Niko didn’t give anything away, but he only tore his eyes from her for a quick moment to do a rapid sweep of the room before settling his attention back on her. It was heavy, watchful, but his expression was blank, his beautiful eyes guarded. He situated himself out of the way, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. The lopsided smile he always gave the cameras was thinned into pressed lips, his muscles twitching even as he kept himself still, his broad shoulders hunched inward.
“Guardian Rosales.” Kalen greeted the woman tersely. “I see you returned.” His tone suggested that she had been asked not to return.
“I have free rein of the hospital.” Maya faced off against the massive Alpha, her backbone apparently made of steel. “The patients find us comforting.”
“You’ve seen her eye.” Kalen didn’t bother engaging in the pleasantries Maya’s tone suggested she was trying to draw him into. “None of us find that comforting. Least of all Carter.”
Kalen’s power rippled through the room, causing the boy, Luis, to whimper. Sophia tucked him beneath her arm, edging him behind their mother. Both of them were bowed over, their heads lowered in submission. Unlike their Alpha mother, they appeared to both have the rust-coloured Delta rank ring around their irises.
“I’m surprised to learn that you’re in on this as well, Professor.” Maya flicked her hand to the bed. “I know how Alphas can be, but surely some lines of proprietary remain—”
“And yet, they don’t.” Kalen sighed, rubbing the side of his face. “I have to protect my Alphas. If you tell anyone about the Sigma’s aberration, they’re going to resume their search for her mate within Ironside and we both know the very first place they’ll turn to. I need my Alphas to stay focussed on narrowing down their specialisations and building their fan bases. I’m already allowing several of them to surrogate for Carter—since it does so well for their ratings—but I have to draw the line somewhere. I need their heads in the game, and there’s only so much time until summer break. Who knows how long they’ll be gone if the officials bring them in for testing? Screen time is everything, Rosales.”
“After the Colorado shooting and the Vermont attack, I’m surprised you’re willing to speak so freely against the OGGB.” Maya took a small step back like she didn’t particularly want to be caught standing too close to Kalen. “They’re on the hunt for anti-loyalists, especially here.”
Here, because of … Eve?
The Vermont attack?
Isobel recoiled, acid spilling into the back of her throat. Theodore slipped his hand through the ties in the back of her hospital gown. His palm pressed against her bare skin, surprisingly cool despite the absurd heat of his body. The touch gave her something to focus on, and she concentrated on the way he gently drifted his fingertips over the subtle bumps in her spine until some of the panic had subsided. Niko still hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and it seemed like he released a short breath when she blinked back into focus.
Kalen stared stoically at Maya, who eventually deflated slightly, withering under his stare, their brief battle of dominance presenting a clear winner.
“I won’t tell anyone about her eye—your eye.” Maya flicked her attention to Isobel, frowning slightly at the way Isobel’s skin had turned ashy, sweat gathering on her forehead. The Guardian paused for a breath before continuing. “But if you aren’t going to allow the academy to study her,” she turned back to Kalen, “then I would like to—”
“No,” Kalen cut across her. “Nobody touches her. Looks at her. Studies her.”
The room grew quiet, Maya’s attention turning immediately assessing. Even Sophia peeked out at Kalen, brows jumping up. Maya looked back to Theodore and Isobel, her eyes dancing between them, her lips pinching. “While it is possible for the soul artefact to feed off a surrogate to heal a soul infraction, this recovery has been quite miraculous.” Her attention narrowed on Theodore. “Have you been tested, Mr Kane?”
“Tested, how?” Theodore’s voice was silky smooth, his grumbling vibrations under control as he turned his attention to soothing Isobel.
“Have your eyes been tested?” Maya asked sharply.
Kalen stepped forward in a blur, but Isobel quickly sat up and then raised herself onto her knees, fighting off dizziness as Theodore’s hand slipped away from her back and everyone in the room turned to look at her. She clutched Theodore’s knee to keep herself steady as she held herself up. The situation was seconds away from spinning out of control.
“Don’t disrespect my surrogate,” Isobel demanded quietly. She fought to keep her tone even despite the shake in her limbs. “If you … if you keep it quiet that I’ve been hiding the fact that both my eyes changed, you can have the chain. You can study it or whatever you want to do with it. That’s why you keep coming back, right? Because of the soul artefact?”
“And you.” It was Sophia who spoke, giving a small shrug. “She’s very excited that Aphelina is blessing us again.”
“Agreed.” Maya eyed the chain. “I won’t tell a soul. Not even if they torture me.” She assented so fast that Isobel found her mouth popping open, the arguments she had been trying to muster falling away.
Not even if they tortured her?
Who the hell made promises like that?
“I advised your bond specialist to cut the chain away when you woke up,” Maya continued like she hadn’t just shocked all of them. “They had to add links to close it properly. But if you would permit me to do it now?”
Dread filled Isobel, and she curled a hand protectively around the chain circling her wrist. She looked to Kalen, but he was locked into some sort of silent conversation with Niko. Niko nodded subtly, and Kalen fell back a step, moving away from the Guardian to put his back against the door.
They were allowing this to go ahead.
For a moment there, it almost seemed like Kalen was about to advance on Maya. Maybe he could force her mind to go back in time just like he had forced Isobel’s body back in time. Kalen met Isobel’s eyes, dipping his chin in a short nod, and she turned back to Maya, swallowing hard.
“Will it hurt?” she asked, staring down at her forearms. Hurt didn’t even begin to describe how it had felt to have the light torn out of her. Just the thought of it had her fingers curling into fists, wanting to close around her strands of light and hoard them close to her chest.
Where were they now? The thought sent another tingle of panic shooting down the back of her neck.
“Yes,” Maya stated plainly. “But your bond specialist will do it either way. You can’t go about your life tethered to someone else. You’re out of the woods now, so there’s no reason to keep the connection … especially since they only did it to humour me in the first place. If you don’t believe in soul artefacts, then you have nothing to worry about, hm? You won’t feel a thing. It’s just a random chain that appeared completely out of thin air for absolutely no reason whatsoever.”