Page 72 of Dark Reign

I felt …softtoward him. I wasn’t ever soft towardanyone—except, maybe Riot. What wouldn’t I give to have her sitting beside me right now. She, like the others I was forced to leave behind, was deeply missed.

I didn’t bother stifling the tears after thinking of her, ofthem. I promised myself that once I’d taken a few hours to mourn, I would pull myself together and refocus on finding a way to finish what Blackbird started before time ran out for me.

There was officially an expiration date.

Sixty days.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Julian

“Where are you going? The others are waiting in your study to speak with you,” Elle called out after me.

I’d been caught, veering toward my bedroom instead of downstairs where I’d have to face my brothers, tell them what I’d done, tell them I hammered the final nail in my coffin tonight.

Turning, I found a sympathetic stare set on Elle’s face. “I just … I need to gather my thoughts.”

She took a step closer, clasping her hands together. “For what it’s worth, I believe you’ve done the right thing, Your Highness. You saved her life,” she added. “Because your heart, yoursoul, are both pure.”

I didn’t know what to say other than, “Well, that makes one of us who’s sure of that.”

My gaze remained down while I heard her taking steps in my direction again, but lifted when she placed a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t be afraid to go to them,” she stated. “Your brothers love you and won’t be quick to judge. Just … talk to them,” was her final advice on the subject.

I did dread the idea of having to face them, but there was more. My gaze met Elle’s, and the comforting smile she wore faded.

“Was it … difficult for you?” she asked, only keeping me guessing a moment as she continued. “I mean, was it difficult to control yourself?”

She was referring to the bite.

Before the fleeting moment today, I only indulged in feeding on a host one other time. It was during a drunken night of celebration with the guys, before Roman was off to begin his studies. One of Levi’s connections granted us access to a nearby harvesting camp where we feasted on a teenage girl. She’d been marked for disposal due to her failure to conceive—in a timebeforethe blood shortage was acknowledged, a time when our people were more wasteful—so we were given permission to do with her as we pleased.

That night, we brought that girl dangerously close to death with the little blood we left in her, but … the experience changed the four of us. Yes, the taste was unmatched when it was so fresh, but there was no missing how it had turned us into savages, reduced us to behaving like roamers with no self-control.

Drunk or not, it was then that we deemed ourselves too evolved for such practices, and permanently swore to only consume blood after it’d been tested, processed through the proper channels, and then served in a glass.

I pushed the vivid memory from thought. “I managed okay.”

Elle studied me a moment longer.

“Then, there’s something else troubling you. Would you like to talk about it?” she asked. “Not that I have to remind you, but you do know I’m programmed to keep any and all secrets, so—”

“It’s not about trusting you,” I cut in, stewing over the craziness whirling inside my head. “It’s just that … something happened in the alley today. Something I’m not sure how to interpret.”

“Maybe I can help,” she offered, hopeful.

I didn’t speak right away. While Elle was highly intelligent and intuitive, I didn’t have much faith she’d get it. The interaction between my world and Corina’s was complex, molded by deep-running history and social order.

“When I found her, she mumbled a word I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around,” I began, holding Elle’s attention. “She was asking for her mother.”

For quite some time, there was only silence; a deafening indicator that I hadn’t been crazy to think there was something strange about that.

“What do you think it means?” she asked.

That was the million-dollar question.

“I think it means we can’t put off finding out where she came from. I think it could mean that, maybe the sentinels were right about her. Maybe sheispart of something bigger, possibly affiliated with known terrorists.”

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