for us to survive on our own. Not to mention that we’d be hunted down by our own kind for breaking from our sires without permission.” Siah narrows his eyes at Bastien. “So you tell me where we’re supposed to go.”
The room falls quiet, everyone’s gazes locked on each other. Uncertainty and tension wafts around each of us as we all try to work out what happens now.
“So how do we stop him?” Sabin finally asks.
“I don’t know if you can. He’s obliterated much larger numbers than you have, so attacking him won’t go well.” He jerks his chin in my direction. “As soon as he finds out that she’s this close, he’ll throw everything he has at you in order to get to her.”
“Then we make sure he doesn’t find out,” Bastien announces, glaring at Siah.
“I’m not going to tell him, if that’s what you’re getting at, but they haven’t exactly been discreet in their hunting.” Siah jerks his chin in the direction of Aydin and Evrin. “It’s only a matter of time before someone recognizes who they are and lamia are sent to investigate.”
“Will he trade for Lachlan and Keegan?” I ask Siah.
“Trade what?” Aydin asks confused.
I take a deep breath. “Me.”
The word is barely out of my mouth before the whole room explodes with arguing. I wait silently as they fling their objections my way. But their promises that we’ll find another way, or the reasons they have for why it’s a bad idea, slide right off of me as I watch the crystal-blue eyes that are watching me.
“Your friends are the only leverage Adriel has right now. He would say he’d exchange them, but he won’t. He’ll use it as a way to lure you out, take you, and then use them against you. Even if they managed to escape somehow, he’ll hunt anyone and everyone you’ve ever known. He’ll dangle each and every one of them in front of you until they’re dead or he gets what he wants.”
“Fucking hell,” Knox breathes out, and the frustration in his words tickles my ear as it passes by.
I watch Siah as I mentally flip through the options for other plans of attack. Violet magic sparks on my hands, and I mentally curse it and shake them until the flashes sputter out. Ryker gives me a questioning raised eyebrow, and I huff out a breath and shake my head.
“We’ll talk about that later,” I tell him, and he snorts out an exasperated breath of his own.
Keep the flirting and the Chosen marking to yourself, magic. We’ve got enough shit to deal with right now; you and your hoarding can just fucking wait, I scold, and then once again feel like a dumbass for lecturing something that’s essentially me. Although I swear it has to have a mind of its own.
“So what if we attack from all angles?” Kallan asks absently, and all eyes in the room move to him.
“Meaning?” Valen asks.
“Meaning, what if Vinna gives herself up—” The rest of Kallan’s words are swallowed up by shouting. Everyone starts to square off, and I begin to feel like the aggression in the room is about to boil me alive. I push out of Knox’s arms, which isn’t hard to do because he wants in on the beat down that sits like a promise in the eyes of all of my Chosen.
“Stop!” I yell out, and the command is punctuated by a pulse of Sentinel magic that shoots out in a purple arc that slams into everyone. Enoch, Nash, and Kallan drop to their knees, and everyone else in the room hisses as the magic rushes through them and out through the walls. I look down at my hands, a little surprised by what just happened.
Well, fuck.
Looks like my magic is done messing around. I brush off my surprise and try to adopt a I totally meant to do that mien. Based on Torrez and Knox’s snickers, I’m not pulling it off as well as I was hoping for. I shoot them both a look and then focus on Kallan. He struggles to look up at me.
“Uh, are you okay?” I ask warily, completely shattering any illusion that I know what I’m doing. I offer him a hand, and as soon as I do, it’s like whatever hold was keeping Kallan and his coven on the ground breaks. They all get up, their eyes bouncing from their limbs to me like they can’t figure out who or what betrayed