Silent Embrace Book 2

MILO

Milo was losing his mind. In a quite literal sense.

He could feel it happening in real time.

Sitting here, at the head of this conference table. Glass walls on all sides, eyes on him from all angles. Cameras, too—although only some of them were visible.

His every move was monitored.

He was a bug under a national, if not international, microscope.

And he couldn’t decide how he felt about it. One minute he could die of fright, the next he couldn’t care less.

There was fire coursing through his veins. He glanced clockwise around at each face, then counter-clockwise. Or did he have it backward? He never remembered.

And damned if he could tell who was speaking. He heard a voice—he always heard some voice or other—but he couldn’t place it.

There was a representative from each floor in the room with him.

Killian from the felines, Hannibal from the birds, Marcum from the canines, and Tristan, lately in Walker’s stead, from the bears.

Tristan and Killian looked particularly pissed off today. More than usual. Shadows ringed their eyes.

Milo didn’t know the first thing about being an Alpha. He had been as surprised as anyone to hear the producers’ news, post-Hayden.

God, Hayden had turned out to be a real train wreck. Anyone was a step up from him.

Milo hadn’t predicted that either: how wrong Hayden would go.

On the occasions that it occurred to him, he thought he might ask Blythe how she was settling in, especially after the whole Hayden fiasco.

Considering she had killed Hayden, Blythe should have been the next Alpha.

So what the hell am I doing here?

But he didn’t think of it often anymore. He had way too much else on his mind. Way too much else to do.

Way too many people were counting on him. All of whom were his responsibility.

Counting. One, two, three, five, eight—what came next?

Wait. That wasn’t counting. That was the Fibonacci sequence.

Where had he gotten that from?

“—goddamned reason for the whole nonsense—”

Try again. One, two, three, f…

“—never should have been allowed in to begin with—”

…one for the money, two for the show…

“…Milo!”

His head jerked violently upward.

“You do agree it’s about goddamned time we put some restrictions on these humans?”

Hannibal’s fist rested on the mahogany. His eyes bored into Milo. They practically burned.

Any point the bird might have made had just gone in one ear and out the other.

“I’m—I’m sorry?”

“It’s too dangerous,” Hannibal continued. His face was looking a little blurry.

“You…you mean to have humans inside Lazarus?”

Killian put his face in his hands.

“What else would I mean, Milo,” snarled Hannibal. “Humans and shifters aren’t intended to coexist in such close quarters. Humans can get hurt. Irreversibly. Which, unfortunately, has already happened.”

Milo glanced back and forth from one side of the table to the other. In his head he was definitely saying words.

Were they coming out of his mouth?

“If you ask me,” Hannibal said—so apparently Milo was not speaking after all, because no one would talk over the Alpha, would they? WOULD THEY?

“They’re our one shot at reproduction,” Hannibal continued. “We should never have stopped treating them like the breeding machines they are.”

A ripple went through the room. Killian started up out of his seat. Milo extended a hand.

“Killian.”

“Say that again, you fucking bird of prey.”

“Milo, talk some sense into your cat.”

“Say it again.”

Milo felt his legs lift him up, as though they were mechanical. He put a hand on Killian’s shoulder and pushed.

And Killian went down.

Right into his seat, without a fight.

Everyone looked at Milo. Milo considered Killian.

Killian was big. Broad-shouldered. Tall. Would have been able to take someone like Milo.

Should have been able to.

Milo was aware that he’d bulked up himself, that he’d gotten stronger.

How that was, he could never quite explain when people commented.

They all said it like it was some sort of compliment. Like he was getting better.

But wait. They were all expecting him to say something.

“That’s—not the point,” he said slowly. Funny. His mind was outpacing a bullet train.

“He’s right,” Killian spoke up. So maybe it had been a good thing to say. “The point is her mate’s gone off the rails. Tristan and I have spent a full night and day now trying to calm him down.”

“And it isn’t fucking working,” spat Tristan.

“He’s feral,” Killian added.

Feral. Feral, feral, feral.

That was how Milo felt sometimes.

More frequently as of late.

He thought maybe he and Walker weren’t so different.

He hadn’t seen Walker, though, not since the accident. He wasn’t in any hurry to.

“…Milo.”

Another twitch of the head.

“T— Tristan?”

“Over here, man.”

Milo let his eyes circle back. There was Tristan.

“I need a few days to deal with Walker. Try a few tactics. I know him better than anyone here. I even”—he gulped—“I’d say I know him better than Carrie did.”

A light went out in the room. Not a visible one, but Milo felt it in his bones.

“All right,” he heard himself say.

“You should give him a deadline,” seethed Hannibal.

“No one asked you,” retorted Tristan. “And don’t you dare tell the Alpha how to do his job.”

Milo’s insides recoiled at this. Something told him Tristan had very little respect for him as the Alpha.

But he was doing his best.

Wasn’t that all a leader could do?

“You…can have time, Tristan,” he said down to the table. “I will tell you how much. When I decide.”

“Thanks, Milo.”

If Milo had looked up, he would have seen that Tristan was looking down at the table, too.

BLYTHE

“How was the meeting?”

Killian had just stepped into the bedroom, looking as if the events of the day had aged him.

“I just knew it,” he muttered, practically to himself.

Blythe put down her book and sat up on her heels. “What?”

“I knew if a crisis came our way that we wouldn’t handle it right. Once the producers appointed Milo, I just knew.”

She hesitated. “You didn’t really think they’d appoint me as Alpha, did you?”

“If they were going by the tradition they created themselves, you should have been. ‘He who kills the last Alpha takes the title.’”

“Exactly,” Blythe said with a grimace. “‘He.’ They weren’t going to let some girl from ~The Running~ have it. And it’s not like the shifters would listen to a human—a ~female~ human—with the way they treat women here.”

Killian knew she was right. The second the producers didn’t like the way something was going on this so-called reality show, they swooped in and made changes for the sake of ratings.

Killian sighed. She went to him, and he pulled her into a hug. They rocked back and forth, leaning against the door.

“So,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder, “what’s the problem today?”

“There are some Council members who believe that it’s too risky for any humans to be here and…”

“And what?”

“That we should reinstate the breeders and turn all the mated females.”

Blythe froze. She turned her head up toward him. “What?”

“I mean, I don’t see Milo ever approving of—”

“Who’s saying this?”

“It’s classified. Council rules.”

“Oh, fuck the Council.”

“You’re telling me.”

“So what about the women who refuse to be turned? Huh? Where are they going to go? The producers wouldn’t allow them to leave, surely. These women know too much.”

“Yeah, it beats me what the hell they’d say.”

Blythe pulled back. “And I wouldn’t blame those women at all. Turning is a huge risk.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying to you—”

“I know that, but it’s still a choice—” her voice caught in her throat. “It was the last thing I talked about with Carrie. The risk…

“But it’s every human woman’s decision,” she added, “and it shouldn’t be dictated by a bunch of assholes who aren’t even affected!”

“I’m right there with you.”

She couldn’t explain the warmth she felt from Killian’s gaze, full of pride and admiration.

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “We’re a team. And, in case you didn’t know, my loyalty is to you over any Council.”

MILO

Milo got the call at the same time every Wednesday: two forty-five p.m., when the compound was mostly quiet.

He didn’t always recognize rooms or hallways these days, but he knew how to get to the room just off the infirmary. This was the Appointment Room. Only accessible through the guards’ entrance.

He was pretty sure the producers had made that up just for him.

Then again, he wasn’t sure anymore what was made up versus what was real.

It was hard to distinguish with this pounding headache.

That was the worst of it. Sure, he had trouble concentrating, and matching names to faces, and stringing words together into sentences, but mostly it was the blinding ache at the base of his skull.

Or all throughout his skull. When he didn’t get a good night’s sleep.

He knocked and was let in immediately.

“Sit in this chair,” a voice commanded. Milo couldn’t focus on the chair, but he felt a hand take his upper arm and lower him into it.

“Your strength is developing nicely,” the voice remarked.

“Thank you,” Milo heard his own voice, hollow. A shell of his former voice.

What was former? When was it?

“Excellent meeting this morning. Plenty of drama. Just how the viewers like it.”

Milo moved his head up and down, in a nodding motion. A hand was rolling up his right shirt sleeve.

“Now, we don’t have to reiterate to you what a fan favorite Carrie was. Women ages eighteen to twenty-five just ate her up, and she was great eye candy for the male viewers. Strong, caring, nice tits, and now with child. The whole package.”

The voice bounced off the echo chambers in Milo’s head. His arm was being iced.

“But, honestly, being dead is her best quality yet. She’s become a sacrifice for the cause. A reason to pit humans against shifters.”

The strong smell of rubbing alcohol exacerbated Milo’s headache. Aggressively clean.

“So, you, our precious beacon of light and leadership, should know where to take it from here.”

“Where…is that?”

“Focus on the fight. More specifically, focus on the bear. He’s got a lot of fight in him. If we can get him to be a sacrifice, too, that would be tragically romantic.

“Shoot for that,” the voice continued. “If not, we got plenty of other hotheads who are all too happy to clash swords.”

Milo nodded. What the hell was this guy’s name again? He sounded like God.

“It’s all in the conflict, Milo. All in the conflict.”

Milo closed his eyes.

“All right, think of puppies and unicorns.”

It was just as the needle entered Milo’s arm and the first fiery thread of contaminant scalded his blood that he spoke the name, like a divine inspiration.

“Delaney.”