Page 94 of Reign

“Sabine’s presenting your uncle, Emma, and Eden to the entire societal membership. That’s right,” he says when he registers my wince. “Every. Single. One. She’s there to solidify her position as well as your garbage dump of a reputation. She’s likely blackmailed, coerced, and threatened your only remaining allies into backing up her story and will have them announce to her entire audience that you are no longer eligible to run the Virtues, even if your DNA results come back and you have Rose Briar’s blood. Of course, her speech was meant to occur while you were cuffed, interrogated and arrested in the nearby hospital, except now I’ve arrived to seriously fuck her shit up. No bitch who tries to kill my buddy will earn herself a centuries-old society for her efforts.” He pauses, then angles his head at me. “So, are you in, or do you want me to assist in buckling you back into your hospital bed and leaving you there to trust your process?”

I match his unflinching stare. “I’m in.”

“Good.” He whips around and flies down the stairs. With my heart beating in my ears, I rush to catch up to him.

* * *

Tempest roars through the small town of Briarcliff with the smooth rumbling of a sleek luxury car, and I brace for his abrupt turns with a clenched, whitened grip against the door.

We don’t speak during the trip back to the academy, Tempest’s foreboding last words as he pushed me into his vehicle being, “by the time the nurses figure out you’re gone, we’ll be buried underground,” then whipping out of the hospital parking garage.

He pulls up to the M.B.S. Library of Studies and I push my door open without hesitation. Tempest meets me at the front of the car, then takes some of my weight as we stride to the doors, my breaths a lot harsher than his.

“Should I have given you a Gatorade or something?” he asks, side-eyeing me as I hunch into him. “Basic care of another person isn’t my strong suit. Chase was better at that shit.”

“Is better,” I correct.

Tempest holds the door open for me and studies me through the glass.

“Is,” I repeat. “He’s going to be just fine, and when I’m done with that cunt in there, I’m going to tell him so myself.”

Tempest makes an approving sound at my back. “I kept wondering why Chase decided to keep you instead of scare you off. Now I’m getting it.”

We reach the back wall, and when I make noises that my fingerprints may not work anymore—last night’s events pretty much exiled me—Tempest waves me off. He bends to the floor, his fingers bringing up a strange screen on the touchpad, then working furiously. After a few minutes, a soft beep sounds, and the hidden door slides open.

33

Callie

I probably should’ve braced for the moment when the hidden door would slide open to reveal Sabine, standing at the center of the circular room brimming with hooded Nobles and Virtues.

Her mouth is open mid-speech, and when she turns toward the sudden disturbance, her red-rimmed lips part further.

“Are we late to the party?” Tempest calls as he saunters in, hauling me against his side. “Apologies. My plus one had such a complex about coming to a soiree straight out of a hospital bed.”

Pure, vile fury runs through Sabine’s expression, paling it to such a degree that her lips turn into swatches of fresh blood. Her hateful stare burrows into my skin, my veins popping and thriving with her putrid death wishes, but just as quickly, she covers her surprise behind a serene, confident mask.

“Just as well,” she simpers, then glances up to include the rows of Nobles and Virtues. “You’re now able to match a face to the girl who’s put our societies at so much risk. She writes about us in a mass email to parents, students, and faculty. And if that’s not enough.” Sabine chuckles under her breath. “She accuses us of murder. This child has gone so far as to accuse us of tracking down her mother and killing her in cold blood. She’s gathered so much hatred, so much misdirected anger, that Calla Lily Ryan can no longer tell reality from fiction.” Sabine eyes me dryly. “Her very public accusations of her stepfather and resulting psychosis proves that.”

I peel my lips from my teeth. “You sociopathic bitch.”

“Callie is so traumatized, so unstable, she almost overdoses an innocent girl. But, largely due to her connections in the NYPD, she’s able to escape accountability and came to Briarcliff with no charges, no soul. Her lack of empathy—or her succumbing to her demons, however you choose to see it, my lords—coupled with her lax supervision, allowed her to come onto our soil, desecrate our traditions, and kill our Virtuous Princess through a misguided sense of protecting the princess from me, her queen.”

Sabine’s mask falls when she includes me, her eyes stretching so wide that hollows deepen around them, giving her the face of a skull with stripped-back skin. “You rancid street rat, you have forsaken the Virtues.” She twists, her scarlet dress billowing with her movements. “Bring them out!”

Noise hits my left ear, and I’m forced to watch my friends, my uncle, being dragged out of the same corridor I’d used to follow Chase into an unbearable darkness.

Though their hands are untied and their footsteps free, Emma, Eden, and Ahmar’s face all tell me an emotionless story.

I frantically scan their forms for injuries or torture, but all walk with a natural, albeit hesitant, gait. And none of them look in my direction.

“How has this become a tribunal? I’m not the one needing to face judgment!” I cry out to the crowd.

Even Ahmar. Even Ahmar is takes his place in the light like he’s part of police line-up. My breath hitches at what they could’ve done to make this born-and-raised Bronx man so placid. “Sabine’s desperate to keep a throne where everything in her life has disintegrated. Yes, she has Daniel Stone, but he’s just as colluding as she is. And when he finds out what she did to his son, I very much doubt he’ll stick by her side.”

I say this loud enough for the entire room to hear. My voice echoes throughout the hushed temple, but the thickened atmosphere, the stone-cold quiet, indicates I have much further to go before any of these people believe me.

“If you’re quite done,” Sabine quips, “Allow your pseudo-uncle to speak. Ahmar Kazmi, is it?”

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