Page 24

Nadia

“These people you’ve been treating today?” Cole says, looking at each of us in turn. “They’re not the people you saw running away last night. Some of these – many of them – were the die-hards clearing the path for Slaken to escape.”

“Shit,” I whisper, shaking my head at the Prince. “So, he’s gone?”

“Wait, sorry,” Grace says, leaning forward and looking fascinatedly between us. “What’s a Slaken?”

Cole smirks at me for a moment, realizing that I truly did keep my promise of secrecy.

Shayne scoffs at me, figuring out the same thing at the same moment.

But Cole just nods and quickly fills the pair in.

Something in my chest glows like a happy little firefly to see him trust my best friends so easily – I mean, they’re wonderful people, and he couldn’t put his trust in a better spot.

But whatever that little firefly is? I smush it immediately. Nuh-uh. No bugs in the soul.

“Okay, so,” Grace says, concentrating hard on Cole. “This leader guy – he ran from the military invasion? And we don’t know where he is?”

“He’s out there somewhere,” Cole says, shaking his head, his expression open enough for us to see the true worry in his eyes.

“But we have no idea where, and we’ve got no real plans for how to find him.

We know so, so little about this desert and its terrain.

But we do know that he got out with a lot of supplies and a lot of people, so…

wherever he is, he needs a great deal of space. But…he’s also well supplied…”

Cole’s eyes go a bit far off as he rubs his palm against his cheek, his stubble scratching against his skin.

“So, how do we find him?” Grace asks, fascinated.

“The only people who know this terrain with any real accuracy are locals,” Cole murmurs, clearly lost in his thoughts. “I mean, we have maps and drones to scope, but we suspect that there are caves and tunnels. And when there are canyons, it’s very difficult to know what’s going on down below…”

My face twists with doubt. How can we know nothing ? “We don’t have anyone who knows the ins and outs of this wilderness?”

“We have very few people,” Cole murmurs, turning his eyes back to me. “My brother made contact with someone who’s been really helpful – Jude can get almost anyone to talk - “

“Wait, are you talking about Prince Jude?” Shay asks, her shoulders straightening with interest.

Cole smirks a little. “Considering I have one brother and his name is Jude…yeah, probably a good guess, Shay.”

Shayne and Grace gasp, loud and thrilled, their faces twin pictures of delight.

“Is he coming here?“ Shay asks.

Cole shrugs. “It’s a possibility.”

“Oh my god!” Shay gasps, spinning to Grace, who squeals.

“Dibs! Dibs!” Grace shouts, holding her hands up high.

“No way, no way!” Shan says, smacking at her with an open palm. “You know I’ve had a crush on Prince Jude since we were ten , Gracie! It’s not fair!”

Cole grins at the girls but turns his attention to me, dropping his voice. “You’re not as excited about any of this?”

“One Prince messing up my life is enough , your highness,“ I murmur, rolling my eyes and making him laugh. “Plus, while you have proven yourself to be…tolerable, Jude has a reputation for being...”

Suddenly, a hand smacks against my back, shoving me the short distance to the ground.

I gasp, my hot chocolate sloshing as I hold the mug high, barely keeping it from splashing all over my scrubs.

I spin to glare at Shayne, but she’s already thrown herself across the log and wrapped her arms around Cole, who laughs readily and hugs her back.

“I’m so glad we’re friends now,” Shayne cries. “I have my own font of royal connections. Please tell him to come! Tell him I’m pretty and fun, and I can’t wait to meet him! And tell him Grace is ugly with –”

“Shayne!” Grace gasps, appalled, smacking at Shay in turn.

Cole just laughs, slipping an arm around Shayne to hug her back. “Happy to oblige.”

I raise my eyebrow at Cole from my spot in the dirt, silently willing him not to be so nice and tell Shay that she’s both overstepping and fetishizing his Princely status.

Cole finally sees my expression when he lets Shayne go. “What?” he asks, laughing and shaking his head at me. “I honestly am happy to pass on word to Jude!”

“Oh, you’re impossible,” I say, rolling my eyes and pulling myself back up onto my spot on the log, hip-checking Shay a bit as punishment.

“Or maybe you’re just going to have to learn how to deal with the fact that I actually am nice,“ Cole counters, shrugging. “And that I like hanging out with enthusiastic people.”

“See?” Shay says, beaming at me. “I’m basically a royal already.”

“Precisely,” Cole says, looking over me to grin at her. “Though I haven’t talked to him since we’ve been here – and with the way Jude moves, there’s always the possibility that he’s no longer single.”

Shay shrugs, even as her mouth twists to the side. “If so, then I will move on to greener pastures. Now, if your dad would consider –”

Grace bursts out laughing and nearly falls off the log while Cole chokes on his laughter at this one, indicating that Shay has finally gone too far.

“What, he’s hot !“ Shay says, looking around at all of us with a big grin, laughing too.

I just shake my head – even though she’s right. Our King had a reputation in his youth for being something of a heartthrob and is certainly a silver fox now.

“All right, all right!” I shout, holding out my hands, wanting to be serious again, even if I also can’t help but smile. “Can we please get back to the important stuff here?”

I wait a moment for all of our laughter to fade, silently grateful for Shay, even if she did shove me to the ground. Because despite everyone being very irritating, I have to admit that I’m in a much better mood than I was when my shift ended.

“Okay, yes, Nadi’s right,” Grace says with a sigh, untying her knot of brown hair and massaging her scalp for a bit. “Cole, is that why our patients were so difficult tonight? Because they were the enemy?”

He shrugs, a noncommittal gesture. “I mean, it’s hard to call anyone an enemy, Grace,” he says. “They’re all our citizens.”

“Did they shoot guns at our military?” I ask, dry.

He flashes his eyes to me, grim.

“Then they’re the enemy.”

“You know it’s more complicated than that.”

“Not on the battlefield, it’s not.”

Cole narrows his eyes at me for a second because we’re both very aware that I’m talking out of my ass on that one – he’s the one with the military training and knowledge, not me. But he lets me have it.

“Well, to the point,” he says, turning back to Grace.

“Yes, my best guess is that they were difficult because their support is with Slaken, and they buy into what we understand to be his very anti-human politics. Obviously, we want to treat their wounds, but we’ll have a lot of questions for this batch once they’re through with treatment. ”

“So, they’re like, prisoners?” I ask, turning toward the tent with interest now.

“For lack of a better term, yes.”

My eyebrows go up with interest and surprise as I turn over these facts in my mind, wondering if any of the patients said anything tonight that might be a hint, might be useful. But honestly, they were all very terse with me.

“What’s wrong, Shay?”

I snap back to reality at the sound of Cole’s question, spinning my head first to him and then to my friend. I inhale sharply when I see that he’s right – that Shay has an uncharacteristically worried frown on her lips, looking down at the ground.

She shakes her head, clearly working through her thoughts. “Were any of them like…gross with you guys?”

I sit straighter, immediately pissed as hell.

Behind me, Cole growls, clearly feeling the same.

Grace strokes a hand over Shayne’s back. “Not with me. What happened, Shay?”

She lifts her eyes, looking around at us, taking in Cole’s rigid posture in particular.

“Don’t freak out,” she says, shaking her head.

“It wasn’t anything too bad – nothing tons of girls haven’t experienced before.

Just – almost all of them had some sort of lewd comment about human girls.

And they talked about my red hair.“ She gestures up towards the pretty red strands of it, tied neatly back.

“What the fuck ,“ I whisper, moving closer to my friend. “Did you call over Jeanie?”

“Yes,” Shay says, shaking her head. “And she shut it down – but I was just…surprised.”

“Ugh, I’m going to kill them,” I whisper, glaring hard at the nursing tent.

“Get in line,” Cole snarls.

“But why Shay?” Grace asks, the only one of us not giving in to her rage. “Why didn’t they say anything to Nadia or me?”

“I don’t know,” Cole murmurs, again rubbing his cheek, thinking deeply. “I need to…talk to dad about this. It’s a weird development, but…potentially useful information.” He looks over the three of us. “Anything else weird happen? Noteworthy?”

I shake my head. “Nothing beyond not wanting to be seen by humans, which doesn’t seem out of the ordinary for what we’ve learned about Children of Solace wolves. But Jeanie was running around all night managing that – she might have heard something.”

Cole nods. “I’ll talk to her. Will you speak to the other nurses? See if anyone else had a particularly bad experience?”

We nod, agreeing to it – quite eager to help, if we can.

“I’m very sorry that happened to you, Shay,” Cole says, leaning towards her, holding her gaze very seriously. A little smile curls her lips. “You didn’t deserve that.”

And I sigh because even if that Cole is being polite and saying precisely the right thing…damn it, but I can see that he means it. That he really is just…kind.

Which does not line up, at all, with my childhood memories.

Inwardly, I scowl and tuck the thought away, knowing we have other things to worry about.

All of our eyes turn to Greg as he comes over, his rifle evenly balanced in his hand.

“Sir?” he says, eyes on Cole. “I was supposed to relieve you of your post about half an hour ago. Can’t do that if you’re still at it. ”

Cole sighs and stands, nodding to him.

I frown, looking between the two wolves, wondering what the hell Greg is talking about. Because Cole can’t have been assigned to guard the empty damn fire circle –

But then I scoff and whip out a hand, smacking Cole on the calf. “Did you put an extra guard on me, wherever I am, at all times?”

He laughs and smirks down at me. “Why would I do that, Nadia?”

My mouth pops open, but the words still on my tongue – because I can’t say it! Not without revealing to stupid Greg the ridiculous claim that Cole has made on me –

“Besides,” Cole says, yawning and stretching his hands over his head. “The extra guard is on Shayne. Not you.”

“Yes, I’m incredibly important,” Shayne says, lifting her chin, preening.

I scowl as Grace laughs.