Page 68 of Hupotasso
I turn from Jag, both of us bloodied and bruised, and make my way to my desk.
“Are you coming or not?” I grunt as I wipe the blood from my lips and gingerly move my jaw back and forth.
“Of course,” he mutters, rising to his feet and turning his neck this way and that.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that he knows exactly where I’m planning to go, and exactly what I’m planning to do. That’s just Jag.
“When he’s dead, there’ll be no more doubt.”
“I don’t have any doubt now,” Jag sighs, moving to pour himself a drink and wincing as it touches his cut lip. “And you shouldn’t either. Your paranoia over Angie knows no bounds.”
I scowl at my broken knuckles.
We’ll heal in an hour or so, but until then we’ll both feel the sting of our stupidity. We’d fought many a time over the centuries, but never over a woman.
“It’s not paranoia,” I sigh.
“I know,” Jag snorts. “You love her, Falcon. Love makes us do and say crazy shit.”
“It makeshumansdo and say crazy shit, Jag. We’re vampires — unaffected by such useless emotions.”
“So you keep saying,” Jag shrugs. “For all the good it does you.”
Rising, I shrug off my jacket and make for the door.
“The sun will rise shortly. He won’t expect a daytime attack.”
“You don’t want to wait a few more weeks? You seemed quite sure Sophie was pregnant.”
“She’s not,” I growl. “I have a spy in his castle.”
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I don’t tell you everything, Jag, believe it or not. And anyway,” I add, seeing his puzzled expression, “I told Wolf. You were absent at that time, we weren’t on speaking terms.”
“I’m not going to argue with you any longer, brother,” he sighs. “If killing Spider is what you truly need to do in order to believe Angie is not under his sway, then so be it.”
“My bite didn’t work on her, Jag. No amount of‘feelings’I have for her can hide that truth.”
“I’ll grant you,” he frowns, downing his drink and turning for the door, “I don’t understand that either.”
“Then, to war.”
“Yes,” he sighs. “To war.”
51
Taking a deep breath I walk head high, and with a lighter step than I’ve felt in months, past the gauntlet of photographers calling my name and flashing their cameras.
The four human security guards assigned to me flank my every side, but don’t get close enough to touch me. More await inside, but even they can’t dampen my mood as I enter the cool, white interior of the private hospital and let out a deep breath.
I’m pregnant. A tragedy, to be sure. But I’m also free.
Minutes after I’d felt the flutter and snap and managed to hurt myself, something I couldn’t do if I was still under Viper’s control, I’d bound my hand with a handkerchief, tipped ice water on my dress to scrub off the blood, and sat back in the car seat, my thoughts finally my own. And my thoughts, when they came,were steel, tungsten, chromium — all the metals— whatever the hardest metal is, that’s what they were; inflexible and strong.
I don’t care if I have to kill one hundred men today. I don’t care if I have to burn down the hospital. I’m not going back to the castle. Not tonight, not ever.
I snap back to the now as a doctor and a nurse with a clipboard approach, and I school my face not to betray my shock. They’re both wearing masks and full PPE; white jumpsuits, white shoes, caps, gloves and safety glasses, but a whisp or two of the nurse’s long red hair has strayed from under her cap.
