Page 200 of Filthy Royal

Scarlett’s eyelids fluttered open. “Damien.” She’d been pretending to sleep to appease the others, but really, she’d been waiting. For him.

Anya rose from her seated position beside Scarlett’s bed. “I’ll go get him before he roars so loud Darvish’s guards know exactly where to find us again.”

Scarlett managed a smile.

Outside in the shuttle’s hallway, the booming voices of Damien, Luc, Maddox, and Kadon clashed, each trying to shout over the other.

“Alphas.” Anya sighed. “So easily wound up.”

While she wasn’t wrong, Scarlett thought it might be justified in this instance.

She, Anya, Kadon, and Maddox had barely escaped capture by Darvish’s guards when Kadon’s father’s place was raided and she’d no idea what had befallen Damien and Luc in their pursuit of Crex.

Truth be told, she’d been worried sick since she came to earlier, and felt like screaming herself. Except the darkness inside her was once again burned out, and her energy had yet to return.

The shouting in the hallway grew louder.

“You, rest.” Anya could be as bossy as her brother. But she was already gliding toward the door and out of Damien’s shuttle sleeping quarters, and Scarlett didn’t have the strength to argue with her. Or to look away from the new bruises now stretching to her upper arms. Her body, not the walls, was again her canvas; only this time, it was splattered with angry red, purple, yellow, and blue discolorations that looked more painful than pretty.

The door closed behind Anya.

Scarlett knew the aches and pains would recede. The exhaustion too. But it was taking longer than last time, and she was impatient.

She wanted to leap from the bed and glide through the doorway herself. Jump into Damien’s arms and make sure he and Luc were okay—then drag her Alpha back to this huge platform bed that took up nearly the entire space and roll around on the sexy, silky sheets and soft hide that scented of him and had been working her up since she awoke earlier and found herself on her Alpha’s shuttle.

“Scarlett!” Damien’s voice boomed in the hallway, sounding a little nearer.

“I see you got our comms message.” Anya must have met him outside the door because her voice was pitched at a far more normal decibel level, and Scarlett heard her perfectly.

“Yes. After I saw the place.” Damien’s agitation was easy to hear.

Scarlett winced. She could only imagine how bad it had looked. What he must have feared.

“I’m sorry about that.” Anya echoed her thoughts. “We had to get away first. We didn’t want to risk using the comms until we’d made it out and were on our way to the shuttle.”

“Of course. You did good. All of you. But now I need to hold my female.”

“Right.” Anya lowered her voice, but Scarlett was listening hard, so she heard her anyway. “Don’t freak out. The bruises are worse. And her gift…” Anya hesitated. “It almost took down the whole room. Maddox pulled her out just in time. By then, the guards who’d come for her were dead. But it took her a while to wake up.”

“Fuck. The doc—”

“Is on his way,” Anya assured him. “It’s another reason I told Kadon and Maddox to bring her here.”

Scarlett hadn’t been privy to that discussion. She’d been unconscious by then, the pain from her gift’s eruption taking her out completely. Goddess, she hated it. Hated what it might do to her and Damien…

No. She wasn’t going there. Not anymore. She’d have hope. Remain focused.

She and Damien were in this together. Always and forever.

Silence fell in the hallway as if he, too, was coming to grips with what he’d learned.

Eventually, he offered a choked, deep, rasped, “Thank you, Anya, for watching out for her.”

“I got you. Always, big brother.” Anya’s tone was gentler than Scarlett had heard the omega use with her brothers before. “For all the times you watched over me.”

“Anya.” Damien’s voice remained rough. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I disagree. I’ll always be grateful to Nikolai, Maxheim, and Alexi for hustling their asses to keep us warm, fed, and safe. But I will always beparticularlygrateful to you for providing me with something equally precious: love and laughter.”

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