To Suffer With

Chapter Twenty-Five - Together

I had just about had it. Asteria was gone taken in a way I wasn't entirely clear on. Kane had flown into something I could only describe as an animalistic fury. One that had been targeted towards me for a few moments before Roman stepped in. Roman was pissed too, but in a much quieter, subtle, unpredictable way. Somehow I found his version of anger worse.

The most frustrating thing of all was that I was completely clueless as to what happened. That didn't matter to the wolves though, I was still associated with the group that had kidnapped an Alpha's pregnant mate. Part of me wanted to believe that the resistance wouldn't actually hurt her. But Kaiser had taught us that there was no point in issuing a threat unless you were willing to go through with it. Anything else was weakness.

"When did you know?" Roman's voice draws me out of my thoughts.

We're outside now, standing along the street that is crawling with wolves. It felt as though the entirety of Roman's warriors had descended on the scene. The street was blocked on each end with bright orange cones and barricades that shone in the moonlight. I was leaning against the car hugging myself in the jacket Roman had given me to keep warm. He was just across from me, close but somehow miles away.

He's studying me closely, in that off-putting way of his that tells me he'll notice every subtle change in my behaviour. Every hitch in my breathing, every small change to the beat of my heart. So I knew that lying would get me nowhere.

"When I first saw the other server, the male one. I thought I recognized but I wasn't sure from where. And even if I was sure I never could have anticipated they would do this."

"No, I'm sure you were expecting them to try and kill us. You might want to remember if I'm dead there's no one around to protect you."

That might be as close as Roman could get to threatening me. Which told me a lot about how angry he must be. Not that he was wrong. If I wasn't far away when Roman's found dead, mine would be the next life to go.

"Don't put this on me," I snap at him, "this isn't my fault, its not even the resistance to blame not really. Its you and the other Alphas."

"Because naturally we're such terrible people that we deserve whatever harm is done to us."

Well I should have known he'd take that the wrong way.

"That's debatable Roman but if you did deserve anything I'd advocate for taking it out on you, not a pregnant mate. What I meant was that this whole thing is wrong. There's no way the resistance could have known you were meeting here, known the ins and outs of your security. Been able to take out that many werewolf guards. Which means obviously the rogues are helping them. But even the rogues shouldn't have known the ins and outs of your plans so well, unless you have traitors in your ranks. You said you had a rogue problem, I think you underestimated how big of a problem you have. And now that the rogues and the resistance have teamed up, two moderate problems have turned into one massive one. And you lot are far too busy sitting around talking about how superior you are to all of us and therefore there's nothing to worry about because they could never beat you. Guess what they just did and unless you're careful they're going to keep beating you."

Roman doesn't answer at first. He just watches me with this undecipherable expression that makes me hug his jacket tighter around me as if it is capable of making me disappear. I find myself shuffling my feet getting more uncomfortable under Roman's gaze the longer he goes without speaking. I was starting to wish I had just kept my mouth shut.

"Regardless of who's fault it is," Roman finally ends the insufferable silence, "Kane's going to need to blame somebody. And I doubt taking it out of himself is going to satisfy his anger, which just leaves the rogues, resistance and possible traitors. He doesn't have any rogues available, we don't know if there are any traitors though if there is it won't take us long to find them. But what he does have is a prison full of supposedly dead resistance prisoners and I can guarantee you by the time Kane is finished with them they're going to wish they had just been executed."