Chapter 23

Chapter

Twenty-Three

ZANE

T here was maybe something ironic about the fact that Orion's injuries were worse than mine in spite of me taking the blast full in the face. Or maybe it was an unintended victory for those sadistic bastards who would have loved nothing more than to hurt me in the worst way. And going after the Wolf who was soon to be my mate was my one vulnerable spot.

Of course, both of us would heal. It would take more than an explosive device and a handful of burns to do more than set us back a couple of days, and the humans knew that. This wasn't an attempt on our lives, this was a message to all Wolves, letting us know they were amongst us. That we wouldn't be safe because they could sneak in and out of our cities, and we wouldn't know until one of us was lying face-down on the pavement, body on fire.

In the hours it took for Orion to regain consciousness, I paced the hallway, ignoring the impossible itch as my skin knit itself together. I spent the first hour mostly blind, but it didn't take long for the soft parts of my body to heal. I blinked through blurry tears as the light began to return, and the moment I was able to stand, I was out of the room.

The hospital was barely functional. It felt more empty without Danyal there, and I wanted to claw the walls when they told me I couldn't see Orion. "He needs time to recover, and he's not conscious," the Beta doctor told me. I recognized her vaguely from when I'd visit Danyal, and I knew she had been a medic in the war.

But we weren't close, and I knew if my brother had been there, I'd have had access to my lover without having to beg.

It didn't take long for Theo and Francisco to show up though, and that was at least distracting as they managed to get us a room to speak privately. Aisling was there after a couple of minutes as well, and as much as I didn't want to trust this newcomer, I could see in her eyes, she was in this as much as we were.

"Kor briefed us before he left for Canada," Theo said, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

I scratched at the bandages on my arms, feeling the way my raw skin was knitting together, and all I wanted to do was shift and hurry the process along. "I still think it's a terrible fucking idea," I admitted. "I'm barely together, and apparently I can't even walk into my house without getting blown up."

Francisco winced, and he exchanged a look with his mate, then with Aisling. "We have the area being investigated right now. One of the projects Kor had us take on before he left was setting up a more reliable security feed. Mikael put his team on it before he took off after Danyal, and they've gotten most of the city wired up."

"It's been pointed out," Aisling said quietly from her spot near the empty hospital bed, "that our vulnerabilities aren't within the city limits, and there are more than a few ways in and out of Corland."

"We have them on it too," Theo said, sounding annoyed.

I had no idea how welcome her presence was, but I knew they both hated change. Forming the Council had been difficult enough, but Kor asking them to accept another Alpha likely pushed them to the edge.

"We have a list a mile long," I said with a quiet sigh. I scratched at some of the wounds in my face, but the scabs were starting to flake off, and raw, new skin was shining beneath them. "They're not going to strike openly though. Not for a while."

"What makes you so sure?" Theo asked.

I shrugged. "Because I got out. Because Orion managed to spread enough irrefutable evidence that they don't have a leg to stand on. Even if people are willing to buy the bullshit they're selling, at some point, they have to accept the truth and admit they're willing to sacrifice our people for the illusion of control."

"And not all the information has been decoded," Aisling pointed out. "We're getting updates daily, and Nadya's last message said there's video and photographic evidence of their experiments. That's why they're scrambling. They know what's coming."

I blew out a puff of air, my stomach clenching. Was it me? Did they have video of me and what I did?

I didn't realize I was panicking until I felt Theo's claws sink into my neck, and only then was I able to breathe. "It's going to be me, you know. What they…what they've got. It'll be all the shit they forced me to do. I can't take Kor's place if they…"

"Enough," Theo said through a quiet rumble. "We're not having this conversation right now."

"He's not wrong though," Aisling said. "Our people—the people here who have suffered at the hands of these monsters, they'll understand what happened, and they won't question your ability to lead. But unless we can control the narrative…"

"And why the fuck wouldn't we?" Francisco snapped.

She turned and raised a brow at him. "Because we're not the only ones in possession of the information. You're out of your mind if you don't think that groups all over the world aren't just as far as we are—maybe even further."

I let out a trembling breath, then stepped away from Theo's hand. "We need a contingency plan, and it might be better if I don't take up a public position as Head Alpha."

"I'm doing what Kor asked," Theo said, his tone unmoving. He glanced at Francisco who didn't meet his gaze, and I felt the betrayal there like it was a physical thing. "Fine. You want to stage a coup…"

"No one is saying that," Aisling replied quietly.

He turned to her, his eyes flaring and narrowed. "Is that so? Are you telling me this isn't exactly what you planned? You roll up in here and sow the seeds of discord so you can be named leader?"

She let out a rough, deep laugh. "You're out of your fucking mind. I don't want the position of Head Alpha. I didn't want to be here in the first place, but I owed Kor a debt from the war. He saved my mate, and he saved me. And it's only because I lost my entire family to these monsters that I was willing to let him cash in on this."

Theo said nothing, and after a beat, I stepped between them. "For now, we lay low. We make no major announcements, and we wait to see if Nadya can come through before anyone else. And if she can't…"

"Let's say a prayer Kor finds what he needs and gets his ass back here," Theo muttered.

I couldn't have agreed more, but before I could voice that, the door opened, and the Beta doctor poked her head in.

"Sorry to interrupt, but he's awake if you'd like to…"

I didn't give her the chance to finish. I shoved past her roughly, moving so quickly, the hospital was a blur as I made my way to Orion's room. The door was cracked, and when I stepped in, I came to a stuttered halt at the sight of him.

He was covered in bandages, apart from the tips of his fingers, which were pink and burned. His eyes were covered in thick gauze pads, taped shut, and my stomach twisted as I shook myself out of my head and stepped forward.

His nostrils flared as he took in my scent, and the edges of his burnt, chapped lips lifted in a grin. "How long you been waiting out there?"

"She wouldn't let me see you," I complained. I wanted to rub my face all over him, but it would have been agony, so I gingerly lifted his arm and kissed the bare tips of his fingers. "The Council was here, and we just ended the meeting."

"Shitty time for it," he said, easing back against his pillows. He grimaced when I set his arm down. "Shitty time for all of this."

Reaching over, I pulled the chair from the little desk set into the wall, then sat near the bed. "So, what did she have to say? Anything permanent?" I didn't care if it was. I meant what I said to him before—he was mine, regardless of his body or his status. But I couldn't help my worry.

"Nah. She doesn't think so anyway. Well, she's not sure about the whole Omega thing." He reached up and gingerly picked at the tape on his gauze until I pulled his hand away.

"Give it time. The blast blew out my eyes just as bad, but it only took about an hour to heal up," I told him.

He let out a quiet puff of air. "If you say so."

"I do. Now, what about this Omega shit?"

I had a feeling if he could, he would have been rolling his eyes at me. "Figured it was a good time to have them test my blood. She said I'm still full of Omega hormones, but none of it seems to be affecting my outward appearance."

"Apart from that orange in your eyes," I pointed out.

He nodded, then winced. "Yeah. She said she was in on the project with Danyal, but most of his research was locked in his computer and no one can access it. We're stuck until Mikael drags his ass back home."

"Well, we need Mikael for a lot of things," I confessed. When Orion's brow furrowed, I told him everything the Council and I had discussed. He looked pissed about it, but he was pragmatic enough to understand that this might ruin what little progress we'd already made with the rebellion. "No one's going to follow a Wolf who ripped the throats out of their own kind."

"They're doing it right now," he snapped. "The government's fucking full of them. Those bastards are the one who led the humans right to Kor. Right to you, and everyone just looked the other way."

"Not everyone," I pointed out gently. "And those Wolves are the ones who matter. It doesn't need to be me, you know."

He sat up in spite of the pain, and he reached for me. I let him take my hand, and he brought it to his nose, snuffling along the inside of my wrist. "None of that was your fault. They tortured you, stripped you of who you were. They turned you into…"

"A beast," I said, and he winced, but he didn't try to argue with the word. "I know. But it's a struggle for me not to put all the blame on myself. The others…it'll just be better if they have someone a little more clean than I am."

"You're not fucking dirty, and if I hear that shit again, I'm going to kick your ass the moment I get these bandages off."

I chuckled and kissed his fingers again. "I know. And I welcome it. For now, you need to rest. We're both healing, and there's not a lot we can do until we have all those files."

Orion's bandages were slowly peeled away a few hours after I was allowed in the room, and it was painful to see his face blasted, burned, and raw—but he was healing. His eyes were clouded with scars for the first little while, but light was coming back, he said, then pulled me onto the bed next to him.

"The first thing I want to see is your face," he murmured, nosing my jaw.

My throat was tight as I tried not to cling to him, and all I could think about was sinking my fangs into his shoulder and being done with the distance between our souls.

The color in his irises started returning just after dusk, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw streaks of orange inside the bright blue. Though I doubted he could see me clearly, he still caught my gaze, his mouth turned down at the corners.

"What is it?" I bit my lip, so he reached out and pinched my side hard enough to hurt. "Zane."

Blowing out a puff of air, I pushed up to sit straight, then cupped his cheek in my hand. His skin was pulled tight as it regenerated, and I knew it was likely as sensitive as mine had been. "There's orange in your eyes."

He blinked at me, and I heard his heart speed up a fraction. "They're orange?"

"Not entirely. Streaks," I said, striking my thumb under his left one. "Like lightning."

He said nothing after that, and there was tension in the room when the doctor appeared to do a last check of his injuries. She spent more time on his eyes than anything, and she cast us both a couple of curious looks, but she didn't say anything about it. I knew it was because this was Danyal's area, and he was currently lost to us.

"I think it's safe to let you go," she said, writing something in his chart. She looked up at me after that. "Also, General Bereket, you have someone waiting for you down in the lobby. If you want to go see them, I'll get all of Major Peterson's discharge papers in order."

I glanced back at Orion, who waved me off. "It's fine. It's probably Council business, and I know you need to take care of that shit, even if we did just get blown up."

I rolled my eyes, but leaned in to kiss him gently on his freshly mended lips. "I won't be long." He was probably right, but I felt a sudden pulse in my pack bond, and it became obvious who it was the moment I got down to the ground floor and saw my sister waiting for me with her arms crossed, her yellow eyes flaring.

"You son of a bitch," she hissed through clenched teeth.

I ignored her rage and pulled her into a tight hug, and she only resisted a minute before she collapsed into me. She didn't cry—neither of us had ever been big criers—but I could feel the anguish in the bond, and I sent her back a pulse of my own.

"You two are trying to kill me, do you know that?" she growled when I stepped back. "I can't…I can't keep doing this."

"I know," I told her quietly.

She lifted a hand and traced her fingers down a tender spot on my cheek that had been a particularly large gash. "Was it the same people who took you?"

"I think so," I told her, "but we can't be sure. We're focusing our efforts on security right now, and I think everyone's happy to believe it was the humans."

She lifted a brow at me. "You're not convinced."

It wasn't a question, and Talia and I had been close enough, she didn't need to feel it in the bond to know my suspicions. "I think there's something deeper at play here, but I don't know where to start. Yet," I added.

She nodded, biting her lip for a long moment. "I could feel you, you know. The whole time you were gone. I never lost you."

I winced. "I wish you had cut it off. What I went through…"

"No," she said. "You know damn well you wouldn't have done it if it was me. Or Danyal. You've been through torture, and I'm guessing you can still feel every one of Danyal's heartbeats."

I couldn't deny it. "He's doing better than I am."

Her smile turned a little sad. "I know. That's probably everything to do with the fact that he's a geneticist. And the fact that Orion exposed the whole organization."

I nodded, but I couldn't help the way my face fell at the mention of my lover's name. "This isn't even the beginning. This is just a hint of where we need to start."

Her eyes lowered, and she let out a deep sigh. "We're ready for it, you know. Anyway," she said after a beat, "Cameron thinks you two should come stay with us for a bit. He doesn't trust that Orion's place hasn't been tampered with, and I'm siding with him. We have room anyway."

I opened my mouth to argue, but I realized there was no point. They had in-law quarters, a little one room cottage detached from their house, and it was the perfect spot to lie low while we recovered and flushed out any Wolf who might be attempting to sabotage us from the inside.

I wasn't sure Orion would be thrilled with the idea, but I wasn't sure I was ready to give him a choice. "Let me go talk to him. He's getting discharged right now, and I'm not sure he's going to put up much of a fight."

"I trust you can convince him either way," she said with a wink. "I'll go pull the car around."

I almost laughed. Talia had always been a more pushy Alpha than I ever was. As children, it was always easier to let her take the lead, and I think most people were surprised that she went into Military administration and tactics, and I went into battle because she had always been the first to jump into any fight.

But she was good at what she did, and knowing her now—as a mate, and a mother, and a sister, and the woman she grew up to be—it all made sense.

I felt a bit lighter as I went back up to Orion's room, and my heart thumped a little at the sight of him in clothes, taking ginger steps to test his balance. He looked over at me with clear eyes and a small grin, and I moved into him, curling my hand around his neck.

"Everything good?" he asked, tilting his jaw to the side to let me nose at him.

I felt strangely more animalistic since returning to myself—more possessive, more at the whims of my instincts, but it was hard to hate it. Especially because of the way it made Orion's breathing speed up, and his body open to mine.

I licked the side of his neck, then pulled away and sighed. "Talia's here."

His eyes widened. "Shit. Did she rip you a new asshole?"

I laughed and shook my head. "She's here on behalf of Cameron who is insisting we come stay with them." When Orion opened his mouth to argue, I reached down and squeezed his wrist. "They have the space—that little apartment detached from their house. And she brought up a good point. We don't know if someone fucked with your place."

"There's no way the humans who set that bomb stuck around," he said, pulling away with a frown.

I found the courage to meet his gaze as I let out a small sigh. "If it was humans."

"You think…?"

"I don't know what I think," I interrupted, too tired to go into detail. "But we were both hurt, and we're both recovering, and I'm not sure our bodies will stand up to another attack."

I saw when he gave in, the way his body deflated. "Promise me it's not forever. I'm not going to cower in some little room and let everyone fight our battles for us."

"That's not going to happen," I told him, pulling him close again. "In the morning, I'm going to meet with the Council, and we'll get your place cleared."

"And after that?" he asked.

I looked him in the eye when I spoke next, hating the words I had to say. "And after that, we step right back into war."