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He didn’t answer.

Then again, he didn’t really need to.

CHAPTER19

THE PLAN

Nick dropped stifflyonto the empty wooden chair next to Wynter.

He only gritted his teeth a little as he did.

It didn’t occur to him that he was wrapped in nothing but a sheet until he’d settled his weight, and felt the hard wood of the monk’s chair with only a few millimeters of metallic fabric under his bare ass. He glanced down at himself, and over all his wounds, after he’d gotten over the initial pain of sitting. Everything looked okay, despite the sharp ache in his side, and a duller one along his leg and arm.

The organic sealant and patches appeared to be holding.

He looked at Wynter only after he’d assured himself he hadn’t managed to rip open any of the wounds they’d spent all that time fixing.

“You should have stayed in there until the blood-bag was empty,” Wynter said, quiet, but with a touch of annoyance in her voice. “Why didn’t you?”

“Itwasempty.”

“It wasn’t when I last checked.”

“Well, it was when I woke up.”

She didn’t answer.

Nick could guess why. She was worried and exhausted and likely had been for days. She wanted a reason to be mad at him, one that didn’t make her feel horribly guilty for yelling at an injured person, and he’d just taken that away from her.

“Are we going after Jordan?” Nick asked, hoping to distract her.

“Youaren’t,” she retorted.

From Nick’s other side, Kit snorted a low laugh.

Nick glanced at her, and Kit smiled, patting his arm.

Nick smiled back, but the bulk of his attention remained on Wynter.

He wanted to ask her, with his best sarcasm voice, why she and everyone else in the room had decided to join the White Death, and whether she knew she’d been recruited into an anti-human army already. He wanted to follow that up by asking if she’d decided yet, whether she’d collect teeth for her kill-count, the way a lot of vamps did in the last war, or if she’d simply carve lines in her armor, like many of the hybrids and seers had.

He couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, though.

There’d be time enough for those discussions later. Right now, he couldn’t help but agree with them on what needed to happen next.

They had to go get Jordan.

They couldn’t leave Jordan where he was. They couldn’t leave Jordan with St. Maarten, not with how everything was escalating, and not only with Archangel.

Moreover, Nickwasgoing with them to get Jordan out.

Whether Wynter liked it or not.

“How far have you gotten?” Nick asked, gruff. “I want to hear it. The plan. Or whatever it is you’ve got so far to break Jordan out of there.”

He glanced at Charlie who was listening from the other side of the table.

He quirked an eyebrow at her.