Chapter 133 The Last Move
“Hi, Mama,” Leo said.
Aria looked at him.
Then at Lily.
Then she pulled both of them against her at once, one arm around each, and held on.
Leo allowed it for approximately four seconds.
“Mama.” His voice was muffled against her shoulder. “Too tight.”
“I know.”
“Mama.”
“Give me a minute.”
He stopped complaining.
He patted her arm twice with his small hand, the way she sometimes patted his when he was upset, and she nearly came apart entirely at that.
Lily said nothing.
She pressed closer and held on with both fists in Aria’s shirt and that was enough.
Kane was still on his knees beside them.
His hand had not left her back.
She could feel him through the bond, steadier than he had been, the damage still present but no longer advancing.
She looked at him.
He looked back.
Leo pulled away from her shoulder and turned to examine his father with the focused scrutiny of someone conducting an assessment.
“You okay buddy?”
“Yes.”
“You were very brave.”
Leo grinned proudly, satisfied.
Then he looked around the room with the alert interest of someone who had arrived at a situation he intended to fully understand.
Lily had not let go of Aria’s shirt.
“Lily,” Aria said softly. “I’m here. You can let go.”
“I know,” Lily said.
She did not let go.
“Okay,” Aria said. “That’s okay.”
Aria stood, bringing Lily up with her, and Lily wrapped both legs around her waist and buried her face in Aria’s neck.
Aria held her with one arm and raised the other hand and let the silver light come.
It came.
Not full strength.
Not yet.
But it was there and it was hers and it was enough.
Devon stood at the far side of the room with a cut along his jaw he had not bothered with.
Marcus was on Alexander’s left.
Kane handed Leo to a wolf near the corridor entrance, Leo objecting immediately.
“Dad. Dad, I want to stay.”
“You’re going with Renn.”
“But I want to…”
“Leo.”
The single word, quiet and final.
Leo looked at his father for a moment.
Then he looked at Renn with the expression of someone registering a profound injustice.
“Fine,” Leo said with a pout.
Leo went, turning back twice to check that his parents were still visible.
Lily unwound herself from Aria long enough to be passed to Renn as well.
She looked at Aria with her mother’s eyes.
“You’re coming back?” Lily said.
“Yes,” Aria said. “I’m coming back.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Lily studied her face for a moment with the unnerving accuracy of a child who could tell when an adult was being truthful.
Then she nodded and went with Renn without further argument, which was more than could be said for her brother, whose voice receded down the corridor still itemizing his objections.
Aria turned back to the room.
She raised both hands and drove the silver light into Alexander and burned the dark energy out of him in pieces, each fragment dissolving as she found it.
He did not fight it.
He was past fighting.
What the night had taken from him went beyond power.
He had the look of a structure after the load bearing walls were removed, still standing by habit rather than design.
When she finished he went to his knees.
Marcus and Kane moved in on either side.
Devon crossed the room and stood over Alexander and looked down at him for a long moment.
“Kill him,” Devon said. “Right now. Before he finds another angle.”
“No,” Kane said.
Devon looked at him. “Kane.”
“He goes to the authorities,” Kane said. “Every wolf he corrupted, every pack he compromised, every death with his name on it. He answers for all of it properly.”
“He has resources. He has lawyers. He will find a way out.”
“Then we make sure he cannot,” Kane said. “We do not execute a man on his knees.”
Devon held his position for a moment.
Then he stepped back.
Alexander raised his head and looked at Kane.
His expression had shed everything, the pleasantness, the calculation, the performance of ease.
What was underneath was something older and harder and not without its own kind of dignity.
“Unexpected,” Alexander said. His voice was rough. “From you.”
“Don’t mistake it for mercy,” Kane said.
Alexander said nothing more.
Marcus signaled two wolves to take him and they moved in and Alexander did not resist.
He looked once at Aria as they pulled him upright.
She looked back at him and did not look away until they had turned him toward the corridor.
Then it was over.
The room felt different with him contained and facing away from them.
The tension went out of the air the way pressure goes out of a sealed space when you finally open the door.
Kane crossed to Aria and she met him halfway and walked into him and he closed both arms around her.
She pressed her face against his chest and let herself have it, the full weight of the night settling onto her at once.
Devon’s hand landed on her shoulder.
She reached up and covered it with hers.
Marcus came to stand beside them without speaking.
Amanda pushed off from the wall.
She was not steady but she was walking and when she reached them she stopped and looked at all of them together and something in her face went quiet in a way Aria had not seen from her before.
The exhaustion was still there.
The grief was still there.
But underneath both of those things was something that had been waiting a long time to be allowed.
“You did it,” Amanda said.
“We did it,” Aria said. “All of us. You included.”
Amanda shook her head.
“I didn’t do much at the end.”
“You broke the barrier,” Marcus said. “Nothing after that happens without that.”
Amanda looked at him.
Then back at Aria.
She opened her mouth to say something else.
Then the sound.
Metal scraping against stone.
It came from the equipment shelf behind them.
Aria turned.
Alexander was no longer contained.
One of the wolves lay crumpled on the floor.
The other staggered backward, clutching his shoulder.
Alexander stood between them, one hand braced on the table beside the shelf.
His other hand held a silver sword.
It had been hanging on the rack above the table the entire time.
Within reach.
None of them had checked the shelf because they had believed it was over.
Alexander’s eyes were locked on Aria.
He moved.
Fast.
The sword came up and drove straight toward her.
Aria dropped left.
The blade cut through the space where she had been standing a heartbeat earlier.
It did not stop.
The sword struck Amanda.
The steel punched into her side with a sickening sound, driven forward by Alexander’s full momentum.
Amanda’s breath left her in a small, shocked gasp.
Alexander wrenched the blade free.
Amanda swayed once.
Then her knees buckled.
Aria caught her before she hit the ground.
They went down together.
Aria’s hands clamped over the wound.
“No,” Aria screamed.