Page 107 of Mortal Shift
She barked a harsh love.
“Do you really wish to stand here discussing love, human?” I didn’t move, and she broke before I did. “It was a political alliance, one born of need and friendship, not love.”
I nodded, trying to process the relief that was flooding through me.
“That’s good,” I managed—which was, apparently, the exact wrong thing to say.
“Good? Foolish human,” she snapped. “That you would think such a thing proves exactly how little you understand.”
“So explain it to me.”
“We. Don’t. Have. Time.” Her eyes flashed with frustration as she enunciated each word. “You asked me to explain my loyalty. I have done so. Would you also like me to explain what will happen to Cole if we don’t act right now?”
Shit. She was right. All I really needed to know was that she was Team Cole, and she’d told me why. Except it threw up one obvious complication.
“Seems to me like it’d be pretty easy for you to land me in trouble with the hunt, and get me out of the way of your engagement.”
“Are you forgetting that there will be no-one to whom either of us might be engaged if Cole receives the death penalty?” She brushed past me while I was still processing the idea ofmegetting engaged—and more—to Cole, and then started down the corridor. “Besides, if I wished you dead, you already would be.”
Well, that was a cheering thought. But true: she had a dozen better ways of getting rid of me than hoping the moon hunt might get carried away and finish me off.
Damned if tonight wasn’t the night for unlikely allies.
I hurried after Thessalia and then fell into step beside her. It wasn’t until we’d slipped through the academy’s doors and out into the night air that I spoke again.
“You said it wasn’t good, that you never loved him,” I said as we walked. “Why is that?”
Because I’d have thought the fact shedidn’tget her heart broken would have been a good thing. And getting out of a politically arranged marriage to a guy I didn’t love? Even better.
She looked like she’d refuse again for a moment, then seemed to decide it didn’t matter.
“You are aware of the tension between vampires and shifters.”
“I’ve been at this academy for the best part of seven months, so yes. Kind of hard to miss.”
“Whom does it serve?”
“Er…what?” The question threw me so completely that I almost walked straight into a ditch. I course corrected at the last moment, and Thessalia gave me an exasperated look that even the darkness couldn’t hide.
“The animosity between the two factions, whom does it serve?” She seemed to decide we didn’t have time for me to scramble for an answer, and answered the question herself. “The elders who oppose progression. Those who wish to cling to power at any cost, even the lives of the next generation. Those who would sooner see us at war than in the prosperity of peace.”
“Okay?”
“No, it isnotokay,” she snarled, rounding on me. I took a quick step back from her sudden fury, and she drew in a breath and regained her composure. “Cole and I, we had a chance to change things. He is heir to the most powerful pack in the free world. I am a princess of the largest clan in America. Our alliance would have ushered in a new world of peace, of unity. We could have changed the entire course of history.” Her lip curled in distaste. “And then you stumbled into the middle of a party uninvited and tore it all apart.”
“I…I didn’t know.”
“Why would you? You were too busy playing the victim, complaining about how coming here ruined your sad little life. You were too busy feeling sorry for yourself to even consider what your presence cost everyone else. The lives that would be lost because of your very existence.”
“Hey, I didn’t ask foranyof this,” I snapped. “Hell, I tried to get out of here—out of your lives—more times than I can count.”
“Yes,” she replied icily. “And how do you think it would look if Cole turned his back on his fated mate—the bond shifter kind holds most sacred—to marry not just someone outside his own pack, but someone outside his ownspecies? Do you think his pack would have accepted that, and continued to follow him? No. The moment you waltzed into that party, our alliance became impossible.”
We drifted deeper into the shadows, following the curve of the wall, and the silence ate at me.
“What happens if you can’t form your alliance?” I asked.
“People continue to die,” she snapped. “But don’t worry. You’ll get everything you wanted, and that’s all that matters.”
