The Breaking Point of the Alpha
Daria's POV
I felt it before it happened.
This friendship between Lucius and me--slim, cut, yet unbroken--was a nerve in a suture. There came a cutting pain down into my chest, and it made my breath go away. I cut off the bunch of herbs I was sorting, and put a hand to my heart.
"Lucius," I whispered.
Harriet flushed her eyes at me. "Mommy?"
He is in pain, I said--my voice was wavering. "Badly."
It was quiet in the forest about us, though there was a roar and a roar in my brain. Pictures hurled up to me, and pulled me away to other places, into stone walls and torchlight and the odour of blood and sickness.
Lucius was on the training ground.
He faltered halfway, one hand on his bosom. As he dropped to his knees, warriors shouted, and
