Claimed by the Primals

Chapter Thirty-Three

They arrived six days before the first resolution meeting. All of them. All five of my mom's surviving mates, including Godric. Every one of my—according to Thorne—nineteen brothers and all of their mates. And, of course, Lana had come as well with every single member of her massive harem as well.

Fuck, that is a lot of angels.

I would not leave the hotel for day after we got the news. Warrick was as gentle as he could have been, but I still suffered a massive panic attack. I couldn't keep any food or water down from vomiting so much. I spent the entire day in the bathroom either hunched over the toilet or curled up in a bundle of towels in Kade or Warrick's lap. They spent that time speaking gently and periodically feeding me saltines and ice chips.

Not for the first, second, or even hundredth time, we all wondered if I could actually do this.

I was better on day two, but still couldn't bring myself to leave the room. I spent the time reviewing my notes, and barely absorbing anything.

It was day three when they were finally able to coax me out of the room for breakfast. It did make me feel a bit better. There are twelve thousand people in the city, a hundred or so angels weren't going to make it feel any more crowded.

Day four, I put on my big girl panties and went for a run in the morning like we had done the whole time leading up to this mess. I know Kade and Warrick were going easy on me, but I couldn't tell at the time. I was jumpy and kept looking around for an angel I recognized. I didn't see a single one. I did, however, see Thorne's people everywhere.

They—Thorne, Kade, Warrick, and even Menes and Violet—told me that Godric is trying to scare us with the sheer number of angels he has in his immediate family alone, never mind the hundreds of other allies he could call on. It was kind of like an Avengers moment. But instead of us having a Hulk, we just have a bigger army. The city was positively crawling with Thorne's people. Even though they were technically supposed to act as mediators between the two sides, no one was fooled into thinking that they would ever defend the angels.

It does make you wonder, though, how much the ordinary, everyday people of that town actually know about magical creatures.

There were no reported scuffles the entire time, but that might be something Thorne will have to fill you in on if there was. As far as I'm aware, the angels were abiding by the neutrality pact, and so were we. I didn't go anywhere outside of the hotel without both Kade and Warrick with me, and I genuinely preferred it when at least two others were with us as well.

Gio and his mate had gone fully into over-protective-big-brother mode, and I appreciated it. Gio isn't as big as Kade, but he is still a giant compared to the average person. Nimat, Karim, and Ravi, of course, were all very supportive as well, though they were also careful to stay out of the spotlight. There is an unspoken rule among primals about leaving pregnant families out of whatever conflict was going on, but I wouldn't put it past Godric not to push that line.

I can't say I ever felt comfortable during that last week, but the closest I got was when we were all together. I learned that when they're under extreme stress, Violet tends to avoid food, and Alan overcompensates by spending the entire day in the kitchen cooking more food than all of us combined could have eaten. Menes and the majority of the other anubi spent a lot their time in meditation, and Kade's brothers burned nervous energy by playing game after game of basketball. Conversations were tense and minimal, but there was a sense of overwhelming support from everyone.

Everyone except Rajya and Amara, of course. But I didn't really have the mental capacity to acknowledge that at the time.

Exercising did help, but I'll deny it if you tell anyone. My anxiety was at an all-time high and having an outlet to burn off the excess energy helped keep me from descending into pure panic again. On the last day before the meetings began—less than twenty-four hours to go—there wasn't a cloud in the sky, not a whisper of a breeze, and hot as hell. The whole way back from our run I was dreaming of an ice-cold shower and a foot massage. It was a relief when we finally turned down the road where we slowed to walk the rest of the way to the hotel.