The Grey Blood #2

Beating Heart

"I just... how could I have been so stupid?"

Glazed eyes shift and settle on Sam slumped against the side of the cart, her head in her hands as Galya sits beside her, her cheek resting against the other girl's shoulder. An unlit cigarette dangles from Oliver's lips, not having enough energy to lift his hand to light it after his blood-letting.

They've paused to let the horses rest, not bothering to set up tents as they don't plan to stay settled for long, not with the possibility of the Ghuls hot on their heels.

"You couldn't have known, Sam," Galya tries to reassure her, blowing a strand of her auburn locks from her eye as she inspects her swollen wrist.

"Everyone warned me, Galya, everyone."

Oliver sighs and finally lights his cigarette. "They lied to you, Sammy," Oliver says, keeping his voice low. "There's no preparing for a fight when your enemy is an army of immortal warriors. There's nothing you could have done."

Sam lifts her head to look up at him, her full lips pressed together. "What if I'd been alone when we found that tomb? What if you, Alicia, and Lena hadn't come out here?"

Oliver shrugs, flicking the ash from his cigarette before bringing it back to his lips. "You'd probably be dead and the Ghuls would probably be planning world domination or whatever Ghuls do."

"Light," Sam groans, dropping her head back into her hands.

"Exactly, so there's no point thinking about what might have happened."

"Oliver's right," Galya replies, pressing her lips to Sam's shoulder. "Though he could be a bit nicer about it." She shoots him a glare but Oliver just blows smoke from his lips. "We're here, we have that heart, and we're going to play the hand we've been dealt."

Sam's features pinch. "Or die trying while we're being hunted."

"That too," Galya grumbles, shaking her head. "You two are so damn morbid sometimes."

That earns a small chuckle from Oliver. "You have plenty of sunshine and rainbows to make up for it, Galya."

"And what's got you so glum?" Galya asks, settling her green eyes on him.

Oliver's throat burns at the question. He can't tell them all the trouble that's happening in paradise, Alicia's secrets aren't his to share. He doesn't want to anyway, his burdens are his alone.

"I think his melancholy has something to do with Alicia," Galya continues.

Oliver sighs, his eyes tracking the smoke of his cigarette instead of looking at her. He doesn't bother replying. If he can feel the rift growing between him and Alicia, then he's sure others can see it.

Sam purses her lips, glancing towards the rest of the group, Alicia speaking with Lena within the shadows of a tree, that ancient book held between them. "I suppose it'd be insensitive of me to say that now isn't the time to have a lover's quarrel."

Oliver flicks his sharp gaze to her. "And I suppose it'd be insensitive of me to tell you to fuck off."

A smile lifts her lips and Oliver lets out a breath to see it. She sits up, curling her arm around Galya's waist as she glances up at him. "She's a good woman, Oliver, even though she was trying to marry my wretched brother."

Oliver grunts. "Don't remind me." The down trodden man with a kingdom upon his shoulders that Oliver met in the palace was the life Alicia was supposed to have if things had gone differently. Perhaps she would have made a good queen.

Sam lets out a long suffering sigh. "None of this is simple, is it? The fight just keeps going."

"I'm right beside you, Sam," Galya says, smacking a kiss on her cheek that Sam laughs at.