my face that when you come for me and my sisters, this is what you have to look forward to.
I blink, snapping myself out of the brutal daydream, and find a smile stretched across Wrath’s beautiful face. “Oh, I approve, Ire,” she says, her tone somehow both ruthless and warm.
Ire, Acedia, and Tazreel all stare back at Wrath like they’ve never seen her smile before. The looks on their faces would almost be comical if I didn’t already know that laughing at them is a big no-no here.
“Not only will we have long lost Annuli blood in our line, but she’s positively bloodthirsty,” Wrath announces as she takes me in with a grin.
Someone sucks in a breath. “What did you just say?” Tazreel demands, his voice low and menacing and his shoulders bunching. There’s a calm to his tone that the fury now radiating off of him signals as false, and everyone around me tenses.
Wrath’s head snaps to Tazreel, confusion written across her savagely beautiful features.
Delta turns to me. “How does she know what we are?” she hisses, and trepidation blooms in my chest.
My eyes connect with Ire’s bright blue gaze, and Delta curses quietly, piecing together what happened without my needing to say anything. Worry and anger churn in my gut, and I don’t know how to feel about Ire spilling my secret to his mother. I mean, I didn’t make him swear on promises of death not to say anything, but I wasn’t thinking when I spilled it all out for him in the alcove. I just wanted help, and I unloaded it all for him to help carry.
I messed up.
Tazreel rounds on Delta. “Annuli? You knew?” he growls at her, and I hear a hint of hurt buried deeply under the outrage that’s pouring off of him.
“Nefta knew it would be used against us. It’s why she hid us in the first place and kept our Annuli blood a secret,” Delta tells him, no ounce of apology in her tone.
A myriad of emotions cross Tazreel’s face: shock, awe, hurt, indignation, rage. He settles the last one over his features, and a deadly calm takes over him. “I’m going to kill her,” he states simply, like he’s not prophesying the death of a mother I haven’t even met yet.
“How was she wrong in protecting that secret, Taz?” Delta demands, her own fury crashing against our fathers. “Look what’s happened to us just in the past couple of months because of what we are. Do you think we would have fared better as children fighting off the beings that were either threatened by us or wanted to use us like Morax is currently trying to?”
Morax’s name seems to snap everyone out of the tense moment and refocus us on the issue at hand. But then Tazreel lobs another accusation at Delta and I, losing them again. I disengage from their drama with a huff and look around for Medley or any spying eyes that will be a threat to us. I don’t see anyone watching us intently, which is odd since we’re kind of making a scene.
It’s as though the other Sins don’t care or somehow don’t see what’s happening. I look over at an Abdicated sitting in a chair not too far from us, staring boredly at a jeweled goblet in his hand. His fingers straighten, and the goblet drops with a loud clang, drawing a few eyes, but my attention moves away at the sound of Tazreel and Delta starting to quietly argue. I try to tune back into what they’re saying, but when I turn around, Ire’s blue eyes are focused intently on me. I look away, not sure how to feel about him right now.
First, it seems like he doesn’t believe me, then he outs me to Mommy Dearest, and now shit’s melting down and we haven’t even really addressed the whole Morax is going to kill all of you if you don’t do something about it issue.
“Stop!” I cut in, interrupting the growing agitation, my tone seething. “We can point fingers and slam doors later. Right now, we need to deal with Morax, because I’d rather die than go back to being his prisoner again. If we don’t do something, and do it fast, Morax will make sure that happens.” My voice cracks a little with emotion, and I can’t help but feel like we’re running out of time.
“She’s right,” Wrath agrees with a nod. “We need to get the other Sins and come