Page 98 of Lies That Bleed
“Yes. You should take the girls and go to the country house in Cedar Creek for the night,” I told her, rushing to pack a bag for them.
“We,” she said, frowning at me.
I looked over at her and gave her a soft smile. This woman was like a mother to me. She should know by now what I would do. “You didn’t raise me to run from trouble.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I pulled her into a hug. She was stiff for a moment, before wrapping her arms tightly around me.
I love you, sat on the tip of my tongue, but myfather had contaminated those words, making me feel weak for even wanting to say them, so I just held on to her tighter. It was my non-verbalI love you.
When she finally pulled back, she was smiling. “You will make a wonderful empress someday.”
I beamed at the compliment.
Within ten minutes I had changed into my Fleet-issued fatigues, and had the triplets and Elaine packed into the car with Elaine in the driver’s seat. She wasn’t used to driving as we normally had Verik, but she knew how.
“I’ll send word when it’s safe to return,” I told her.
Victory, Valor, and Virtue all peered at me with identical expressions of fear.
“What’s going on?” Virtue murmured, hair mussed from sleep.
“What aren’t you telling us?” Valor asked.
“Come with us,” Victory begged, grasping my good hand.
I reached into the open car window with my good arm and squeezed all of their hands. “Mind Elaine. And be strong. I have to stay and help Father. I need you safe,” I told them methodically, trying to keep emotion from my voice.
I moved to step back and then thought better of it. What if this was the last time I saw any of them? It was a dark wild thought that permeated my mind.
The words I was so afraid to say fell out of my mouth in fear, fear I would die and never say them toanyone. “I love you all,” I spoke into the car in a rush, freed in that moment.
Victory smiled but the other three appeared shocked at my words, like they were dirty.
“Go,” I told them.
With that, I stepped back and Elaine gunned it, zipping onto the main road and heading for our country estate. I’d spent many summers in Cedar Creek fishing in the pond behind the house and going for long walks in the forest. It was sparsely populated and near the Evergreen Fleet base in case something really bad went down. They’d be safe there. Safer than here.
When I spun around, Kohen was landing Onyx right next to Liana, who was still exactly where I’d left her. I hoped my father would agree with my sending the girls away. I needed to keep them safe, and if this attack was from Luska, they might target the emperor’s home. His family. I was still confused how this attack was going to go down. If anyone from Luska wanted to attack Riverine, they’d have to fly the entire length of our country or come up on shore. Our scouts with flying creatures would have seen them and sounded the alarm. Unless they found some weakness in our defenses. Maybe the Cove. I had overheard my father speaking last night in his office about the Cove being a weak point of ours that we needed to shore up.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Kohen.
“I got Tetra home safely,” he told me. “But yourfather called for all fleet troops to report at the campus. So I don’t know how long she will stay there.”
Because she was now Fleet. We all were.
Shit.
“And I had another vision,” he added as he gripped Onyx’s reins and prepared for flight.
“Tell me,” I begged.
He frowned. “You said you didn’t want to know the future, that you wanted to just live out?—”
“Tell me!” Did Tetra die? No, that was too dark. I couldn’t fathom it.
He sighed, looking at the ground. “You and I help fend off the attack. It’s an air assault, and we rain down fire from the sky.”
My heart brightened. “We help? Great. Let’s go.”
