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:Stay here,: I ordered Mehen. His face twisted in a snarl, so I quickly added, :We need to keep a path clear for retreat or for the knights to reach us with minimal difficulty. You won’t be much use to her shifted in the tunnels.: I didn’t like explaining myself, but I’d found with Mehen that our relationship worked better if he understood my reasoning. Most of the time, he wasn’t deliberately an asshole, at least to me. He didn’t dare.

:Fine. Though I get dibs on rushing in if she needs to fly out in a hurry.:

:Thank you, my dragon.: Shara touched his face as she passed him. :It makes me remember how you scrambled up out of the tunnel and flew into this world from your prison.:

Now it was my turn for my face to twist in a scowl, because that only made me remember him breaking her arm and hoping to kill her to free himself.

:Always knew you’d be good at slithering on your belly,: Sekh drawled. :If it comes down to the dragon navigating a subterranean tunnel to save you, then we’re already fucked.:

:I don’t see the stone sphinx doing much good in a tight space either, motherfucker.:

Jenrade stepped into the space behind the partial wall and then reached back for his queen and Carys. Then Sekh did the same for Shara. Even without shifting, I barely fit through the broken wall without knocking the rest of the concrete blocks down. I braced for Mehen to mouth off but he must have decided he liked keeping his teeth too much to risk another snarky comment directed at his alpha.

We walked in silence for a few minutes. Alpha senses strained wide open, I watched for even a hint of movement. I couldn’t smell much other than the reek of decaying flesh from all the thralls that had passed through here. Even the dirt was trampled into a semblance of a path. Maybe that was how Angela had known where to go. But how had she even known anything was back here?

Sekh guided us to the right down a different forked path. Broken concrete made for treacherous footing, so I scooped my queen up into my arms as long as I could. Sekh carried Carys, though her mouth locked in a harsh slant. Her owl abandoned her, flying ahead to wait with the rest of the Blood. She didn’t much like the lion scent rolling off the general.

Though I had to set Shara down when the floor began to rise enough to force me to crawl through a particularly tight spot.

Finally, we were back on smooth concrete, though the tunnel was old and stank of human waste. A watery muck flowed down one side, with a flattened pathway on the other. Tight again. I could hop down into the filth and walk upright, or crawl on the pathway. I chose to crawl, though the path was narrow enough that one second of inattention would put my hand or knee into the sewer. Light and water flickered down from overhead through rounded holes covered in grates.

:Wait, are we back under the tower?: Shara asked. :I got turned around but I can feel Guillaume like he’s directly overhead.:

:I believe so, yes,: Sekh said. :We’re in the sewers that connect the high-rises.:

:So more than likely, Angela knew where Tanza’s black blood had gone. But how? She was human. Right?:

:I can confirm she was wholly human,: Vore replied. :Bones and all.:

:The only weird thing we found was a little many-sided die,: Daire added. :It’s no bigger than my thumb. Doesn’t appear to be a weapon but Ezra didn’t want to hold it.:

:Excuse the fuck out of me,: Ezra retorted. :G said it might be a fucking bomb.:

:Janelle implied I needed to hurry if I wanted to see where they didn’t want me to look. If Angela was coming back down here, maybe she did plan to destroy whatever it is.:

:See?: Ezra huffed. :Knights don’t lie.:

Guillaume laughed. :Good one, grizzly.:

:Wait, what? That wasn’t a joke.:

:Goddess forgive me, I was forced to tell many lies, especially after the oaths Desideria forced me to give to hold her secrets.: He gave a short, courteous bow in the bond. :Though now I happily swear that I will never utter an untruth to our queen, blood bound or not.:

A master of subtlety, Guillaume had just effortlessly reminded both me and our queen that one of the new knights could—or might—lie to her. Their honor was not equivalent to his, at least not until proven. Especially Warwick. Which was exactly why Guillaume had chosen the new knights to guard with him. To be guarded by him in case our queen was distracted by a magical attack and couldn’t defend herself immediately.

I tried not to begrudge Warwick his demons, but I couldn’t forget that he was the source that had killed us all and caused our queen so much grief. His reluctance to feed her only made the rest of us mistrust him even more. What kind of Blood didn’t burn to feed his queen? Let alone a queen of Shara’s might, with the capacity to drain us to complete and utter bliss.

Most Blood never even slept. We didn’t need to.

Shara could drain us into unconsciousness. Lying in her arms. Her bed. Breathing in her scent. While she fed. There was nowhere else I would rather be. Unless it was between her thighs while she drained me.

:That can be arranged, my alpha.:

My cheeks heated that she’d picked up on my salacious thoughts—which meant the others might have, too—but I couldn’t help a more aggressive nudge in the bond. :Let it be soon, please, my queen.:

SHARA

Sekh lifted his hand, pausing our trek through the tunnel. His eyes darkened to bronze as images rapidly flickered through his mind. All from this particular spot. Decades. So far back I wasn’t even sure the tower had been built.