart disappears with him.
Frantically, I pace my room, my fingers interlaced behind the back of my head as I worry my lower lip with my teeth. I check the clock on the wall again.
"She should be here already," I mutter under my breath.
A knock sounds at the door, and I nearly trip over my own feet as I race to open it. The entrance to my castle prison swings open, and there stands Harper, in a black sheath dress looking ready for a runway.
"The security in this place is madness!" she exclaims. "I had to go through three different pat-downs.
" A naughty little smirk crosses her face.
"The last one might not have been completely necessary, but there was this one very delicious-looking alpha with pecs that practically ripped the seams of his shirt apart. "
"So that's why you were late," I state flatly, amusement counterbalancing some of my misery.
"Couldn't resist." She yanks her phone out of a tiny clutch purse and unlocks it. "Look. I even took a photo of him when he was swiping his hands up my legs."
My jaw drops. "Harper!"
Her face goes tomato red, but she's laughing, and her hand flies to her cheek. "I know! I went a little bit crazy for a second."
I grab the phone from her and see the blurry photo she has of the top of a guy's curly, black hair. "Well, at least you got a good angle."
A snort erupts from her that sends us both tittering until my ribs hurt. But it's a good ache, a wonderful ache, so much better than the hungry worry that's been eating me up all day.
"Need a drink?" I ask.
"Yes, please," she responds, and I lead her through the maze of halls to the kitchen in my wing.
There was a cook in there earlier, but I told her I didn't want any servants in my wing for a few days as I adjusted to the space.
She cleared out as soon as the chocolate chip cookies she'd been making me were finished. I hope she acquiesces to my request, but we'll see. I really do need a few days alone.
Especially for the plan I've been hatching…
"White or red?" I ask Harper as I slide the plate of cookies across the countertop to her.
"Ohh, white!" she responds.
I open the fridge and pour us both glasses as she takes a seat at one of the barstools at the counter. Taking a big gulp as I join her, I weigh my words. What I'm about to ask isn't just a silly omega favor any longer.
Maybe I shouldn't even ask it.
Perhaps I need to do this all on my own.
Probably.
It's a wild, unhinged plan that directly contradicts the queen.
My finger traces the rim of my wineglass as I teeter between options.
"Brylee, don't clam up on me all of a sudden." Harper kicks out at my leg with the toe of her shoe, gently tapping me. "I know something's going on."
I nod and clear my throat before I say, "Of course. But maybe I shouldn't…"
She huffs out an angry sigh and speaks over me. "Excuse me, but I'm offended that you would even contemplate not telling me. Spill those guts, girl, or we are gonna duke it out like in our kickboxing class."
I roll my eyes. "I should never have taken you there."
"Too bad, so sad. Now I'm completely dangerous, and you'd better watch out."
"You know, that's exactly what completely dangerous people say," I retort, swallowing a laugh.
She points a manicured nail at me. "Shut your yap, or I'll go get my hot new security guard and we'll put you in your place, Princess. Now tell me why I came down here."
I take another drink to brace myself, but it does absolutely nothing because the second I speak, the trauma leaks through my vocal cords. "She sent them to the frontlines. They left this morning."
Her gasp is as stark as a spotlight on a dark stage.
In under a second, she's out of her chair and her arms are around me. My eyelids start to sting, but I've cried so much—last night, today, and there's nothing left. Just the ache that infuses every single one of my pores like a cheap perfume, the kind that smells vaguely of alcohol and rot.
With a shaky exhale, I manage to mumble, "I need to go to them."
Harper's arms fly away from my shoulders as she leans into my face, completely and utterly gobsmacked. "You want to go to the frontlines?"
"I have to. I have to be with them."
She starts to shake her head. "Brylee—"
I set down my wineglass and clutch at her hands. "It's not just emotional. My mother is actively trying to get them killed. She wants to get rid of my scent matches so she can choose my husbands."
Harper's lips press together, and her eyes become glossy.
She swallows hard before she shakes her head and says, "I don't want to believe it. But I do. So…what's our plan?"
My hands instantly clamp down on her fingers, though my heart leaps. "Are you sure?"
"Sure as a kick in the dick."
I laugh brokenly. "That is not a saying."
"It is. I'm making it one."
I stare up at my roommate, an omega who's somehow managed to prove her loyalty to my fractured, frazzled mind, and a swell of gratitude rises so thick and intense that I can't breathe for a second.
But once I've gotten control of myself, she seems to sense it. Harper releases my hands and resumes her seat.
She picks up her wineglass and nudges mine toward me. "So, what are we doing?"
I blow out a breath. "Well, the first thing I'm going to need is to figure out a way to get to the front."
She scoffs. "Easy peasy. The guards downstairs say they're calling up alphas at Eros early. Some big attack, or big push. You just trot over there as Teddie and tell them what's what."
My tongue traces over my top lip. "Well, about that. I don't have my bodysuit anymore."
She tilts her head. "Okay. How long is ordering a new one going to be?"
I shake my head. "Too long. I already looked. But…there are some rejects at Teddie's old apartment."
"Okayyyyy…" She waits for me to explain.
"My mother won't let Ted or me leave the palace right now, so I can't go get them. I was thinking maybe you could get a bodysuit and bring it to me."
"Okay, but then you're still stuck in here." Harper gestures around the room.
"Well, yeah, about that…" I lean closer and whisper my plan in her ear.
When I pull back, Harper's eyebrows are nearly to her hairline.
But then she takes a bracing drink, clinks her wineglass to mine, and says, "We're crazy, you know that? But I think we might be just the right amount of crazy to pull this off."