Page 5 of Renegade Kingdom
But there was nothing in Dean’s eyes except respect.
“We need to find somewhere quiet to talk,” he said. “Debrief. Regroup. Everything’s changed and we need a plan for moving forward.” His gaze flickered toward the edge of camp. “And we need to figure out what we’re going to do about Damon. We can’t keep him tied up forever. The immediate danger’s passed, but now we need to figure out how to stay ahead of Arik and keep Alyssa safe.”
Damon. Another impossible problem with no good solutions.
“Alyssa is stronger than you give her credit for.”
Tank’s voice came from behind us, and I turned to find him approaching, his massive frame casting a shadow across the bloodied snow.
“She’s been in this exact position before,” he continued. “She’s stood and seen the slaughter of thousands, and she survived. Not only that, but she willingly came back to this place and all the ghosts that haunt her here.” His eyes found Alyssa in the crowd, and something softened in his expression. “She doesn’t need us to coddle her. She needs to be reminded that she’s a Queen, and we are her willing servants.”
Despite everything, I felt my lips twitch toward a smile. The expression felt foreign on my face, wrong somehow, but Tank was right. Alyssa might need a moment. She might need to fall apart in private. But after that, she’d be the first one at the war table, pushing us to hit Arik while he was weak. Because that’s what he was right now. We might be standing amongst our injured, feeling the damage that he’d caused, but we’d hit back. And we’d hit him hard. We weren’t the only ones hurting right now.
Dean huffed a laugh, nodding in agreement. “Still need a plan, though. It was foolish to rush into this fight without knowing what our next steps were. We can’t afford to make that mistake again.”
“Dean needs to bite Damon.”
We all turned to stare at Ryder.
He held up his hands defensively. “Just hear me out…”
“You’ve lost your mind,” Dean cut in. “Damon’s mind has enough problems without adding a wolf into the mix.”
“It’s not a terrible idea,” Tank said slowly. The words seemed to surprise even him. “If the bite takes... a beast might be strong enough to force out the nightmare. Fight it from the inside.”
Dean rounded on him. “You don’t know that. You’re just thinking with your bear. We have no idea what turning Damon into a shifter could do. What if it just makes the nightmare stronger? What if it gives that thing access to a beast’s power?” He ran a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding through his usual control. “Damon’s been getting more lucid. Maybe he just needs time. Maybe he’ll fight his way back on his own.”
“Or maybe the nightmare is biding its time,” Tank countered. “Waiting for a moment of weakness. And then Damon will be gone forever.”
The words hung in the air between us. I thought of Damon, the real Damon, trapped somewhere inside his own mind, watching a monster use his body, his voice, his face. How long could anyone survive that before they simply... stopped fighting?
“We have no way of knowing who’s right,” Ryder said, his voice taking on that careful tone he used when he was trying to keep the peace. “But this isn’t our decision to make alone. We need to talk to Alyssa. And we need to talk to Damon.” He looked at each of us in turn. “We know him as well as we know ourselves. There’s no way he’d live with that thing in his head, knowing it could take over at any moment. If we want to save our brother, we need to figure out how to kill the nightmare without killing him. And if the bite is the best option we’ve got...”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
“Fuck’s sake, why is life never easy for us?” Dean grumbled.
“You’d be bored with an easy life,” I joked. “You’d have nothing to complain about.”
“I’m not going to admit that you’re right,” Dean grumbled, turning and walking away. “But I am going to check in on our girl.”
Ryder shot me a look. It was something between amusement and exhaustion, because Dean was exactly the person he’d always been and yet he’d changed so much as well. Ryder didn’t say anything else, he just jogged after Dean, leaving me standing with Tank. The two of us watched Alyssa as she knelt beside a weeping woman who stood over a body. Someone she must have known. Someone else we couldn’t save.
“Are you okay?”
Tank’s question was quiet. Direct. No preamble, no dancing around it.
“No,” I admitted. There was no point in lying to him.
“What do you need?”
I thought about it for a moment. No one had ever really put my problems into those terms before. What did I need? What would make any of this bearable?
Only one word screamed through my mind, echoing with the roar of my lion.
“Revenge.”
Tank nodded slowly, like he’d expected that answer. “You’re going to get it.”
