Chapter Ten #3
“I’m the person in charge of this unit and our objective.
I keep my people alive.” Reyes’s voice wasn’t overly loud, but she felt every one of his words in her gut even before he stepped close enough for her to feel the warmth of his skin.
“We work together, we fight together, we follow orders and we stay alive together. What you just did was brash, and stupid, and selfish. You don’t think of anyone but yourself.
” He leaned down and brought his lips to her ear.
“I’m already cleaning up your messes, just as I thought. ”
Solana used the opportunity to swipe the dagger from his hand and shoved it into the sheath at her hip, ignoring the lingering heat of his breath against her cheek. “And you are just as useless as I thought,” she said, staring directly into his churning gray eyes.
The others parted around her as she shoved by, past the muki with its arms and legs bound and a mask of sorts over its face. If only she could use those on Reyes so that she would never have to hear his godsawful voice again.
“It tells you when they’re near, doesn’t it?” Reyes accused.
She could hear their footsteps behind her and then the sound of something heavy dragging across the ground.
Solana kept walking as if Reyes hadn’t spoken, uninterested in explaining to them something she hardly understood herself.
All she knew was that the dagger had belonged to her father, that it was somehow attuned to muki and their proximity, and that it was nobody else’s godsdamned concern.
“What other secrets is she keeping?” Suri asked, the venom in her voice clear as day. “She’ll probably get us all killed.”
Solana hastened her pace. “I don’t owe any of you anything,” she threw over her shoulder.
“That’s hardly a secret,” someone murmured. Nikolas, she assumed. She had thought that he, more than the others, was on her side, but it was clear that, at the end of the day, she was an outsider. A perceived liability.
And that her rushing away was pointless, because she was trapped.
Solana turned the corner to find the horses where they had left them, casually chewing on tufts of grass and minding their own business.
More than she could say for the five at her back.
She considered hopping on one and riding off, leaving Reyes to double up with Oskar or Nikolas.
The thought of managing a horse on her own for several hours back to the castle was not favorable.
But she wasn’t sure it was less favorable than sharing such a tight space with Reyes for several hours, either. By the time she had debated and accepted her fate, the others had caught up and began readying the horses to head back.
Solana watched with feigned disinterest as Suri removed a contraption from a bag on the side of her horse. Piece by piece, it extended into a sort of sling that had arms that hooked onto the saddle.
“How long will the elixir last?”
“Long enough to deliver it to the dungeons,” Reyes answered vaguely. Nikolas and Oskar rolled the muki onto the sling, its spindly limbs tangling before it flopped into place.
A spike of pity had Solana leaning closer. “And if the sun rises before we make it back?” she asked, peering at the muki’s slack features.
Nikolas stood and rolled his head in a circle. “Then it disappears, along with all of our hard work, and we start again the next night.”
“We keep going until the job is finished,” Reyes added.
“Until everyone is safe and secured. Another night on the streets means more deaths and more guilt this person will have to face once they’ve come back from the curse.
” He pointed at the muki with a razor-sharp finger, with such passion that Solana couldn’t help but admire it.
“I get it,” she bit back, straightening and turning to meet the judgmental eyes of her partners in turn. “It won’t happen again.”
A promise and an apology in one. They mostly seemed to accept it, although she knew it would take much more convincing for Reyes.
She would do it, but only for herself. He had called her selfish and he wasn’t wrong.
Solana was full to the brim with self-centered desires and needs and wants.
She was overflowing with dreams and goals and aspirations, none of which included spending a single moment more than necessary on Supay.
While she was there, she would do what was expected of her and nothing more. No more killing. No more running off. No more worrying. She would give Reyes exactly what he wanted.
“Solana?”
Reyes stood by their horse, a hand extended in invitation. She ignored it and threw herself up and onto the saddle. The heat of his body followed closely behind, and Solana held herself perfectly steady as he shifted into place.
“I don’t know why I expected more from you.” His words were a whispered challenge. A match thrown onto her already burning fire. “King Killian won’t be happy about losing a demon.”
“And of course, you’ll be the first to tell him,” Solana shot back. “Anything to stick your nose farther up his ass, which is exactly what I expect of you.”
His only response was a quiet rumble of laughter that wormed its way beneath Solana’s skin. She held herself ramrod straight and chanted to herself, six months, six months, six months, all the way back to the keeper of her fate.