Page 225 of Golden Eagle

“The blade will never touch her,” Kolya said, and if his tone wasn’t actually reassuring, it was at least calm, and sure. “I’m only going to show her a few tricks. We can’t turn into wolves or brainwash anyone. We need our tricks.” He gave Trina the smallest, most hesitant smile.

She smiled back. “Yeah, we do.”

~*~

“Here.” Annabel appeared in front of Mia, both hands held down to her, fingers curling.

(And when had Mia sat down on the cold, hard gravel anyway?)

“If we’re gonna have a sparring party, I’ll show you a few things.” Her smile dimmed when Mia didn’t respond. “You okay?”

A glance proved that no one else was within immediate earshot; Val had moved over to watch Fulk and Nikita, offering bits of advice. She shook her head. “Yeah…not really. No. No, I’m not okay.”

Just admitting it aloud eased some of the tightness in her chest, though she felt guilty for saying anything at all.

Annabel frowned, brows crimping, then settled down to sit cross-legged beside her.

“You don’t have to–” Mia started to protest.

Anna said, “It’s okay not to be okay. In fact, I’m pretty sure nobody here is okay.”

“You’re okay.”

“Yeah, but I’mweird. I’m abnormally okay.”

Mia couldn’t help but smile, a little.

“I also give abnormally good advice.”

“Now that I don’t believe.”

“Ooh, ouch.” Anna pressed a hand to her heart a moment, the back of her other to her forehead, and for a moment it was easy to imagine the Southern belle she must have been. Then she got serious again. “You can tell me, though. We’re friends, right?” She sounded almost – hopeful.

Mia realized she wasn’t sure they were friends, that it was a quick and easy label to slap onto their strange relationship. She’d thought they could be, when they first met, when she was still human, but now, after everything, she wasn’t sure.

She also realized, though, that she wanted badly tobefriends. “Yeah,” she said, finding a smile, “that’s true.”

“Okay, so, you can talk to me. Is it the whole being a vampire thing, or the whole Val’s gonna drag us into a war thing?”

“Both. But, right now, it’s mostly the whole finding out my dad is a lot more twisted than I even realized thing.”

Anna’s eyes widened in understanding. “That.” She glanced toward Fulk, where Nikita was repelling an attack with a bit more surety than he’d shown a few minutes ago. Something like a smile touched the vampire’s face, before it turned to a grimace and he had to duck away and disengage again. “See, the thing is, Mr. Will Scarlet” – she said the name in a bit of a huff, and Mia wondered if disbelief, mockery, or rivalry was to blame – “isn’t wrong when he talks about there maybe being a split between the two branches. It’s government-funded, after all, and I’ve never seen a government in the world that could come to an agreement on anything. It would make sense that there’s corrupt pockets in the Institute. Some people are there for the science and the medicine, and some are there for the war.” She looked back at Mia, gaze serious now. “For the power they could get if they win the war.

“Now, don’t take this as an insult, but your daddy? He doesn’t strike me as the scheming, power-hungry type.”

Mia’s jaw clenched in automatic reaction. “He had Val chained up in a dungeon. He didn’t even let him wash hishair.”

“I know, I know, and that was awful. But look at it this way: by the time he got hold of Val, he’d already been chained up for centuries, and he came with a boatload of horror stories about what an awful, traitorous, murderous monster he was. What would you think, if you were in that position?”

“I was in that position, and I saw that he was avictim.”

Anna studied her a moment, whatever sort of glare she was giving, and then grinned. “There’s the fire we need.”

Mia let out a breath. “You’re baiting me.” It stung.

Anna rested a hand on her knee, expression softening. “Honey, I can’t tell you how to feel about your dad, but I’m very familiar with family betraying you.” She made a face. “With people proving they aren’t who you always hoped they’d be. If Dr. Talbot’s as crooked as these people here, who armed another vampire so he could kill Sasha’s pack, then I say he isn’t worth worrying over. You can’t control that. You can only control what you do.”

In a whisper: “Mia, do youwantto be here?”

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