Forty One

"What do you even care if I die?" I said, quieter now, the anger sitting underneath the words instead of on top of them.

Silence filled the air for about a minute and it was an awkward silence. Then Zara suddenly spoke up.

"I'll strike you a deal," she said. "A generous one. One that saves your life."

Everything stopped and paused for me in slow motion. He words echoed in my ears and I thought I had heard it wrong.

My heart skipped. My eyes went wide before I could stop them. Even through the pain and the venom and the complete chaos of the last few minutes — those words landed somewhere that still had hope left in it.

Aiden said nothing. He just watched me with those unreadable hazel eyes, studying me like something he couldn't classify, clearly aware that something significant was happening even though he could only see one side of it.

He didn't bother to interrupt. Because he knew something was going on inside me between me and my wolf.

"Are you finished?" Zara said. "Because when I explain this deal I need you to listen carefully and not dare interrupt me."

"Not even close," I said through my teeth. "But go ahead. Defend yourself, give your excuse, tell me the deal. And let me say this clearly first — if any part of it involves you keeping control of my body, forget it."

"Your body." She said it like it was almost funny. "Nah. You're worthless right now, kid. I have no interest in a body that can barely stay alive."

Something in the way she said it stung more than it should have. Probably because it was true.

"I've been watching you your entire life, little April," she continued, and her voice shifted — just slightly, just enough to carry something underneath the coldness that wasn't quite warmth but was adjacent to it. "Every humiliation. Every time they called you broken. Every time you bled and got back up anyway without anyone telling you to." A pause that felt deliberate. "I waited because I needed to know you could survive me. Most hosts can't. You're stronger than you think — which is why I stayed quiet and let you find that out yourself."

"That is the most self-serving logic I have ever heard in my life." I could feel her tone had changed as she was talking like all she did was for me but I kept quiet and played alone.

My life was on the line already.

"It worked, didn't it?"

I opened my mouth to speak but I closed it back.

Maybe she was right and I hated it.

"Now." Her tone shifted — crisper, locked in, the voice of something that had assessed the situation and arrived at a conclusion it wasn't going to negotiate around. "The slim one's wolf is weak. Useless bloodline. Nothing remotely interesting."

Nathan blinked from across the room. "You are suddenly looking at me, is she talking about me, does she want to kill me too…Aiden I might need help here?"

“Yes,” I said. “Sorry” I thought, I was making sure another person doesn't turn to her victim, especially not him.

"The Alpha however—"

She noticed Aiden.

And the shift in her attention was physical — I felt it move through me like a current, immediate and total and completely involuntary, the way you can't stop yourself flinching when something loud goes off nearby. The cold irritated ancient presence that had been laser focused on everything else in the room went very, very still.

Very focused on him and what was inside him.

"...Oh," she said.

"What?" I asked, and even inside my own head my voice came out wary.

"Him."

"What about him?"

"I want him.”