Page 86 of Abandoned Oaths

Hearing my brothers in pain and not being able to do anything to help them was my worst nightmare.And here I was, wide awake and living through this horror.

It was supposed to be an easy in and out. Less than a day.

“Are you sure we can’t do anything?” she whispered as we listened to the guys reassure the others with them

I shook my head. The only thing I had the power to do was monitor their location and update the rescue boat to make sure they stayed on route.

Her leg bounced next to mine. It was annoying, but my brothers had worse anxious habits. At least she wasn’t pacing like Javier or tapping his nails against his teeth like Cruz. That made me homicidal.

“Do you know who the attackers were?”I asked Javier.

“No.” His hatred of that fact matched mine.

A small, nondescript cargo ship carrying who knew what—unnecessary intel for our purposes—was supposed to have an easy trip to the ports south of Miami. The men in charge hadn’t anticipated any issues, but a few of their team were called to another job. We’d been asked to fill in.

A routine trip. Supplies the Pack brought back and forth on a weekly basis. So why the hell had this one gone so wrong?

Was there something different about the load? Was it worth more than normal? Rare items?

We’d never know.This wasn’t our task, and we wouldn’t be responsible for following up.

The why didn’t matter. All that did was that the rescue boat made it in time.

“Still good?” I asked Javier.

“We’re not healing like we should.” His voice shook. Hopefully, his body didn’t go into shock before help arrived.

“Poison?”

“Don’t think so,” Derek’s voice was strained. “The attackers were human.”

“That doesn’t mean they didn’t use a human poison,” Emilia pointed out. “We might be tolerant to a lot, but we’re not entirely invincible.”

Especially when they couldn’t shift and allow themselves to heal properly. With humans aboard, they couldn’t risk exposure.

“Are any of them still alive?”

“They left one, but he’s not going to be able to answer questions for a while,” Cruz huffed.

I sent a message to the boat, letting them know to prepare for one hostage.

“Twenty minutes, you guys.”

“Dammit,” Emilia muttered.

“We’ve endured much worse, princess. They’ll be fine.”

“Speak for yourself,” Derek growled. “I’m going to need round-the-clock care from a personal nurse when I get back.”

She chuckled.

“I’m so cold,” Javier chattered. “I’ll probably have to strip down and lay with a warm body to get my body temperature back up.”

“I’ll make sure Marco’s ready and waiting.” She pressed her cheek against mine to speak into my mic. “It will probably work best if all four of you get into bed together.”

Cruz groaned. “That backfired.”

They were joking. Things weren’t too bad if they could tease each other. Or maybe Emilia had a healing effect on them, even from afar.

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