Page 18 of Conflicted Fate
The door closed, and I rounded on Kiel, finger raised, ready to do some really good pointing and stabbing.
“Tell me the plan, and tell it to me now,” I said before he could get a word out.
Kiel’s mouth snapped shut on whatever he’d intended to say. Instead of answering, however, he wandered past me and into the room we’d been granted for our stay.
Inside, he opened a pair of doors and stepped out onto a balcony. Looking over his shoulder, he gestured with his head for me to join him.
“You can’t avoid answering me,” I said. “I know the room might be nice, with a second-floor view, big bed and all, but you know as well as I do that we’re not guests here, Kiel. We’re prisoners. Those guards never left the door. Those ones there, on the wall, they’re staring right at us. I bet there are more on the roof. Don’t let the balcony fool you, we’re under arrest.”
“I know,” he said, acting like he didn’t care. “But out here, they can’t hear me when I talk to you.”
“Oh.” I nodded, looking out across the balcony, over the wall, and into the small city beyond. The collection of people was unlike anything I could have ever imagined in one place. There were almost no other species within the empire, except for traders who occasionally came through. But even then, I’d never really seen them up close, just from a distance. However, outside the empire, they all just sort of coexisted as if it were the natural way.
Which brought up all sorts of uncomfortable questions about why the empire kept all others out.
“What’s the plan?” I asked impatiently, tugging at the sleeve of my robe. The material wasn’t particularly soft or comfortable, and it itched at every bend of my body in the most uncomfortable way. I would’ve tossed it aside, but after having been naked since before the mountain collapsed, it was refreshing to be wearing something.
“To talk the prince into giving us soldiers and storming Teagan,” Kiel said.
I stared. “Are you serious? That’s the plan? You’re not working on anything else? Kiel, we need to get out of here,” I said, finishing in a muted hiss to keep the words from traveling. “We can’t play prisoner until the big guy decides he’ll let us go.”
“Ogre.”
“Huh?”
“The prince of this town, he’s an ogre,” Kiel explained. “The size is natural to them.”
“Oh. Whatever. I just want to get out of here.”
“We will. At the head of a column of warriors.” The confidence with which Kiel spoke was almost infectious. It would have been, if I didn’t know better.
“We can’t just sit on our asses and twiddle our thumbs until he comes to a decision. You heard what Fate had to say, about what Lycaonus was going to do. We have to stop him, Kiel. We have to start taking out the other Alphasnowand free the shards of Fate.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Kiel growled, irritated at my urging.
“I’m saying we don’t have thetimeto do it your way,” I answered, not letting myself be intimidated by his frustration. “We have to go and get to work.”
“Listen to yourself. Actuallylistento yourself, Jada,” he said with a calmness that incensed me. “You’re talking about ‘taking out the Alphas’ and ‘getting to work’ as if it hasn’t been tried a thousand times before. You know as well as I do that it doesn’t work like that, not that easily. Look at what it cost us to kill Arcadus. How much was sacrificed by others. Did you forget that?”
It was my turn to snarl. “Of course not.”
“Then, how do you plan to get to the Alphas? Even Teagetes. How do you plan to eliminate him, with just the two of us? He’s going to be heavily guarded. More than normal because word about Arcadus will have spread by now. The other Alphas will all know we’ve discovered how to kill them. They’ll take steps to prevent it from happening a second time.”
I clenched my teeth.
Kiel reached out, his strong fingers and thumbs digging into my shoulders as he stared at me sympathetically. His gaze was soft, unlike his grip. “Iwantto go fast. Just like you. Trust me, I do. I’m not happy that we have to do this, but if you think about it, Jada,we need their help. I don’t see any other way.”
I thought about it and sighed. “Neither do I,” I said. “You’re right.”
He chuckled.
“What?”
“How much did it cost you to admitthat?”
I stuck out my tongue, groaning as he rubbed along my traps. “That feels good.”
“Good. It’s supposed to,” he said.
