Chapter 20

Chapter

Twenty

DANYAL

I didn't breathe easy until we were in the air; Mikael managed a shift to heal and then fell into a deep sleep so the rest of him could recover. When he had, I poked my head into the cockpit and Arturo invited me to sit.

I still wasn't a great flier, but after everything we'd been through, it seemed so small. I settled into the seat, then looked over at him and saw the tension around his eyes and mouth. It was still a marvel that he was a Wolf under that human guise, though I knew that wasn't quite it.

He wasn't posing as a human—his breed had just evolved differently.

"Are you all right?" he asked after a beat.

I offered a weak smile and shrugged. "That was the first time I've ever killed anyone."

He sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. "It doesn't get easier, if that's what you were hoping."

I glanced out at the clouds below us, like a white sea of cotton. "I didn't think so. I wouldn't want it to. I'm not exactly eager to go through that again."

"That might be a foolish hope," he told me.

I knew that—of course, I knew that—but I wasn't going to give up on the idea of peace just yet. "Did you manage to get Kasher in?"

Arturo didn't move for long seconds, then eventually he nodded. "They took him into custody and will be delivering him to a secure location. Your Alpha will help deal with him."

It made sense. After all, Misha and Kor had suffered just like all the others. "Do you think Yasin will recover enough to see his mate again?"

"I don't think she'll allow them to be separated even if he doesn't," Arturo said, "but from what my friends tell me, he's speaking a little bit."

Danyal shuddered with relief, and he remembered seeing the light in Yasin's eyes when he'd helped him. He wasn't lost. Danyal wouldn't ever, ever believe he was lost. "They did that to my brother. He's the Alpha you were talking about—who was rescued. I don't know the details. Kasher grabbed me before I had any idea how bad it was, but I could feel it. I could feel Zane slipping."

I wasn't quite ready to talk about how it felt when the bond had come close to breaking, but I had a feeling Arturo understood better than anyone.

"It will eventually come to an end. I just don't know whose side will claim victory."

I snorted. "Claim? Probably both. In reality…" No one. No one would come out of this the winner. We would all suffer unimaginable pain and loss, like we had for decades. But we might come out of this freer than before, and I supposed for most humans and Wolves, it would be worth it.

I was hit by a sudden and intense wave of fatigue, and I heard Arturo let out a small chuckle. "Why don't you rest? We have a long way to go."

Part of me wanted to argue for the sake of being polite, but I realized there was no point. And in all honesty, curling up in my mate's arms was the only thing I wanted to do. On the floor next to the bench seat, Mikael was shifted again, breathing steady and soft, and it took no effort at all to lower myself down.

Though he didn't wake, his arms opened for me, and when he pulled me close, I realized that was exactly where I belonged.

I woke alone and we were still in the air, but I could feel the tension in the plane. It was difficult to hear over the engines, but I could make out Mikael and Arturo's voices from the cockpit, and the fact that I was still on the floor told me we weren't in any sort of danger.

Which likely meant we were close to home.

Pushing myself up to sit, I scrubbed both hands down my face, then twisted my body from side to side. I popped and cracked in several places, but it felt good to stretch out, and I felt rested. It was easier that way to ignore the hollow pit of hunger in my gut, especially knowing that we were almost on home soil.

Or, at least, close to it.

I carefully climbed to my feet, then shuffled over to the cockpit where Mikael was already staring over his shoulder. His mouth was set in a firm line, but there was a softness to it that put me at ease. We hadn't been followed—at least as far as they could tell.

"We're about thirty minutes from descent," Mikael said. "I've got the directions to the safehouse and the scent of it memorized. There's enough supplies to last a week or two, though I think the rest of the council will be anxious to get us home."

"Get you home," I countered.

Mikael reached out, seizing me by the wrist, and he tugged me close. "Your siblings are probably losing their minds without you. And you're important to everyone else."

I had nothing to say to that. I hadn't really considered myself an integral part of the resistance. It was a safe space for my research, and Misha had been the perfect canvas for my theories, but that was it. Yes, my serum had helped Orion—as far as I knew, anyway—but I wasn't sure that was going to help us in the long run. After all, now that we knew Wolves existed who could pass as humans, why would we need Alphas or Betas to pass as Omegas?

"I can hear you thinking," Mikael said softly. He nodded to Arturo, then pushed me back so he could come around the seat, and he dragged me to the farthest seat in the plane. We hit a couple of air pockets that made me gasp, and Mikael quickly had me in his arms as he helped do up the belts to keep us locked in place. He touched the corner of my eye. "You also have a tell. Do you want to talk about it?"

I bit my lip, then shrugged. "Going home feels a little too real."

"Because of this?" He punctuated his question by dragging my wrist to his nose, snuffling along the sensitive skin there before laying a licking kiss to my palm. The scent of him surrounded me and gods, I loved it.

"Because it means there's a war on. It means that people are going to die. It means that the gods only know what's coming after this."

He tugged me closer, but I appreciated that he didn't try to reassure me with false promises. He knew better than I did the consequences of taking on the humans. Surviving each battle had been a combination of skill and luck, and there was no telling when it would run out.

I wasn't ready to lose him yet.

I wanted more time to be angry, more time to work through my feelings of abandonment and hurt. I wanted time to learn to trust him, to let this sharp, almost hysterical love turn into something soft and comforting.

I wanted our bond, and I wanted time to feel it before we had to dive into action.

Before I risked losing him for good.

"What can I do?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Nothing. There's nothing either of us can promise because we don't know what's waiting for us."

"That's not true." He cupped my cheek, then shifted as close as the seatbelt would allow before dragging his thumb over my bottom lip. "You are a priority—not just because I feel this inherent need to protect you, which I do. I know it annoys you," he added when my face fell, and I couldn't help a small, embarrassed laugh for being so obvious. "It's my nature—as an Alpha and as your mate."

I closed my eyes. He was my mate. It was stupid to even try to deny it now, not that I'd considered it. But hearing him say it like that was…a lot. "I understand."

"We're going to give this fight our all, but I'm going to give you my all in equal measure. I fucked it up once, Danyal. I won't do it again."

It was enough, and the realization of that hit me like a punch to the gut. Yes, I would still be angry for a while. Yes, trusting him not to leave when things got hard would be a journey. But I believed him.

And I believed myself.

"Three days, right?"

He blinked at me. "Three days?"

"For us. For just us, before it all comes crashing down," I told him. I clung to his hand harder and curled up against his chest as he nosed through my hair. "I'm in too."

His grip on me tightened to the point of painful, but I wouldn't have it any other way.