Page 46 of Renegade Queen
I didn’t let her push me far, but I stopped pressing her against the wall. She needed to know that she’d never be able to push me away. I’d always stand by her side, no matter what.
“What would you know?” she snapped.
“I know you’re afraid. That this man they call a king took everything from you, and in doing so, you thought that he’d broken you. You’ve been hiding in the human realm not because you’re weak, but because you needed time to heal. There’s nothing wrong with that, Alyssa. You can’t fight for others if you’re still hurting from your wounds. We were just the excuse you needed to cross over. I’m not saying you don’t want to help us. Because I know you do. But I also know you won’t turn your back on these people either.”
She stared at me in shock, but didn’t deny it. Alyssa was too good for this world, for any world. None of us deserved her, yet here we were in her orbit, unable to let go. Maybe it was selfish. I didn’t give a fuck. Because now that I’d met her, there was no way I’d ever be able to let her go. And neither would the beast that was growing stronger inside of me.
“What if I can’t do it?” she asked quietly, her doubts finally rising to the surface.
“Then we’ll help you. You aren’t in this alone, Alyssa.”
“And Damon?” she asked.
“Damon is right where we need to go. Saving him and saving this place doesn’t need to be two separate things.”
Or at least that was what I hoped. Because I didn’t want to have to make a choice if Alyssa decided to turn her back on Damon and help the people suffering here instead. I couldn’t choose between her and the man I owed everything to. And I prayed with every ounce of my being that she wouldn’t make me.
“Is this a private party, or are we starting an orgy in the hallway? Because after listening to you and Tank for the past hour, I’m hard as a rock and need something to help ease the pain,” Ryder quipped from behind me.
I should have known the cocky fucker would follow me out here eventually. The fact that it came with an inappropriate dick joke was Ryder to a T.
“Alyssa and I were just discussing saving those people,” I told him. “Fizzle filled me in on where they make camp. We’re going to sneak in and get them out. See if we can get some intel on these Endless bastards while we’re there.”
Alyssa cocked one eyebrow in response. I knew she didn’t want me to go with her. Doing this was dangerous, and we had no weapons—ones of any use, at least. I couldn’t shift yet and had no idea what I was doing with a sword. If anything, I was probably a liability at this point. That didn’t mean I’d accept staying behind, though. She wasn’t going alone. And I wasn’t totally against my role being the distraction that bought her the time she needed to get away.
“We recon first, then we make a plan,” Maddox told us, and I leaned forward, banging my head against the wall as I realised both of them were standing behind me. “I’ll go and wake the bear.”
They were stubborn fuckers, just like me.
And there was no way they’d stay behind either.
Chapter 22
Alyssa
“You have no magic, no control of your animals and not even a rudimentary knowledge of using a sword,” I reminded the three soldiers staring at me like I was an insane person. “Of course, you’re not going in there.”
We’d been sitting on the outskirts of The Endless camp for nearly two hours, and in that time, not a single one of them had moved. Not because they were asleep. They stood motionless around the cart, almost like they’d just shut down.
And it was freaking me the fuck out.
The problem was, if they were aware of what was happening around them—and I highly doubted they weren’t—there was no possible way to sneak into the camp and up to the cart where the villagers were being held.
“We surround, advance, and engage,” Dean decided, and I looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
“By engage, do you actually mean die very quickly? Because I’m assuming you’ve forgotten that you don’t actually know how to fight with that sword,” I pointed out sarcastically.
From the way he glared at me, I couldn’t decide if he had actually forgotten or if running in there and getting himself killed was part of the plan. Just how much should I be worrying about this guy?
“These guys have a hard-on for magic, right?” I asked Fizzle, who immediately started to shake his head, but only because he knew me well enough to know what I was about to suggest. “I’ll draw them away. Take the prisoners when you have a window, and we’ll regroup at the caves. Fizzle will show you the way.”
I was already balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to leap into action, when Tank’s hand clamped down on my shoulder.
“Even I can tell that’s a bad idea,” he grumbled, giving me a slight shove, so I fell back on my ass.
“We have no idea how he makes The Endless, let alone communicates with them. If you run out there waving the magic flag, it will be obvious what and who you are,” Fizzle chastised me. “If you’re not going to let the grumpy human run out there and die, you can hardly expect us to let you do the same.”
He did have a point, although I was a bit annoyed that he didn’t think I had the skills to pull this off. I might have been away from Nymeria for a while, but I wasn’t that rusty—I didn’t think.