CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

C raig yelled into the Bluetooth headset again, “Survivors! Are there any survivors?”

He glanced up as Brayden came back into the room. The prince had changed into his black Moretti uniform comprising soft black pants, tight black Tee, and open black jacket, the logo black on black on the upper left chest. He looked like all the other males in the room. Except they weren’t Moretti’s. And they weren’t the captain or a prince.

Brayden strode into the room and stopped beside him. Hands on his hips, he glanced around, taking in the actions of his Royal Army.

The king flew in next. Livestream of the castle in flames was on the digital wall screens.

“Fuck me,” the king cursed.

“Gotcha. Five minutes and I want a report, Diego,” Craig instructed. He stared at the prince. “Where is she?”

“Seriously? Our castle blows up and you want to know where the human is?”

“She’s his mate, Brayden, don’t be an asshole,” the king said.

Craig crossed his arms. He wasn’t asking twice.

“With Kate and Willow in the safe room while the castle is being searched for bombs.”

They weren’t taking any chances. Teams of vampires were currently going through the castle from top to bottom— not a simple task—searching for any explosives.

Guests have all been evacuated, Lance checked in.

Roger.

That had been a mammoth task with the sheer number of vampires in the castle, but because they could teleport, many of them had done just that once they had heard of the bombing.

“This is such a fuckup.” The king started pacing. “Tonight was supposed to strengthen our reputation as a solid monarchy. They fucking planned this.”

“Of course they did,” Brayden agreed, staring at the screens. “And took lives with them.”

The one thing Craig admired about the two Moretti brothers was their genuine love for the race. They cared about their vampires, and everything they did was to protect them and help them thrive.

If only they could get the rebellion to understand that.

“Do we know how many?” the king asked.

Craig shook his head.

“Teams are porting in now,” Kurt informed, lifting his own headset off his ear.

Craig’s own beeped.

“Diego.” He listened and nodded. “Alright. Are you harmed?”

A few minutes later, he ended the call and turned to face the royals.

“Thirty survivors.”

The king slammed his fist on the desk and cursed loudly while Brayden punched a hole in the wall. Over one hundred vampires killed in the explosion. It would be a bloody mess for their teams to clean up. He felt his own blood boil in fury.

“The castle has a fair amount of damage...”

The king stormed out of the room. No one saw it as him deserting the situation. Brayden led the army and had done so for hundreds of years. The king trusted him explicitly and knew his fury would only interrupt their work. Plus, they all knew he was going to his queen, and for that, they were grateful. It was safer if their king was in the safe room, which was bomb, blast, bullet, and basically everything proof. His own fury tempered, knowing Brianna was safe in the same room.

Three hours later, he walked down the castle halls beside an equally exhausted, angry, and sweaty Brayden toward the royals.

“Get some sleep, Craig. I want both of us there when we go in tomorrow at sundown.”

They’d been tipped off about the location of the rebel headquarters. It was the closest they’d come to any decent intel for months. Shock waves had gone through the vampire community at the news of the bombing. Never had anything like this happened in Craig’s long lifetime, and five hundred years was a fairly good snapshot.

“We go hard this time, Bray. No more of this pussyfooting around. We take them down and knock them out.”

The prince nodded. “Same page, my friend, same page.”

Yeah, but were they?

Craig stopped walking just as they reached the steel door leading into the safety room inside the king’s wing. The prince stopped and looked at him.

“You going to answer my question from earlier?” he asked the prince.

Brayden crossed his arms. “I could punch your fucking lights out, Commander. If you ever ask me that question again, I might just do that.”

Craig raised a single eyebrow.

“Go get your girl and get out of my fucking sight.”

He let a small smile hit his lips. Yeah, they were okay.

Brayden punched the numbers on the PIN pad and pushed the door open. The king and queen sat at one end of the couch, Vincent’s arm looped around Kate’s shoulders as it often was. Willow sat on the floor flicking through her phone, and Brianna was curled up in an armchair staring wide eyed at him.

“Thank God,” Willow said, scrambling to her feet and running into Brayden’s arms.

Craig took a few steps toward Brianna and held out his hand. “Come.”