Kai reached out and took the note from Derek’s shaking hand, his eyes scanning it fast, his jaw tightening with every line. Then, suddenly, He didn’t even get to the end of it.
Kai.
Kai froze, and his head snapped up, his eyes darting across the courtyard.
Kai, please help me.
His stomach dropped straight through the ground.
"Jessica?" he said aloud, spinning in place, searching every face in the chaos around him. Nothing. No sign of her anywhere among the shaken crowd still pulling itself back together after the attack. "Shit!" he muttered.
"What’s the matter?" Derek asked, brows raised, watching him turn in circles like a man losing his grip.
"Jessica." Kai’s eyes swept the courtyard again, faster this time. "Jessica isn’t sounding fine."
Jessica? Jessica, where are you? he called back through the link, his heart already hammering.
I don’t know, came the answer, thinner now, barely holding together. It hurts, Kai.
The note slipped from his fingers and hit the ground, forgotten. He was moving before he’d even decided to, breaking into a dead sprint towards the treeline, following the pull of the bond like it had a hook buried straight through his chest.
"Kai!" Derek’s voice called after him, through the noise behind him. "What is it? What’s wrong?"
Kai didn’t stop or look back. He tore into the woods, branches snapping against his arms, the sound of his own name being called fading behind him as he followed the bond deeper into the woods.
Derek stood frozen for half a second, torn between the note lying at his feet and his brother sprinting off into the trees like something had set him on fire. Then he swore under his breath, looked at his men, signalling them to follow him, and took off after him.
Kai ran harder, lungs burning, until he burst through a thick tangle of bushes and stopped dead.
Jessica lay on the forest floor, naked, her chest rising and falling in short, shallow gasps. Cuts marked her arms and side, and bruises were already darkening across her ribs and shoulder. She looked barely conscious.
"Jessica!"
He dropped to his knees beside her, stripped off his suit jacket in one quick movement, and wrapped it carefully around her body. Then he slid an arm beneath her shoulders and lifted her against his chest, holding her there like she might come apart if he let go.
"I’ve got you. I’ve got you," he murmured, voice tight. "What happened? What are you doing out here?"
Derek and the others caught up with them a few minutes later, already halfway back out of the trees. Jessica looked wrecked, her ginger curls knotted and tangled, dry leaves still caught in them, her weight leaning almost entirely against Kai’s side.
Derek’s eyes moved between the two of them, taking in the way neither would quite meet his gaze.
"What’s going on?" he asked.
"I’m taking her back for proper treatment," Kai said, shifting his body between Derek and Jessica, shielding her without seeming to realise he’d done it.
Derek’s brows drew together, his stare turning hard. "What was she doing in the forest?" His voice had dropped several degrees.
"She was..." Kai hesitated. "She was attacked."
Derek’s fists clenched at his sides as he glared at his cousin. "What the hell are you not telling me, Kai?"
Kai stepped forward, hands raised, palms out. "We need to get back to Dravengard. We can talk properly there."
"No. I need to know what’s going on. Now." Derek’s roar sent birds scattering from the branches overhead, and his amber eyes flicked past Kai to land on Jessica. "Where is my Queen?"
Tears spilled down Jessica’s face, cutting clean tracks through the dirt smeared across her cheeks. "She was taken by Viktor. He was one of them. One of the Umbras."
"You saw it happen?" Derek took a step closer. "Then why the hell didn’t you raise an alarm?"
"I was fighting off the others." Her voice cracked. "He knocked her out and carried her off before I could get to her."
"How? How were you even out here?" His eyes narrowed. "You weren’t in that hall. I never saw you."
Jessica swallowed hard, her whole body shaking under Kai’s jacket. "It was a plan. Kira asked me to lure Viktor into the forest, so that she could follow, so he’d have the chance to take her and..."
"And you let her?" Derek roared, closing the distance in one stride, claws already sliding out of his fingers. "In her condition?"
"Derek!" Kai shoved Jessica behind him again, planting himself square in his cousin’s path. "She made a mistake. It happens." His voice dropped, softer now, pleading. "It happens."
"A mistake?" Derek’s lip curled, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "A mistake that’s cost me my Queen and my two unborn pups?" His gaze snapped past Kai’s shoulder to Jessica. "She’s your best friend!"
"I know that!" Jessica sobbed, her hands twisting in the fabric of the jacket. "I warned her. I fought her on it, I begged her not to, but you know Kira. She was going to do it with or without me. She told me she was only going to confront Viktor. I swear I never knew she had another agenda."
"And Jessica nearly died out here trying to get her back," Kai cut in, holding Derek’s stare without flinching. "What we need now are clear heads. Kira didn’t let them take her for nothing. We owe it to her to make that sacrifice count."
Derek grabbed fistfuls of his own hair and let out a raw, frustrated sound, pacing away a few steps, not hearing a word of it.
"Pull yourself together and let’s get to work," Kai pressed. "This isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning."
"She told me she was tired of being treated like something delicate," Jessica wept. "And that she wouldn’t watch others suffer because of her anymore."
Derek stood there a moment longer, his back to all of them, shoulders heaving. Then he turned on his heel and walked back the way he’d come without a word.
Declan, Connor and the others watched him go, none of them daring to follow just yet. After a moment, Declan turned to Kai.
"This is bad. Very bad. We’re going to need every skill you’ve got."
Connor shook his head slowly. "Nana won’t take this well at all."
"I mean, if she’s the Nexus," one of the gammas offered, "do we really need to worry that much about her going to the Shadow King?"
Every head turned towards him at once, shooting him a sharp glare and he snapped his mouth shut.
***
Kira finally opened her eyes after several long minutes of lying perfectly still.
She hadn’t been asleep. She hadn’t been unconscious either, no matter what her captors believed. She’d let them think it, keeping her breathing slow and even the entire journey, committing every turn, every sound, every shift in the air to memory while they carried her.
She wasn’t sure what came next. She only knew she’d come this far on purpose, and her beast had agreed to play along and end this thing once and for all.
Derek would never have let her set foot near this place. She’d known that from the start, which was exactly why she hadn’t asked.
The Umbras wanted her and only her, and she was done watching people bleed for the sake of keeping her out of reach. This had to stop, and the only way to stop it was to walk straight into it and take the Shadow King down herself.
Lux, she called to her beast. Whatever happens in there, you follow my lead. You only show up and take control when I say so.
Yes, Your Highness. Lux’s voice came back with all her usual cheek. Your wish is my command.
The door slowly opened.