CHAPTER 40: REBELLION

The questions were piling up too much until it got too overwhelming.

"Where is this place, Lesra?" My mouth ran without restraints. "Why are you here? Why are you hiding from Darek? And most importantly, why are you helping us? Why–"

She raised a hand, cutting me off with a wry smile. "Slow down, soldier. You just came back from the edge of death after, dare I say, a very lengthy process of healing. Don’t burn yourself out all over again."

"But I need answers," I snapped sharply. I hadn’t seen Valden yet. And even though he had done things that had me questioning his loyalty, it was still apparent that he was nowhere around. There was no way to know yet if what Lesra talked about was all true. No way to know if I’m not already in Darek’s clutches.

Something flickered in her eyes and she leaned forward, lowering her voice as if whatever she was supposed to be saying was a secret I needed to take to the grave. "Since you insist on knowing all the details on your almost death bed then fine, so listen closely. Because once you know, Maeve...you can’t go back to how it used to be."

The glow of the Stargar Stone seemed to intensify, pulsing faintly like it was alive. Lesra’s face hardened into something that made my skin crawl.

"Not everyone who wears this uniform bends their knee to Alpha Korvash in blind obedience. Some do it out of fear too but some others..." she hesitated for a moment before speaking the words like a confession, "defy him. We defy him quietly and secretively. We have for years now since he became Commander."

My breath hitched. "Defy him? That’s just suicide."

"Maybe so." Lesra’s smile was bitter, her hand brushing the wolf symbol on her Delta uniform like it was made of poison and regret. "But tell me, Maeve, have you ever stopped to wonder how many of us he’s sacrificed? How many ’highly mutated ones’ he’s slaughtered because it was easier than searching for a cure or at least waiting to see if they turned or not instead of the blatant culling?"

Images of the abandoned quarters flashed in my mind, the screams and the bodies piled in the streets, the stench of blood Darek had asked his soldiers to spill without hesitation. I was sure he hadn’t even flinched once from his throne at Parthenn.

"You’ve seen it," she whispered, watching my face carefully. "The genocide. The lies he tells to keep the Council in line. We all have. And some of us decided to stop pretending he’s the savior he claims to be."

I swallowed hard, my mouth still dry. I had the sudden urge to gulp down a gallon of water. "And Valden?"

Her eyes softened again. "Valden’s been with us longer than you think."

So he wasn’t just some reckless Beta Captain now. And maybe he wasn’t just trying to save me.

Because he was a part of whatever this was. I wondered how long he and the others had been planning this. Whether it could be even before he left for Parthenn.

Lesra leaned back. "Welcome to the rebellion, Maeve. You don’t realize it yet, but you might be the key to everything. We’ve known that for a long time, right during the time when the mist hit and you were brought to the dome to get tested. We had managed to cover up your results in the beginning and then were just waiting for the right time to finally introduce ourselves."

The words struck like a blade.

Key to everything.

I wondered if Darek knew that there were Lycans out there who wanted to recruit me to take him down. If that was the reason for his real obsession with my powers.

"I think he knows about this," I muttered. "He always knows."

"There’s no chance," Lesra said firmly, eyes blazing. "We’ve been extremely discreet and if we stayed inside these walls, the Stargar stone bends his leash just enough so he can’t pull us back. We are right now underground, underneath the abandoned quarters which is the least likely place that he’ll check. But if you, what with your bond to him, leave without any shielding, that’s an entirely different story..." She trailed off, her meaning clear.

I felt sick.

"He’ll come for me, and all of you will be in danger."

Lesra tilted her head, her braid falling across her shoulder. "Then we’ll be ready, Maeve," she continued, her voice almost reverent now. "You’re not just a girl cursed with him as your mate. You survived Alpha Korvash. You resisted him. Do you understand what that means? You’re proof that his control isn’t absolute. And with you, and with what runs in your blood, we might finally stand a chance."

Her confidence should’ve reassured me, but it didn’t. Because beneath her calm words was the weight of something much more dangerous. Much more brutal.

My voice shook in dilemma. "What exactly are you planning?"

"We’re planning to burn him down," she said simply. "Him, the Council, and the entire rotten order of Parthenn. All of it."

"Wait, what? But what about all the scientists? Doing that would completely disrupt the order of our city and prevent any chance for us to get rid of the mist or find a cure. And the whole point of this was to not kill more people, right?"

"It’s a small sacrifice. Hopefully we can bring them down as peacefully as we can. But the Alpha needs to go. He is right now our biggest threat. Oh, and Maeve? About the scientists? They are the worst of them."

"The worst? What do you mean? Aren’t they the ones actively trying to save us by trying to find the cure?"

Lesra shook her head, her eyes filled with pity.

"No, Maeve. There is no cure. The scientists are the ones responsible for the mist in the first place."