Chapter 34
“Who the fuck is she?” Bridger asked as they watched Octavia and her fox’s hips sway in sync.
Vega carried the bow and arrows Octavia had strapped to her back. They looked well-loved, and so did her dark leather clothing. She reminded Vega of Robin Hood, if Robin Hood were a girl and Little John were a ten-pound fox.
“I don’t know, but the leader of Demuto?
She’s obviously Solum-born. What do you know about Demuto?
” Vega braided a few pieces of her hair as they walked, doing what she could to make it seem like she’d actually showered and hadn’t spent the last half-hour letting Bridger eat her out on a kitchen table.
“That it’s basically No Man’s Land. Shifters can go in, but they can’t come out… and anyone else stupid enough to enter is usually never seen again.” Bridger raised a brow. “Except for you.”
She’d spent an entire night alone in Demuto after she stabbed Bridger through the heart, traveling for hours to get to the Vates border where she knew Khort would be waiting. Vega shivered at the memory of the cruravis hunting her through the early morning until it got bored.
Bridger made Octavia lead the way, giving her instructions only when necessary.
“I can’t believe it’s true you’re back with the rebels.” Octavia kept talking, even though Bridger had made it clear he wasn’t answering any of her questions.
Anytime she talked, Bridger would poke her in the back with his sword—which earned a stern look from Vega and an internal scolding.
“What part of ‘walk silently’ do you not understand?” Bridger asked her, his aggravation hard to miss.
Vega elbowed Bridger in the side, hardly fazing him.
“How long have you been in Demuto?” Vega decided to try to get any piece of information out of her before they got back to the caves.
“We don’t even know if anything she says is true,” Bridger pointed out.
“Oh, so you’re the one deciding who to trust now?” Vega snapped, slamming her door closed. She wasn’t going to deal with him right now—not when someone was potentially willing to talk about what was going on in Demuto.
They’d lost contact with them too long ago to fuck this up.
“No offense, but I’m not ready to spill all my secrets yet. I’ll explain when we get to Khort.” Tilie climbed up a tree ahead, scampering down the limb to land gracefully on Octavia’s shoulder. Her beady black eyes glowered whenever they caught Bridger’s.
Vega could relate.
As if Arlet had been waiting for their return, she came sprinting out of the cave’s mouth when they approached nearly ten minutes later. “Hi. Khort found out about your Vincere announcement. Incoming in three, two…” Arlet never made it to one.
“Since when are you the one to have the final say in what goes on around here?” Khort stormed out of the cave, headed straight for Vega.
“Watch yourself, Fera.” Bridger’s voice boomed like thunder as he blocked Khort’s path to Vega.
His eyes turned to slits when they landed on Bridger. “I bet it was you, huh? Getting inside Vega’s head, telling her everything she’s wanted to hear for the last forty years.”
Arlet and Vega shared a look that didn’t need words. Oh boy.
Bridger chuckled as Khort crowded his personal space. “Ah yes, my evil plan is working. Fuck Vega one last time just to see how she tas—”
Khort swung, but his fist never made contact with Bridger’s nose like he intended. Bridger shielded himself, and Khort’s fist slammed into the impenetrable force field.
Vega heard a couple bones crack, but Khort didn’t seem to notice.
Bridger continued, apparently hell-bent on finishing his thought. “Tastes. To see how she tastes before screwing you all over.”
Vega flung the door open between their minds.
“Is that all it took to get you to let me back in? Too easy, Kitten,” Bridger purred, sending an inappropriately timed shiver down her spine.
Khort huffed a breath of steam. “You fucking—”
“Stop.” Vega growled the word, her anger scattering down the bond to the others. “Enough of this shit.” She slipped her way in between the two angry gods.
Vega’s hands pressed into both Bridger and Khort’s chests, shoving them away from each other with an encouraging zap from her lightning—not enough to hurt, just enough to warn them. “How do we expect people, our people, to fight for us when we act like this in front of them?”
Khort’s eyes returned to normal, no longer seconds from shifting, but his chest rose and fell heavily as he swallowed down his anger.
Bridger breathed like nothing had even happened. Slow, controlled. It was what made him a great warrior—he was calm under pressure.
Khort wasn’t built for control.
“We cannot trust him, Vega,” Khort said through clenched teeth.
Arlet sighed, coming up to grab Khort by the wrist and tug him back. She must have seen the same glimmer of excitement in Bridger’s eyes Vega saw.
They didn’t need to fight, and Bridger was always ready for one.
“Listen to yourself.” Vega let her hand fall off Bridger’s chest. “Look who’s watching.
” She nodded to the gathering crowd growing, more bodies emerging from the cave.
“Innocent people are suffering. His soldiers have chosen to fight for what’s right.
” Vega locked eyes with Bridger at the same moment a sliver of something sweet slipped down their bond. Vega turned back to Khort. “Beside us.”
“And how do you know he’s not playing you? That this isn’t exactly what his plan has been from the start?” Khort eyed Vega. “To get you to feed him information, just like he told Marlena he was going to. What if this is a trap?”
Of course Vega had wondered about all of those things too. She’d be stupid not to. But one thing she did see that Khort couldn’t was the hurt inside Bridger—the emptiness he felt by being away from the very duty he was born for.
Bridger wouldn’t sit around in limbo for much longer. Vega could feel his patience wearing thin, no matter how well he was hiding it.
“This has nothing to do with my and Bridger’s relationship.
Past, present, or future. Don’t you see that?
I’m not making decisions based on whether a man loves me or not.
I’m making decisions, hard decisions, to forgive, to move forward, to do what’s best for our world.
” Vega wished he could see that. “You don’t have to forget everything he’s done to agree that having him here, with us, is our best chance of saving as many lives as we can.
Khort, he’s built the strongest, most lethal army this world has ever seen.
These people…” Vega motioned to the men and women still in their nice training suits.
“They trust him. They might not be here because they want the same things as us—she pointed to herself, Arlet, and Khort—“but they trust Bridger. They trust their commander to make those decisions for them.”
She could sense a wave of calmness wash over Khort as he inhaled and exhaled large, shaky breaths. “Going to Vincere means being outnumbered if this goes badly.”
If this goes badly… meaning if Bridger does backstab us.
“I’d like to point out that while yes, you would be outnumbered, you’d also have a place for your people to live as humans, not animals.”
Tilie gabbled, and Bridger, to Vega’s surprise, responded to her.
“No offense… to the animals.” Bridger had never been a wildlife kind of guy.
He barely liked riding horses when forced.
“Successful wars are won when you’re prepared.
When your people are rested and fed, not hiding and waiting for the next fucked-up thing to happen.
” He shrugged, unbothered by his brashness.
“Our odds of losing are still high if we don’t level up this blended army, even with Vega’s new ability. ”
The shield around the pit rattled with a muffled roar, like Death heard Bridger talking about it. Its screeching was unlike anything she’d ever heard, making her vision shake.
Death sliced its razor claws into the fabric of her shield, tearing a shred into ribbons. It went back for another slash, but Vega acted quickly.
She shot a zap of lightning through her mind. A bolt collided with Death’s shadow, losing its dragon shape as it skittered back, diving for the safety of the dark pit.
Death. Us.
Was Vega really Death? Or was she just filled with it?
It felt like a separate entity and a new piece of her soul at the same time. It wasn’t wholly Vega, and yet she couldn’t hide anything from it.
“We were doing fine until you and your army destroyed Castra.” Khort’s eyes turned to slits again.
This could get ugly very fast.
Bridger shook his head. “That wasn’t my army. That was Marlena. All by herself. She killed those people, and she will continue to kill people until she’s stopped. She knows she can’t kill us.”
Arlet shushed him, but Bridger rolled his eyes. “Has keeping secrets gotten us anywhere? Tolevarre already knows. The army knows. What are you trying to accomplish by hiding the truth from the rebellion? They’re going to find out one way or another we’re gods. They might as well hear it from us.”
Murmurs of surprise and disbelief washed over the gathered crowd.
“Gods?” a voice gasped.
“How long have they known?” another echoed from behind.
“How are any of you surprised?”
“Is it true?”
The questions got louder and more aggravated the longer they went unanswered.
Vega turned to them, her face serious as she streamlined all the questions together. “Yes, gods. We survived a successful summoning too. We confirmed it’s true in my last life. This changes nothing for our cause.” Her rapid-fire answers calmed the crowd… for now.
“She can’t kill us, but she will kill our people.
Do not forget who we’re dealing with here.
” Bridger spoke directly to Arlet—as if she could ever forget.
Bridger returned his attention to Khort.
“I don’t care if you don’t trust me, and I certainly don’t care if you like me or not, Khort.
I never will, but I do care about winning this war. ”