Page 25

Nadia

“Fine, whatever,” I say, working hard to be breezy and failing completely. “If it’s Greg’s shift now, let him take it.”

Cole gives us a cursory bow that seems more instinctual than deliberate as his way of saying goodnight, but it sets Shayne beaming regardless. He goes one way to the command tent as Greg walks with us to the nurse’s quarters, sending us off to sleep.

“So, you’re all in love with the Prince?” Greg asks, his voice terribly disappointed. “None left for us poor regular guys?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re all in love with the Prince,” Grace says, shooting me a wicked glance. My fingers itch to shove her, but I magnanimously refrain.

“Well, it’s not our fault,” Shayne says, turning at the dormitory tent to give Greg her prettiest smile, looking up at him through her lashes. “The Prince pays such nice attention to us. How could we help it? Maybe the regular guys just need to…step up their game.”

Greg smirks at her, clearly enjoying her gambit and playing along. “Well then. Maybe we will.”

Shay shrugs, looking adorable and coy. I groan, grabbing her wrist, starting to haul her inside. “Night, Greg! Sleep tight!” she calls. “Don’t dream about me too much, though I know it will be –“

I pull the rope holding up the entrance flap, letting it slap shut, cutting off Shay’s words and the sight of Greg’s grinning face. Shayne just bursts out laughing.

Grace and I can’t help but join in.

“Shay, you’re torturing the boy,” Grace says, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her toward our bunks.

“I know!” she says, sighing happily. “Ugh, I can’t help it. They’re just so cute when they’re madly in love with me. It is my favorite characteristic in a man.” She flips her hair over her shoulder and flounces off toward our beds.

I sigh and follow, though I can’t help but admire her moxy. Shayne truly has a verve for life that I don’t think any of us truly match.

The next few days are utterly grueling. Shayne, Grace, and I work each of our long shifts with our teeth gritted, ignoring the insults that come from the male Children of Solace wolves who clearly have no respect for us at all.

After a few sharp words and warnings from my father and the other wolves amongst us – the only people they respect – the Children of Solace wolves let us perform our duties.

But it is very clear by their sneers, their low growls, their mumbled insults of “trash” and “slut” and “whore,” that they believe us to be undeserving of respect they’d pay even to an animal.

At the end of each day, I watch Shayne’s usually shining expression fall lower and sadder.

For some reason, she’s getting the brunt of it.

We’ve all been doing our best to keep her spirits up – and honestly, Greg and Tommy have been a big part of that.

But still, I can tell the daily harassment from the Children of Solace wolves is taking its toll.

And always, always she gets bizarre comments about her hair.

“Any news?” I snap, walking up to Cole’s side outside the nursing tent, my arms crossed. “On what the hell it is they have against redheads?”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose, looking down at me, worried. “Shayne’s still dealing with that?”

He’s been less social with us in the past few days, though I don’t think it’s personal.

He’s just been attending a lot of meetings with dad and taking guard posts outside while we’re worked off our feet in the nursing tent, taking most of our meals in between patients.

This is, I think, the first time I’ve talked to Cole in about forty-eight hours.

But no time for pleasantries when I’ve got a bone to pick.

“Yup,” I say, the word clipped and impatient. I hate seeing my friend suffer, and I hate even more that I don’t understand the reasons behind it.

“Yeah, I asked Jude’s contact what’s up with that,” Cole murmurs, looking away into the night, his jaw clenched.

“Apparently, there’s some kind of legend, or lore, about a red-headed human girl who gets too much power and lures all these men away to their deaths.

They’ve been taught since birth that she’s both dangerous and worthy of contempt.

It’s a stupid superstition but…I hate that they’re taking it out on Shay. ”

I scoff, turning to glare back into the tent, hating them all .

“I guess this isn’t doing much to improve your opinion of wolf culture,” Cole says, his words laced with a sigh.

I whip my face back to him. “You expect me to be bright and hopeful about an entire culture of misogynistic men who are sexually harassing and insulting my friend just because she has red hair ?”

He sighs and shakes his head. “Not all –“

“God damn it, Cole,” I snarl, whipping a finger up to point at his face. “If you say ‘not all wolves are like that,’ I’m going to smack you. Because every wolf in that tent is.”

He exhales slowly, clearly frustrated but seeing my point. “All right,” he says.

“Are you sure it’s even safe for Shay here?”

Cole looks into the tent as well, his eyes moving over Shay as she checks in on a patient who we’ve been working with for days who refuses to look at her, his teeth bared as he determinedly stares at the tent’s ceiling.

“We’ll protect her,” he murmurs. “I can keep them in line.”

“And if you weren’t here?”

He shifts his eyes to me, frowning. “But I am here.”

I open my mouth to protest further, to truly lay into him for the fact that his father’s regime has let this anti-human and anti-woman sentiment fester down here in the south for at least twenty years, but my harangue is interrupted by headlights flashing through the darkened camp.

Both Cole and I look immediately toward the light, and I frown at the small jeep that pulls to the middle of our clearing.

Its only occupant is the driver, and it’s an unusually small vehicle - only large transports have been coming in here these days.

“What’s going on?” I murmur. “More patients?”

“No,” Cole says, shaking his head. Then he sighs as he turns to me fully. “Listen, I’m going to step out of camp for a little bit, but Tommy –“

My mouth falls open, appalled. “But you just said that everything would be fine because you are here to protect Shayne!”

“A task for which Tommy is very capable,” Cole says, being all patient. Which just pisses me off even more.

“Where are you even going ?”

“To the Children of Solace,” he replies, holding my gaze. “The…town, for lack of a better word. We need to –“

“Hey, Cole!”

Rose’s voice rings out in the clearing.

I clench my teeth, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up as I whip my head to the left, glaring at her sunny blonde form as she crosses to us, a pack slung over her shoulder, her camera bouncing on her chest.

“I’m ready!” she calls, basically singing the words in her excitement.

My eyes just narrow. I haven’t seen much of Rose in the past few days, but absence certainly did not make my heart grow fonder. Not one fucking bit.

“Hey, Rose,” Cole calls, sounding exhausted, glancing down at me.

“You’re going somewhere with her ?” I hiss. “To – to the Children of Solace? ”

“She’s requested permission to document it and –“

“And it’s going to help my story as well as provide the military with visual evidence of what was going on there,” Rose says, all smug, looking right at me with a stupid pretty smile slapped on her face. She taps her finger demonstratively on her camera and gives me a wink –

A fucking wink –

God, but I want to smack her.

“No way!” I shout.

Her face twists with disgust as she looks me up and down. “Why do you even care ?”

I snap my mouth shut because…

Okay. So…she’s got me there.

But screw Rose. I snap my eyes up to Cole. “I’m going too.”

A shocked little noise climbs up his throat, strangled by his surprise. “What?”

“Yeah!” I say, tightening my arms across my chest, glaring at him. “I’m going too!”

“Cole!” Rose cries out, snapping her head to glare at him too. “She can’t go! This is our trip!”

“Oh my god,” Cole murmurs, dropping his face into his palm.

“ Your trip,” I growl, glaring hard at her. “What, you’ve planned some kind of a date in the middle of a war zone?”

“Yeah,” she says, low and wicked, leaning towards me. “Got a problem with that?”

“Hey, this is not a date –“ Cole says, firm, dropping his hand and glaring between us. “My father approved this because it will be useful –“

“I mean, it’s a date if we want it to be,” Rose says, all low and throaty.

I groan and roll my eyes, spinning around, heading into the tent to grab my sweatshirt.

“Nadia,” Cole calls after me, sounding right at the end of his rope. “What are you even –“

“I’m coming !” I shout, not giving myself the time and space to consider why I’m suddenly so determined to do this. I’ve never even thought about visiting the ghost town the Children of Solace left behind after the attack.

But quite abruptly, there’s absolutely nothing that could hold me back.

Grace and Shayne stand up straight at the commotion I’m making. They look right at me, their mouths circled into curious little o’s. I snap my eyes between them as I hastily zip my hoodie up so fast that the zipper catches me on the chin with a pinch that makes me jump and then scowl.

“And Shayne’s coming too!” I bark out, spinning again to glare at Cole, who stands glowering at the door, clearly pissed off.

“Would you get your ass out here, Nadia?” he growls. “You’re making a scene.”

My feet root to their spot.

“You want to see me make a scene, Kincaid?” I ask, my voice somehow dangerously low and ringingly loud. “I can make a scene –“

“Oh, heavens,” Grace murmurs, hurrying over and giving me a hasty shove between the shoulder blades.