Page 185 of Rite of Unity

A low growl started behind me, and I stilled.A second growl had me turning slowly.

Two sets of black eyes were trained on me, the dog to the right already crouching.

“Chicago.”

They froze, the one on the left sitting and the other lifting his nose into the air.My grip on the knife tightened until my knuckles ached.

We stared at one another.

Behind me, someone shouted.

The dogs darted past me, and I followed.One pushed open the door to a small study, and I stopped in the doorway.

I hadn’t thought about what it would feel like to see him.After.

Calden had President Hale wrapped in a headlock, squeezing.He looked up, eyes wild with a rage I’d never seen.

I stilled.Me in Elias’s shirt.His scent still on my skin.I took an involuntary step backward.

Calden’s grip loosened.

The president wheezed, scraping thick fingers over the arm locked around his throat.He drove his elbow back, ramming into Calden’s ribs.

Calden grunted but hung on.

The dog in the doorway lunged forward, and I spoke the command word.

The animal slid to a halt.The president’s fingers found the edge of his desk and hauled them both forward.

“Calden.”

He looked up, and I tossed him the knife.

He caught it with his free hand, ramming it into the side of President Hale’s neck before the man could break free.

Calden released him, and he slumped to the floor, a pool of red spreading rapidly.

It was over.Everything I had trained for, done in seconds.

I didn’t feel it happen.Not the way I thought I would.Coldness had started in my chest, working its way down my limbs.My legs were shaking—I hadn’t noticed until now.

I exhaled.

The blood reached my bare feet, and I stepped back.

“Why did you do it?”My throat was dry.“It was my mission.”

He glared down at the dead man at his feet.“I wasn’t going to let you die for him.”

I took a step toward him, hand stretching as if I could close the distance between us, make it right.The hollowness I'd felt all my life, the one that had begun to slip away, was back.

Calden would die for this.

Something dark passed across his face.Not the desperate, fevered rage that gripped him as he took a man’s life.Something protective.“Go.”

I stood, hand falling to my side.“But—”

“Go back to his room and act like your life depends on it.”