To heal a Rogue

EDELINA

I ended the call and approached the receptionist near the back hallway, a young woman who recognized me instantly, her expression carefully blank in the professional way of someone paid well to notice nothing at all. She handed over a keycard without a word.

The room I found waited behind a door marked only with a small brass number, and when I stepped inside, I found a thin, near-translucent sheet dividing the space, one of the three rogue chiefs seated behind it, flanked by two men standing at his shoulders.

He had been the one I had been conversing with and I never missed a scent.

I sat in the chair across from him.

"What’s the sheet for?" I asked.

"Ambience," he said, "for what’s about to happen." He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees. "How do we get the bite?"

I bared my teeth, felt them lengthen and shift into something considerably less human, canines sharpening past anything a werewolf’s mouth produced.

"It’s right here," I said. "Who am I biting?"

He turned to the man standing at his left, who stepped forward and began rolling up his sleeve, offering his bare forearm like it was a gift he’d been waiting his whole life to give.

"You should understand," I said, "there’s a real chance he doesn’t survive this."

"Our men are strong," the chief said, unbothered. "But you’ll bite the second one as well. Just in case."

I took the offered arm and looked the man directly in the face before I bit down. He clearly believed this moment was the answer to every grievance he’d ever carried in his life, entirely unaware of what surviving my bloodline had already cost the very blood now running through my own veins.

"You’ll probably regret this," I told him, quiet, almost gentle, and then I bit down properly.

His blood hit my tongue rich and untainted, and something in me drank it in like it might actually fix whatever the curse had broken inside me, the venom flowing the opposite direction even as his taste flooded warm and metallic through my mouth. He screamed almost immediately, his knees buckling, and I kept drinking until I felt another cough building low in my own chest, sharp and insistent, and only then did I let him drop, convulsing, onto the floor at my feet.

The chief nodded toward the second man. "Go on. Get the gift as well."

That one hesitated, his weight shifting nervously from one foot to the other.

"Something wrong?" the chief asked.

"No, Chief."

"Then why are you standing there like a man who’s forgotten why he came?"

The man swallowed. "I was only thinking."

"Thinking about what?"

His eyes dropped.

The chief’s expression hardened. "Don’t tell me you’re suddenly having second thoughts about the cause you claimed to believe in."

"No, Chief. That’s not what I meant."

"Then prove it."

"Yeah," the man said quickly. "Yeah... This is for the cause."

He stepped forward then and offered his hand. I caught his wrist and bit down, another rich, intoxicating rush of blood flooding my tongue.

Then the door behind me slammed open.

A body was thrown through it, hitting the floor hard enough to draw every eye in the room.

I looked up mid-bite.

A man lay sprawled across the floor, shirtless, his skin an angry, blistered red from what looked like severe chemical burns. Wolfsbane, most likely. I knew the particular pattern well enough to recognize it.

But it was the tattoo stretched across his bare chest that made me freeze.

Plenty small useless words, inked in the unmistakable insignia of the De’Lune crown.

De’Lune Secret Service.

I let go of the second rogue, despite everything in me wanting to keep drinking, and crossed the room toward the man on the floor.

"Seems you recognize him," the rogue who’d thrown him in said, watching my face carefully.

I grabbed the spy by the throat and hauled him partway upright. "Who sent you to follow me?"

He coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Conspiring with rogues. You’re our fucking Queen!"

I laughed, short and cold, the sound bouncing off the walls of that cramped little room.

"So it was Bradley," I said.

His eyes widened, just slightly, just enough to confirm everything I needed to know, and I snapped his neck in one clean motion before he could say another word.

The rogue nearest me raised his gun immediately, aiming it square at my chest. "Why would you do that? We could have used him for information amongst other things."

"I doubt it," I said, entirely unbothered by the weapon. "I simply hate that Beta bastard, and killing him felt satisfying enough on its own merits."

I rose to my feet, facing the rogue down despite the gun still pointed at me.

"The last thing any of you freedom fighters want," I said, "is to get tangled up with a nationalist like Bradley. He would relish nothing more than wiping every last one of you off the map, and he’s very good at making that particular kind of dream come true." I nodded toward the corpse cooling on the floor. "He almost certainly already knows about this location. A werewolf from the royal secret military tailing me here means this entire meeting was a suicide mission for him the moment it began."

"What about you," the rogue asked, his gun hand faltering slightly. "Wouldn’t he already suspect something’s off with you? Especially if a soldier he sent ends up dead?"

I laughed again, genuine this time. "Lucky for me, I happen to be a very privileged bitch. He’ll need considerably more than hearsay and half formed suspicion to lock me away properly. Which is exactly why I just killed him before he could report even more."

From behind the translucent sheet, the chief spoke, calm and decisive. "Drop your gun. Get rid of the body. If what she’s saying holds true, we have to abandon this location tonight."

"Listen to him," I said, and the rogue finally lowered his weapon, moving reluctantly toward the corpse to begin the grim work of disposing of it.

I turned back toward the sheet. "Our business here is finished. Do not contact me again."

"Of course," the chief said. "Though our table remains open, should you ever find yourself in need of another arrangement."

"I do hope," I said, already turning for the door, "that I never find myself that desperate again."

I stepped out and shut the door firmly behind me, then made my way toward the back exit rather than the front, taking no chances tonight of all nights. I suspected the receptionist back at the infirmary had been another one of Bradley’s quiet little informants, and I had no intention of returning there before I’d had time to properly consider what came next.

Whatever remained of my quiet, indulgent little wait for death was finished now. There was work to do. For Johann. For the throne that still, somehow, against every obstacle thrown in our path tonight, had to remain within reach.

For my son.

For my salvation.

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