Page 256 of Entangled

“She’s making them too easy to push.” Beau looks up from the map and runs a hand down his face. “No-one’s arguing that Aaron is prince charming—the boy doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together—but Heather is burning hot right now. We all best watch she doesn’t get herself into trouble out there.”

My doctor doesn’t look at Dom as he agrees with him, but Dom gives him a grudging look of gratitude anyway.

Bentley crumples the map so he can look at the room again. “How do we feel about pouring molten oil on their heads? They used it in the Hundred Years’ War’s Siege of Orléans and it sounded like a party to me.”

“We’re not bringing...” Dom cuts himself off and sighs again.

They begin arguing again, back and forth over the same things they’ve been discussing for the last hour, so instead of taking my seat, I find myself drifting over to the window.

The teenage boy stands amid the curtains, just outside of the glare—a ghost who only exists in shadows. His hair is black as night and a shade too long, and he watches out the window with a quiet yearning.

He’s vampirically pale, but when he glances up at me, his large, beautiful eyes transform his whole face into something tragic and lovely. They’re the dappled brown of a pebbled riverbed, rippling with emotion.

“Hello,” he says in a soft, airy kind of voice.

“Hi.” I give him a little, awkward wave. “My name is Eden—I’m with the Bristlebrook group.”

Ugh. Obviously. He’s been watching us for the last six hours.

He nods, smiling softly. “I know. You brought me my medicine. I’m Soren.”

I blink, looking at him, then glance about, noting the air purifiers placed strategically around this room as well. He’s the boy who has asthma.

Severe asthma, it would seem.

I step closer, looking out the window down to a small patio outside where a group of teenagers are happily sprawled under the moonlight. I glance back at him, and he shakes his head at the silent question.

“It’s better if I stay inside. The city air is hard on my lungs. There’s too much rubble, and the Sinners keep stirring it up. It’s not worth wasting the medicine.” He smiles ruefully. He looks ethereally sad in the dim lights—and much, much older than fifteen.

My heart is just starting to shred up at the melancholy in him when he waves a dismissive hand, looking back at the table blanketed in maps.

“Besides, this is fascinating. It’s like a modern Sack of Rome. I hope you don’t mind me staying to listen. My uncle said it was fine.”

Soren glances at Bentley, and realization hits me. “You’re Bentley’s nephew?”

No wonder Bentley was so desperate for medicine. The voices by the table rise.

“We can’t bring a fucking cauldron with us. How would we even heat it? No hot oil. No battering ram. We have explosives. Rifles. Jesus Christ.” Dom sounds almost ready to flip the table, and I suppress a smile.

At Soren’s nod, I lean against the windowsill. “Your uncle is a wonderful man. He came to help rescue me, you know.”

Soren’s smile grows into a grin. “He said you didn’t need it.”

Well. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but I’m flattered enough that I grin too.

Dom straightens from the table. “Okay, enough. There’s such a thing as overplanning. Anyone who doesn’t need to be here should go and get something to eat, do whatever you need to do. We leave in an hour.”

Soren turns and coughs into his elbow. “I should go say goodbye to my uncle.”

I nod at him kindly and turn to see the room quickly empty of people. Dom lingers at the head of the table, staring down at the map. He’s never looked more kingly to me than he does now, imposing and gorgeous and towering over his strategy papers, the weight of responsibility balancing solidly on his shoulders.

But under that, I see the man whose dry humor keeps catching me off guard and whose eyes melt over me like a pot of gold. He’s also the man who has spent week on week now sharing his worries.

I should go now and get ready with the rest of them. I’m hungry and I need some water... but this may be the last time we’re alone together. It’s the first time we’ve been truly alone since the night of the bond-fire.

And I still owe him some truths.

Chapter57

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