Page 18 of Pain

I wanted to tell her about it, but I was also really enjoying that she was seeking me out, touching me, and getting to know me without the forced element of my debilitating condition. I wanted her to mate-bond with me because she wanted to. Not out of a sense of obligation. Not that the Fates would allow it anyway.

“Drak?” she probed. “What are you hiding?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m concerned that Howar is not being honest with me. That …” Gods, the words tasted like rotten blood on my tongue. I was about to accuse my king of treason out loud. Up until now, I’d simply thought about it. But now I was putting it into the air, telling people. This was something I could never take back.

“That what?” Maxar exclaimed. “Spit it out, Fangs!”

“That he’s secretly working against us. Against Omaera. I’m worried we’re headed into a trap.”

Three sets of wide, surprised eyes stared back at me.

Then the bear roared. “And you’re telling us this now?”

I wasn’t so much worried about the bear or the mage being upset with me. I could handle that, but the look on Omaera’s face, as if I’d betrayed her, was damn near unbearable.

“I deliberately did not give our coordinates to Howar when we were at Melissima’s, and I instructed Raver not to give them to him as well. I asked Howar for the location of a portal far away from Melissima’s, which is why we’re on our way to Reno. He thinks Melissima’s cottage is near Reno. I expect there to be an ambush where they’re going to try to kill Omaera. I worried that if I told you about the expected ambush, we would set off alarm bells and Howar would know we’re on to him.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Zandren rumbled. “And you know how I feel about using the Queen as bait.”

“It means he’s worried we’re shit actors,” Maxar said with even more sarcasm coating his tone. “And when the ambush happens, we’re all going to go, ‘Oh my goodness, an ambush? How surprising and scary. This wasn’t expected at all. Whatever shall we do?’” Then he pretended to swoon like a damsel with the back of his hand on his forehead.

“Is that the only reason?” Omaera asked, her voice soft, gaze still conveying her feeling of betrayal.

“It needs to look real. Like we had no idea. If they have any sense that we were prepared, then we hand power over to Howar. I need him to think that we’re still in the dark about his betrayal. If he doesn’t suspect that we suspect, we can use that to our advantage later on. Possibly even to trap Lerris. To trap Howar. Once you’ve had some more training.”

“You think Howar and Lerris are working together?” Terror replaced the betrayal in her eyes.

“I don’t know. At this point, I don’t know much—”

“Now you’re speaking the truth,” Maxar muttered.

I ignored his jab. “But I’ve had this feeling in my gut about him for a while now, and I just can’t ignore it any longer. If there’s no ambush, then maybe my gut is wrong. But I need to test my theory.”

Her nod was slow and stiff, but she seemed to be coming around to my plan. “For the record though, I’m a terrific actor.” She pointed to herself. “Poker player, remember? Fantastic at bluffing.”

That made me smirk and the tension in my chest eased enough that I couldtake a deeper breath. “Fair enough. I stand corrected.”

“So, what? We just let a bunch of fucking vampires attack us?” Zandren asked. “Not going to happen.”

“I never expected you to lie there and take it,” I replied. “I expect you to fight back and win. We need to vanquish this ambush and get through the portal. There’s really no other option.”

“Do you have any idea how many vampires are going to be sent to trap us?” Maxar asked. “A little heads up about the ratio would be cool.”

“When I was part of Howar’s army and we were sent to do similar things, we’d usually dispatch twice as many men as we expected to encounter. Outnumber them two-to-one. So weshouldexpect at the very minimum, eight.”

“There you go again with that word, ‘should,’” Zandren murmured, shaking his big, shaggy head. “Maybe weshouldexpect twelve, since Howar knows how powerful Omaera is now.”

I nodded. “Perhaps. He also knows her powers are erratic, and she hasn’t had enough training to control them. So he may think she’s easy enough to overpower. I can’t say for certain. But perhaps you’re right and we need to expect a three-to-one ratio.”

Maxar clapped his palms and rubbed them together until green flames flickered between his fingers. “All right then, let’s go roast some vampires.”

That sickening sensation returned to my stomach, along with the intense, nauseating taste of rotten blood on my tongue. I would know every single vampire in that ambush. I would have trained some of them, fought beside them. And now, they were going to try to kill my mate.

Not if we killed them first.

CHAPTER FIVE

I sat in the front seat of Melissima’s Ford SUV with my arms crossed over my chest and my eyes forward. Silence thudded around us after Zandren pulled back onto the road to cover the last fifty miles to Reno.

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