MasukDraven’s POVThor met me at the door, a tablet screen glowing in his hand, his face carrying the particular grimness of a man about to hand someone a problem they weren’t going to like.Ronan said that this story is the start of our problems. She does not want to defeat us today. She wants to wear us down before the fight that will really count. Every time we lose a contract every time one of our friends stops helping the team every time the news makes the team look bad. None of these things will completely destroy the team away. The team will just get weaker and weaker so that when the real fight comes the team will not have the strength to stand up for ourselves.Bella just stood there thinking about what Ronan said. I could see Bella realizing the same thing that I just figured out.Then Bella said that the team cannot let ourselves get too tired. The team has to be smart about which problems the team tries to solve and which ones the team can just let happen without using up all o
Bella’s POVThe refuge turned out to be an old farmhouse, sagging at the edges, hidden behind enough overgrown brush that I understood immediately why it had survived thirty years without discovery.We got to the place before it was really daytime. We were all tired and hurt. Ronan was still shaking like a leaf from what had happened to him from the thing that had made him hurt the people he was supposed to help. Nobody said much on the way to the house we were all too tired to talk we just. Breathed. We had left our cars back where we started. Now we were just trying to get to the house. The house smelled old and dusty when we finally got inside it smelled like wood smoke too. It was so quiet in there it felt like nobody had lived in the house for a time like it had been empty, for longer than anyone had ever lived in it.Gordon got the fireplace going while Thor checked the perimeter, old habits from a night that had already taught us exactly how quickly safety could turn into ambus
Bella’s POVRonan.I stared down at his face, slack and unconscious, blood matting one side of his hair where Gordon’s blow had apparently connected harder than any of us had realized in the chaos of the fight, and felt the whole shape of the last several minutes rearrange itself into something far worse than a simple ambush. My legs were still buzzing from moving two times in a day and they were ready to collapse completely under the weight of what I was seeing.I said that it is not possible. My voice was very quiet. He was supposed to be, at the entrance making a distraction.He was there Thor said in a tone he was already checking Ronans pulse, his face did not show what he was really feeling inside. This means that something happened to Ronan between the entrance and something that changed the plan.Draven knelt down beside them he looked at Ronans face closely this made me feel worried.His pupils Draven said, look at Ronans pupils.I looked, and even in the dim torchlight I cou
Bella’s POV“Everybody out. Now.”Dravens voice was really loud in the room. It stopped all the noise. I felt Dravens hand grab my arm. He pulled me towards the doors. The old leaders were still shouting behind us. The guards did not know what to do. They were not sure if they should remain and guard the room or take everyone out of there. My legs were very tired, from everything that happened in the two days. They did not want to move. My body kept moving because I was scared of what Draven would do if I did not.We only took three steps before everything went black and the lights went out.Draven and I were stuck in the dark. All the lights went out at the time. The chamber dropped into darkness. It was so dark that it took my eyes seconds to see even the faintest outlines of the room, around Draven and me. Somewhere in that dark, I heard the distinct sound of a body hitting stone, and then another, quick and controlled, the particular efficiency of people who’d trained for exactly
Bella’s POV“I won’t be part of this.”The voice came from deeper along the row of seven seats one of the elders getting up with some difficulty his face showing a special kind of pale color like a man who had just seen all his belief in his own power fall apart right in front of him. I hadn’t really noticed him before one of the seven but something about the way his voice was shaking made me look at him properly for the first time. He was young enough that this seat had probably been the top of his dreams not something he had been in for a time already.The woman looked in his direction her expression changing from satisfaction to a bit of curiosity.“Won’t be part of what " she asked.“Whatever this is " he said. His voice was shaking,. He didn’t go back to his seat. "I took this seat thinking I was working for the power, in our world. If that power was never real if we’ve all just been pretending to govern for the benefit of something hiding behind a screen then I have nothing left
Draven’s POVI knew her voice before I fully processed why.It took a while for the memory to come back to me hidden away for four years because I did not want to think about the night of my life.. When it came back it all came back at once and it was not welcome. I heard a voice that I had only heard one time before. I was standing over a grave that I had dug myself.I had told myself for years that I did not remember much about that night because I was so sad.. I guess some part of me remembered that voice really well and it came back, to me now.I said "You were there" before I even knew I was going to say it. The night my friend died you were there.The woman’s face changed, a look that was almost happy appearing for a moment as if I had finally seen something she had been waiting for me to notice."I wondered how long it would take you " she said. "Four years is a time to hide a memory that specific. Good job, on finding it again.""You gave the order.""I gave orders that night.
Draven’s POVI dragged my jacket on, the stitches pulling with every move. I felt a few tear open but I ignored it, striding towards the door.Thor was waiting outside with the look he got when he had already decided something was a bad idea and had also already accepted that it was going to happen
Bella's POV I have waited patiently for days, waiting for Draven to come and visit me as he promised, but I haven't seen him since then. I was too curious to know the reason he would rather not fulfill his promise. “Today has been the fourth day since I last saw Draven. He promised that he would c
Draven's POV:“Were you not informed by Thor how busy I am today?” I asked immediately as she walked inside my study room.I sat behind the table, a book swapped on it. My hands kept scanning a particular paper, looking for a particular information but I got distracted now that Clara was standing i
Bella's POVThe guards refused to let me enter the rogue encampments again. This was going to be the tenth time this evening."The Lord asked you to leave. Didn't you hear him when he told you that at the free plains?" one had snapped at me, his voice edged with irritation and something darker, but







