Klaus
It was done.
The gunshot had seemed to split open the sky, turning silence into a cacophony of blood and air. For a violent, awful moment, the world had appeared to collapse, tunnelled upon his finger on the trigger. The recoil had snapped his wrist, a final pulse so strong that he had felt it in his teeth, in his bones and in his heart.
He shot her.
He watched as the world seemed to slow. Crimson bloomed. Fast, gory and unforgiving. It burst from her chest, and she jerked as if yanked by invisible strings, limbs flailing from the impact, and then she went limp.
It had been a perfect shot.
Efficient.
Clinical.
Perfect.
Klaus staggered back into the helicopter, gun still raised, smoking with the evidence of his sins. His finger still curled around the trigger. He released it.
She had looked at him.
She was still looking at him.
The dark pupils were now soft, almost hazel from the sun. Quinn's eyes. Not the stranger he feared. Not Euodia. They were wide and wet with shock, and a flash of emotions flickered past. He anticipated anger, not the trembling rush of grief, concern and then relief.
Relief.
A quiver passed through her lips, and her body was falling through the sky like a broken marionette. It would not take long for her to crash to the ground. But it did not matter, he cocked his gun, his soldiers were already waiting and ready. They'd soon retrieve her corpse from its splatter.
And they would soon consume her heart once more.
Klaus's ears rang. It was odd that his mind spun now with memories. Quinn in his room. Quinn on the pedestal. Quinn at his feet. Quinn with her lips on his, her hands cradling his face. Her touch had scalded him. Her lips had been warm. His chest had—
Behind him, someone screamed. A sound with so much devastation that it tore through the air, searing through his veins. An animalistic wail of utter despair. He had never heard Rowan cry this way, and it startled him, causing the gun to fall to the ground. It clattered like thunder.
Helios dove like a comet in a whirlwind of feathers, and blood oozed from his bandages, painting his wings in a deep, angry red. Klaus was startled then, lips parting, hands reaching, the fury that consumed him pulsed in his throat.
How dare they?
He killed her to save them.
He killed her to free them.
The secrets had clawed their way to the surface. There was no secret that they could hide the longer they despaired from the loss of their mates. And so, the truth did not come out as whispered warnings; it came as screams, nightmares in the heat of everything that had gone wrong.
Three kings were missing. An aircraft had been swept up into a sandstorm. The exploded remains were discovered in a sea of Lonely. Only one body was found, ravaged by those beasts. And it was the soldier in charge of flying the plane, not the Alpha who'd demanded the expedition.
It was suspicious as hell.
Of course, it could have been circumstances. A lapse in command. The soldier had clearly transformed. But his mates were gone from the site. The Alpha was gone. And pulsing in their chests, burning in their hearts was a knowing throb that their lovers were experiencing the worst of ordeals. There were injuries. There was blood. Worse still was the quake in the tether, the darkness as if the trio had dipped themselves in the shadows.
It tasted like madness.
The bond was growing weak, so weak that they could barely find their mates in the wastelands. It was like searching in a storm. Only Elysian's claim on Quinn was strong, pulsing with determination and strength. It was odd.
They needed all the information they could get.
"Euodia," Elysian had wept, voice cracking, face twisting with strange grief. He collapsed onto his knees as if he were betraying someone he loved. "She was Euodia."
Klaus froze.
Time did not simply slow, it fucking curdled.
"What?" Klaus had stared at his mates. His hands shook, his voice was hollow. "What the fuck are you talking about?" He should have known. He should have fucking known that something was wrong with that girl. That beta who had hurt his mates again and again—
Icarus stood with crossed arms, jaw locked, a bitterness etched into the dips of his face like the stretch of scars. His pain was sharp, aching. "Amnesia," he explained flatly. It burned Klaus to know that Icarus knew and had not bothered to speak about it to him. "Quinn doesn't know who she is. Doesn't remember."
"You mean to tell me," Klaus heaved, "that our mates are with a woman who is Euodia?"
"She does not remember—"
"What about now?" Klaus snarled. "Do you think she remembers?"
The silence was telling. Solar quivered by his side, tears already growing in his eyes. It told him everything he needed to know. It was true. They were not lying. And they were only telling him about this because they were lost, and there was a possibility that Euodia had done something to their lovers. Klaus had sat down heavily, hands clenched tight. A low growl rattled in his chest, hiding a growing sob.
How could they hide this from him?
How dare they conceal the truth?
They should have known that it was always pack first.
Why did they wait so fucking long?
Why did they have to wait when things had gone awfully wrong?
He'd levelled a heavy gaze upon them, one that had Elysian cowering lower.
The despair had slammed into them all like a sickness. This wasn't just the loss of their mates. This was the lack of knowledge, the swallow of sickness in their wavering bonds. This was them experiencing the transformation on the outside. And Elysian and Icarus knew it, they knew it. And they knew they had fucked up, shaking slightly, waiting for punishment.
Klaus had nothing to say to them.
They were already being punished by the bond, the sacred connection that flickered as if it were fading. Three mates. Three fading bonds. And the only strongest tether they had was Euodia's. How fucking cruel. His rage had grown so tremendous he'd resisted the urge to slam a palm against his throne, to smash a vase to the floor. His fingers twitched.
The crash site had been a certain kind of hell. It took hours to claw through the wreckage, the fire, the corpses in the sand. And it was the despair that followed that had Elysian crumbling so quickly.
"Quinn…She's not her, I'm sure of it," Elysian begged, trembling as if there was blood on his hands. "She does not have Euodia's traits, her mannerisms. She's not Euodia anymore. She will not hurt them." The vampire had shuddered as if possessed, falling to his knees. Influenced. Klaus couldn't trust an Omega who had claimed an Alpha. "Please, please be kind. She truly doesn't remember—"
Klaus had met his eyes then, held those blue orbs in his gaze. "You cannot be sure." And Elysian had shuddered, looking away. They both knew what she had done to them all. They both knew the weight of Euodia's sins. His jaw was clenched so tight he could almost taste blood.
How had she survived all of that? How was she still standing? His fists clenched, knuckles growing white. How the fuck was she still fucking with them? Playing them for fools?
Solar's voice was low when he turned to Klaus to speak; the fairy read their emotions like an official at court. "Elysian's not lying." But Solar's face had transformed into something feral. His expression was growing vicious. His fingers were digging into the scar on his neck, Euodia's old claim. "He truly believes her to be good."
Klaus exhaled.
But it did not matter. For their bonds were twisted now, pulling too tight and fraying at the edges, leaving them breathless. There was rot growing in his heart, a darkness Klaus hadn't felt since he'd killed his father.
Zen, Rowan and Helios were still alive. But Quinn, no, Euodia had brought them deep into the lion's den, dragging them behind her like ghosts. Something had to be done.
Elysian collapsed later when Zen's bond had practically vanished, threaded with the sharpest taste of agony Klaus had ever felt. Icarus held the vampire through it, whispering the same useless words over and over again: We'll find them. They're not gone. We'll fix this.
No.
Klaus would have to fix this.
Solar was the one who found Klaus right before he departed. He did not speak at first, simply stood at the door as he watched Klaus pack ammunition into a black bag, a rifle hanging on a peg. His voice had been soft.
"What are you going to do?"
Klaus did not look up. "What I have to do, what I should have done in the first place."
Solar's eyes burned, something made his voice come out choked. "They're not lying."
"I know." Solar was kinder than he was. And that was why Klaus could not let him come. Euodia was a new kind of devil, one that only Klaus could exterminate.
"She's not what you think she is."
"I know." How could he not? Elysian and Icarus had been burnt by Euodia, had known her first-hand. They had been her slaves. To forgive Quinn…It meant a lot. It meant that they truly believed that she was worthy of forgiveness. His lips pursed into a thin, angry line. It was his fault for not being careful.
"My premonitions," Solar said in a long drawl, "they tell me that our mates will not take the news well." His brow furrowed. "It is murky, but your choices…It may hurt them all. It may even break us—"
"The pack needs to survive," Klaus answered, his voice was a low angry rasp, daring Solar to speak further. He took the gun from its nail. "Survival is not about fairness. Our pack is dying. Zen's on the edge. He's showing signs of change. He doesn't have time. You felt it. How our bond seemed to darken, we must do everything we can—"
"You trust the scientists?" Solar interrupted.
Klaus gave him a dry, awful laugh. "I don't trust anyone. But the data is there. Some survive."
"Some," Solar repeated bitterly. "If my powers were stronger, if I knew the right answers—"
"It doesn't matter." Klaus shook his head. "If Euodia survived everything, even the loss of her heart. It means her flesh is stronger, her heart is stronger. And, besides, pregnancy increases the survival rate," Klaus said, loading the final round into his rifle. "The packs that survive the transformation the longest are those that have a pregnant mate."
The fairy's eyes widened.
"If her heart fails, there are embryos that I had made." Klaus swung his gun over his shoulder. His mind swept to the memories of Quinn, collapsed in the jail cell. The roar of self-hatred that had coiled in his guts when he had made the rule for extraction, when he had taken everything he could from her before her supposed death at the guillotine. His smile was wry. He should have killed her then. "One of us will have to be inseminated."
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