“This could be one big, elaborate ruse to lure her in and make a show of her death.”
Scarlett crossed her arms with a short laugh. “You’re grasping at straws, Toby. If he wanted to do that, he’d do it where all her people could watch.”
“You speak as if you know him personally.” Victor voiced his displeasure.
Soft footfalls signaled Jacinda’s approach. Our debate had probably ruined her sleep. I acknowledged her with a quick smile as she came and stood beside me.
“All I’m trying to say is that you need to consider this more,” Toby reasoned.
“You don’t think I’ve done that?”
“Have you? Then tell me what is to become of us if it’s your life he wants?”
Growing frustrated with the way this conversation was going, I suppressed the urge to run a grime-covered hand over my face, clutching the worn skirt of my overdress.
“If he kills me, at least I died doing all I could to save our people. If I gain nothing, what does it matter when we’d have already lost everything?”
“You know he’s the only one capable of helping us,” Scarlett agreed.
Toby looked between the two of us, eyes widening in disbelief. “H-help? Help whom? I’m not sure we’re discussing the same man. That monster does not help unless it benefits him. We still don’t know if this was his doing or not, regardless of what she says.” He gave Scarlett a pointed look.
Lips flattening into a straight line, I huffed out an irritated breath and took two steps back to get a full look at him.
“For the past few weeks, you’ve been certain it was my father’s advisor, and then it was Cronus, who’s like a second father to me and most likely dead. Now, it’s the King of Abaddon?”
He made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat, swiping the crumpled flier from the table. “Tell me,” he began, flipping the paper around. “What is it you see on here?”
I didn’t need to look anymore. I was fully aware of what was there. Our names, the astronomical sum that would be awarded to whomever brought us to the self-made king, and clear instructions that we were not to be harmed.
“It’s the same flyer that’s posted throughout our crumbling region, littered all over the streets paved with blood, and being broadcast every hour on the radio.”
“What you’re not seeing is the ploy to lure a desperate queen right into his hands so he can snatch her crown away,” he retorted evenly.
“Have you looked around? You can’t go two feet into town without stumbling over a pile of bodies. There are as many families hanging in the trees as there are branches. All goods and exports have stopped coming in, which means we have no resources. You’ve said yourself that every dime has been taken, so to add to that, we have zero finances,” I ticked off as calmy as I could manage, the truth of our circumstances twisting my heart with every word I spoke. “We have nothing but Vita herself, and she’s dying. So, yes, I am desperate, because if she perishes, we do too.”
Jacinda laid a dainty hand on my arm to bring me a small comfort while Scarlett nodded along in agreement to everything I said.
Victor shifted his mass from one leg to the other, smoothing a hand over his full, russet-colored beard.
“They aren’t wrong, Toby. If he wanted the region, he would have announced his claiming of it by now, and his insignia would be all over the place. Nothing is stopping him.”
“And who would? We don’t exactly have an army ready to go balls-to-the-wall for us,” Scarlett added dryly.
Toby scrubbed a hand over his own scraggly blonde beard that now covered a large portion of his face.
“You think you’re going to go there and that he’ll help do what, exactly? Have you not been paying attention? He’s having demis taken off the streets left and right and no one knows why. Do you not think it odd that they vanish entirely? Not a word has been said about their fates. We can conclude that those filthy chimeras are butchering them.”
I fixed him with a weighted stare until blue eyes diverted to his mud-covered boots.
We didn’t have any kind of proof that that was happening.
I was against defamation and accusations that couldn’t be proved. Words were a dangerous weapon, none more so than ones spoken in anger or frustration.
The hut settled loudly, filling the gap in our lulled conversation. I glanced up, sweeping my eyes over the wooden beams supporting the roof and ceiling. Those seemed as if they could go at any second. Victor, Toby, and Jacinda were of pure blood, supes that could withstand a degree more bodily harm than demis like Scarlett and me, if this dwelling caved in.
Being wounded would make this situation much worse. We needed to move on, and this time I had a destination in mind.
“I will find a way to him with or without your help. We’re guaranteed safe passage. All we need to do is find a transporter to take us.”
His eyes remained diverted, no immediate response to my decree forthcoming.
“I don’t agree with this, but I’ll do everything in my power to get you there and back,” he swore.
I exhaled with a small nod. It was all I could manage. There wasn’t any kind of victory to celebrate. Toby may very well be right—this journey could end with my death.
CHAPTER THREE
Having to avoid all the main roads meant
taking seldom traveled paths full of overgrowth and uneven terrain. I still saw no sign of what we were looking for, and it’d been at least two hours since we’d left our hut behind.
“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” I questioned Toby, my tone laced with suspicion.
“It’s just over the hill, I promise. We had to choose a road the rig could travel down.”
“What rig?” Feet slipping in a slew of mud, I reached for the nearest tree to stop myself from falling.
A thick, toned arm wrapped around my middle before I could grasp iced-over bark, keeping me upright.
“Thank you,” I said to Victor on a heavy breath.
“That’s what I’m here for.”
I offered him a grateful smile and rubbed a kink from the back of my sticky neck, breathing in the smell of Lycan musk and chilled air.
“What rig?” I repeated.
“The one that’s going to take you to Purgatory.”
“You mean, you’ve found a driver you can trust, right?” Scarlett asked.
“You’ll see. Come on, it’s just on the other side of the peak.”
I shared a look with my friends as we followed him. Just as he claimed, when we reached the top of the hill, I could make out the massive truck used to transport prisoners and demis. It was a large vehicle, about seventy to eighty feet long. Where the driver sat was enclosed, but the rest of the rig consisted of a jail-like trailer, making it completely open.
He and the Victor must have found this thing when they went out to hunt a few nights prior.
“I don’t see anyone,” I observed.
“We need to get closer,” Toby replied matter-of-factly.
Scarlett and I shared another look between the two of us. Being Lycan heightened all of Toby’s senses. Even if he somehow couldn’t see anything or anyone down by the rig, that wolf nose of his would pick up their scent.