Page 41 of Renegade Queen

When he realised he wouldn’t get any answers from us, the bartender sighed, pushing up from his seat. “Get some sleep. You need to be out of here at first light. I’ll leave packs with basic supplies by your doors. It’s the best I can do for you,” he told us, striding into the back, a wave of disappointment following him.

Tank was the first to move as he climbed to his feet and held his hand out for Alyssa. She took it without question. I doubted she’d ever be afraid of the massive shifter; their bond ran deeper than that. Which was good. Because we’d need it with the way things were going.

The rooms we had for the night were pretty nice, considering. They each held two big beds that would be big enough for us all to get some sleep.

Filing into one room, I softly closed the door behind us because I had a feeling the questions weren’t over for the night.

Alyssa gently unwrapped Fizzle from around her neck and placed him on one of the beds before she crossed her arms and stood over him.

“Tell me what they are, Fizzle,” she demanded.

Fizzle sighed, turning around on the soft bed until he curled into a ball. At first, I thought he’d ignore her and pretend to go to sleep. As if that would save him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d tried to dodge this question, and I was surprised he’d managed it up until now.

“The children,” Fizzle admitted, not meeting her eyes. “Or at least that’s what they’ll become. He makes them in the training camps. I don’t know how he does it. But they’re… empty. Whatever it is that makes a person isn’t there any more. They’re mindless drones that have no choice but to obey. They won’t stop until they fulfil their orders. Killing them is nearly impossible; even if you can take one down, five more are waiting to take their place. They are The Endless.”

What. The. Fuck.

I was waiting for the evil soundtrack to kick in. The fact that these words were coming out of the cute, fuzzy little thing in front of me just didn’t compute.

“So we… what do we do?” I stuttered out.

I couldn’t be the only one thinking we needed to fight this.

“Nothing,” Fizzle told me grimly. “You do nothing. You grab your human, get back to the portal, and forget you knew about this cursed place. Live your life. Nymeria is lost; there’s no way to save it.”

“There is,” I demanded. “We stop this king everyone is talking about. We take him out of the picture, and everyone will be safe.”

Why was I the only one who was arguing for this?

“Dean, Maddox, you can’t seriously be thinking about turning your backs on this?”

Neither met my eyes at first until Dean looked up and hit me with a glare. It was one I knew well. It was the one that screamed how much he hated himself.

“Damon is our priority,” he told me.

I looked at Maddox, but he stared at the wall in shock. I didn’t know if he’d even heard what any of us had been talking about. Whatever had happened downstairs had shaken him so much that he was still fighting the shock of it.

“Tank?” The bear was protective as fuck; surely he’d take my side.

He shook his head, turning to look at Alyssa before he spoke. “There’s more going on here than we understand. Hastily made plans will only get you killed. We need more information before we can make any decisions.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely a no.

Alyssa was still staring at Fizzle, but I didn’t think she could see him. She hadn’t spoken since he’d told her the truth about what he’d been trying to avoid. I could see the pain and confusion on her face, and I felt like an ass for pressing the issue.

She wouldn’t abandon these people. But I also knew she needed more time to come to terms with what this place had turned into before she could find her anger. And if we were going up against some kind of brainwashing monster, anger was one emotion we all needed to find. Because this was going to be hard. A fight from beginning to end, and it wouldn’t finish until more blood had been spilt than any of us were comfortable with. It would change us.

But we couldn’t turn away from this.

Too many people had turned their backs; they needed someone to remind them how to stand up and fight again.

Chapter 20

Alyssa

I snuggled closer to Tank, listening to every breath he took and clinging to the sound, hoping it would calm the spiral of emotions inside me.

Ryder was right that we needed to do something, but I had no idea what that was. How were the five of us supposed to take on such an enormous task alone?