King Tomb (Forever Evermore, #3)(2)
After listening to Commander Lyons ask for my opinion on field position, I responded, “Sweep the north end. Elder Farrar,” ah, there was the ice, a breeze sweeping through my veins, “is to the west; his team is minutes from entering the target. I want you to hold the north for any Coms that will more than likely flee in that direction.”
“Hostages?” Commander Lyons asked with a chuckle.
I felt nothing. Just saying the name of Antonio, Elder Farrar, the man I thought of as ‘Dad’ once upon a time, shot ice water through my veins. “Do a spell to find their highest ranking official before they get to you. Take their leader as hostage, so I can interrogate him or her,” I heard Commander Lyons chuckle again quietly, “and kill the rest.” I snapped the paperwork closed, a contraction shattering the ice, heat flooding my system so hard I shivered as I placed a bracing hand on the desk near me. “These are the bastards that lined up and shot the hostages they had acquired outside Southport.” Their hostages were a group of Mysticals that had only included two elderly grandparents trying to flee with their five grandchildren — after the children’s parents had been hanged on flagpoles by the Com army here as a blatant ‘f*ck you’ to our forces that were kicking their asses. “We need to show them what a ‘f*ck you’ really is.”
Quiet, then dead seriousness. “Understood, Queen Ruckler.”
My lips pinched as I felt a sudden heaviness between my thighs. “Commander Kester will be taking over the relay with you.” I pressed my legs together, feeling a need to squeeze my thighs together to keep from pushing, the baby was pressing so hard. I glanced at Bindi as I leaned heavily on the table, barely able to see her because my vision was so blurry. No answer came over the headset. “I need an affirmative that you heard me, Commander Lyons?”
“You’re leaving command? Right now?” he finally asked, sounding bewildered.
He probably was, since I never left during a battle. “I have to take care of something. Here’s Commander Kester.” I tugged the headset off, thrusting it against a surprised Commander Kester and telling him, “It’s Commander Lyons on the north end, waiting for stragglers. You’re now his relay.” I left it at that, slowly turned, and began walking as gently as I was breathing so I didn’t faint. I was no stranger to pain, having been shot and stabbed multiple times, but f*ck, my vision was now blurring to pinpoints. This raw, agonizing pain was on a whole other level. A whole other stratosphere, if I was honest with myself. I never cried over pain anymore, having decided my tear ducts had frozen over along with my mind, but right now, I wanted to drop in the middle of the floor and bawl like a goddamn baby. Though I trembled, wobbling, I still managed to brush off Felix by letting my wolf take voice, growling at him.
Bindi was instantly next to me, grabbing my arm, and gently but firmly leading me outside the black tent into the camp, away from the few individuals who had taken notice of my incoherent state. I wore a charm around my neck that Antonio had made, hiding my pregnancy from all eyes but his and Bindi’s, and the added heartbeat inside me from Vampires’ ears, but I still must have looked like shit because those who had eyed me had worn expressions of worry. I hardly remembered what worry felt like. Only pain and numbness and anger had been my shifting emotions since a spelled mind sweep had been done on me.
All because I, Lily Ruckler, Queen of the Shifters had at one time had sex with a Vampire.
No one had confirmed this. The two I had deduced that knew, Bindi and Antonio, never communicated who the father was, under some damn spell themselves, which Antonio had never tried to reverse to help me. Instead, when I occasionally lost it completely and screamed at them to tell me who the father was, they turned into stone, never giving a damn thing away. Not even when I started naming Mysticals at random. Nothing. They did f*cking nothing to help me, and some may say that, sadly, they were the closest people to me. I never let anyone else near, not wanting anyone else.
I spent my free time alone, caged by the barely leashed chaos I had become. My mind was tormented by memories I couldn’t access, fractions of time completely absent. I could remember waking in bed at the former King Shifter’s home, after that, nothing, then suddenly I was at school at King Hall. The time between was a yawning void, but still, I had knowledge — it had to be knowledge — within the voids of my mind, because I knew things but couldn’t remember how I had gained the information. It was just there. That, in itself, made me dizzy at times.
And all of this because I had slept with a Vampire. These were the bare bits of evidence I had: a black and red ring with an inscription that read The Beauty Is Found, and a man’s overlarge grey t-shirt that read Live Hard or Die Bored, which I had been wearing when I had woken from my mind sweep. Add in the risks of having sex with a Vampire — Law 6002 set up specifically for a spelled mind sweep and separation if two Mysticals of different factions were found guilty of sexual relations — and the intimate ring, those two things combined indicated that we had loved each other. A useless emotion, if I ever saw one. And that was all I did. I saw how other Mysticals loved each other, because I sure as hell could not remember it with whoever was the father of my unborn child.
“Focus,” Bindi ordered quietly, practically holding me up as we walked through the camp full of white tents, beelining toward mine. “Your tent’s only a bit further.” Luckily for her, she didn’t mention I had waited too long to leave headquarters, because I probably would have let my voice out and she would be dead right now. “And quit growling at me, others can hear you.”