Above the arena, coiled over the silver-draped balcony, the remaining eight Order members watched the scene below. The paven called Drued spoke to his neighbor Titus, his tone thick with apprehension.
"What does she think to prove with this?" he said, the black circle around his left eye creasing within his strained features.
"Our everlasting, impenetrable, and supreme power," Titus offered, watching his daughter's mate receive another blow to the head from Feeyan. His fangs twitched.
"The Impures are enraged," Drued said. "I fear they will not be contained this time."
"I fear you're right," Titus said. Nothing would remain contained, he added silently. Including himself, his Breeding Male gene. His blood was already growing weak and he had not followed Cruen's instructions, but assisted the escape of Dillon and Celestine. He feared that the day of reckoning that was clearly coming for the Order from down below was also coming for him from the Supreme One.
"Is this the Order you set out to join, Brother?" Drued asked, his blue-black eyes resting on Titus's face.
"What is that?" cried the veana Order member at the end of the row, yanking both Titus and his neighbor from their discussion. "What moves below like a tidal wave?"
Titus looked down and gasped as the figures of many he recognized and many he had given life to surged into the Paleo, weapons drawn, cries of battle on their tongues.
"No..." uttered Drued, his voice laced with terror and dread. "We do not want a war here."
"And yet," Titus whispered, "they have come to fight."
He heard them. All around him. It was like a great waterfall of sound pushing into the space, echoing off the walls. In his mind he heard the Impures' excitement and cheering. In his ears he heard a battle cry.
Feeyan flashed from his side and Gray lifted his head. Through his bloodstained vision, he saw them all rushing into the Paleo-the Romans, the Beasts, his mother, Kate, and Dillon. His heart stuttered in his chest at the sight of her. Fierce, beautiful, the jaguar behind her eyes. Goddamn it, he'd doubted her. He'd actually considered the words of the Order over the veana he loved. He'd spend much time making amends for that mistake-a mistake he'd never make again.
While the Beasts smashed the locks on cage after cage and the Romans battled the guards, Dillon, Kate, and Celestine rushed toward him. Their eyes were wide and horrified as they caught sight of his injuries, but they quickly pushed themselves to focus on locating all of his bindings. They worked fast, knives through rope, back and forth until each snapped free. Dillon leaned near to his face and stilled for one second. She locked eyes with him; then she dropped her head and kissed him. It was quick, fierce, and said all they could in that moment before they headed back into the fray.
Gray sprang from the stone, caught the blades that Dillon tossed his way, and quickly assessed the battle. Thanks to the Beasts, the cages were open and Impures flooded into the arena. They carried anything they could use as a weapon and were advancing in almost military-style rows on guards.
Gray caught sight of something in his peripheral vision. It was Feeyan and several other Order members being pressed into the group of fighting guards. The Impures on the other side of the Paleo must've wrapped around and pushed them into the chaos.
Suddenly an overwhelming sense of pressure ran through Gray's body, then straight up into his face and his mind. What the hell? The Order?
"Flash!" one Order member shouted.
Feeyan's eyes were wide with shock and fear. "I cannot."
"I am immobile as well," said another.
"It's those warriors," Feeyan cried. "They've got in again. They're blocking us from flashing, blocking our power! We must find them."
The surge of pressure was a mystery no more. Piper, Rio, and Vincent, Gray thought, his slashed mouth turning up in a prideful grin. They'd done it. And here, in this great bloodletting nightmare of a place, the Impures had done it. The Beasts, the Romans, brandishing their weapons and taking out one guard after the next-a great change was upon them all.
"We will not give up the Order. No matter what parlor tricks you play on us."
In the very center of the chaotic battle, Feeyan stood before him, her eyes demonic, her bloodred fangs fully extended over her lower lip. Gray's hands twitched against the handles of his blade.
"There's no trick," he called out, "but the talents of a 'race' you believe less than your own."
There was a sudden shift in the crowd and a group of Impures who had heard her overconfident reply descended and grabbed the veana.
"Get off me!" she screamed, struggling like a rat in a trap.
But the Impures held her firm. There were too many, and in short order Feeyan began to deflate.
"Tell me what you want," she uttered with bitterness.
"Yes, please," came another Order member, a paven who was also being held. "Tell us what you want."
The Impures grew quiet and contained. They all looked at Gray, who thought in that very moment that his father was with him, inside him.
"I want only what was offered," Gray said, his eyes level with Feeyan. "We will have a seat on the Order. One for Impures and one for mutore."
There was a collective gasp as all the eyes of the Order widened with shock as they processed the fact that Feeyan had offered something so outrageous.
"Make your choice," Gray said to them. "Chaos, dissent, death to both sides-that is what is promised if you refuse us this step into equality."
The Impures roared their agreement, and the Order members, for the first time in their very long lives, felt a true crack in their framework.
They looked around, then at one another; then Feeyan uttered blackly, "It seems as though we have little choice."
Gray walked up to her, his own fangs extended. "Welcome to our world."
Her lip curled.
"Now say it," he commanded. "Loud, so everyone can hear."
Through gritted teeth, she cried out, "Two seats on the Order will now be granted to an Impure and a..." She shook her head, nostrils flaring.
Gray placed his blade tight at her throat. "You wanna make it three seats?"
"A mutore," she finished.
The Impures released the Order members and eased back. A celebratory whoop went through the crowd. Gray walked away from his nemesis, but as he did, his gaze caught on something behind her-something that made his brain squeeze and his fingers dig into the handles of his blade.
Someone had Dillon and was pulling her toward the door that led to the secret tunnel.
"We are going home, my daughter."
Dillon couldn't believe the hands that had wrapped around her within the crowd and pulled her away with such impossible strength belonged to Cruen.
"Home?" she said bitterly, struggling against him. "Is that what you call your laboratory?"
"You called it that once," he said. "And you will again."
Gray had taught her what home truly meant. She'd never mistake that lab of cold cruelty as home. Gray was her home now.
"Why?" she asked. "What you could you possibly want from me now?"
The paven's ice-blue eyes flashed possession. "You are my child. And if you come, the others will follow."
"My brothers. That's what you really want, isn't it?"
He didn't answer her.
"Not a chance, Pops," she snapped. "I'll never be your bait, just as I'll never be your daughter."
For the second time, she shifted into her jaguar form before Cruen. But this time, it wasn't to protect herself from pain-it was to rip the paven in front of her to shreds.
Cruen took a step back, his eyes narrowing, and Dillon unsheathed her claws. But before she even had a chance to spring, Gray appeared from behind Cruen. He rushed at the paven and struck fast, sinking his twin blades directly into the ex-Order member's back. Cruen screamed and dropped forward. Not giving him a moment to recover, Gray ripped out one of the blades and went to slice Cruen's throat.
But Dillon's growl arrested him. "You promised, Gray."
He glanced up. Looking into her green cat eyes, he remembered what he'd said after viewing her memories last night.
Offering her his full trust, he nodded and stepped back. A move that gave Cruen enough time to yank the remaining blade from his back, flip over, and scramble to his feet.
But the cat was faster than the ex-Order member.
Dillon's jaguar leaped at his chest, sending him back and down upon the stone floor. She hovered above him, her jaws wide, razor teeth millimeters from his throat.
Cruen winced.
"You look scared, Dad," Dillon hissed. "I would think the sight of me shifting would bring you as much pleasure and interest as it did back then-back when you were watching me be raped by your guard."
The world stopped, stilled, froze as Dillon breathed hard and fast into Cruen face.
There was a moment-so brief Dillon later wondered if she had seen it at all-where Cruen's eyes flashed with pain-laced regret. But it was gone in an instant and replaced by demon eyes so similar to Erion's she pulled back a foot.
Beneath her, Cruen started to move, his body humming. Then suddenly, he shifted. He shifted into a Beast so grotesque, so unrecognizable, that Dillon scrambled off of him and dropped into a crouch.
"You're mutore!" she cried.
Silence filled the Paleo, and Dillon felt the eyes of hundreds on them-Impure, Pureblood, mutore, and Order.
And so did Cruen. He looked up, eyed the Order first, then someone or something behind them that Dillon couldn't see, and then he flashed, leaving the entire breed in stunned silence.