Mated to the Beast of the Wasteland (Gillian and Merrick) novel Chapter 277

Chapter 277 The Phoenixkin Are Already Here

Chapter 277 The Phoenixkin Are Already Here

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Tristan had been quiet the whole time, but something suddenly sparked in his eyes. He locked his gaze onto Freya and cut straight to it. “Captain Reed, the three of us left the warship, and you stayed on board. Did you notice anything off? Did you try to send a distress signal?” he asked.

Freya’s head dipped. She was quiet for a moment before she finally got the words out. “It was me. I’m the reason you all walked into that. Something must have gone wrong with Blue Phoenix. We were running on its nav the whole time. But I don’t get it. How could Blue Phoenix malfunction? The Phoenixkin haven’t even made it to the Outer Planet yet…”

“Maybe they already have.” Gillian opened her eyes from her recovery and laid out what she and Merrick had been piecing together. “That night, the parasites swarmed the taint pool- what if the whole point was to slip their own people into the Legion? And now they’re taking us apart one at a time.”

Nobody in that room was slow.

“Gillian, what did you find?” Freya asked.

Gillian rested a hand on Lily’s head. “Tell Freya what you found. Go on,” she said.

Lily tilted her head, her white hair falling across her chest. She caught Gillian’s cue, thought for a second, then laid out everything from the last two days.

“We tore up every inch around the Naiad River and didn’t find a single scale parasite. We swam the whole river and came up with nothing. No trace of you anywhere. The underwater

scanners didn’t pick up a single piece of junk.”

The color bled right out of Freya’s face.

Elara’s eyes went ice-cold. “Lily, are you telling us we were never even at the Naiad River?”

“That’s right,” Merrick said. “We found you and the Griffin Warship in the middle of nowhere, about a hundred miles from base. Just a thin stream. Adrian’s people pulled over a hundred busted probe fragments out of that water.”

The truth was sitting right in front of everyone, and nobody spoke. The picture was clear. They’d been set up from the moment they left the base’s protective dome.

Merrick had heard enough now. His and Gillian’s theory held up.

“The Phoenixkin are already here. They’re probably what the high-level parasites turn into

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Chapter 277 The Phoenixkin Are Already Here

once they take beastman form.”

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That was how they’d controlled the scale parasites, laid every trap, and tried to chew through them one by one. The Phoenixkin had crossed from Capital Planet in under a week. Nobody had seen that coming.

Freya’s face twisted. “If the Phoenixkin are already here and they’ve taken Blue Phoenix and the Cryolotus, what do we even do now?” she asked.

Gillian took her hand. “You remember that message they sent me? They want us to tear each other apart. As for why they let us find you-I’ve gone through a dozen reasons and none of them quite add up.”

Merrick had been stuck on the same thing. If the point was to seed distrust, they never would’ve let them locate the warship.

Tristan let out a sudden laugh, right in the middle of everything. His hair fell across his eyes, half-hiding the heat behind them.

He waited until Gillian looked at him-waited until he had exactly the attention he wanted- and then he spoke.

“I used my glamour craft on a pack of scale parasites. Hypnotized them. Sent them out roaming in the middle of the night to pull the Legion’s attention. That’s why they hit your warship,” he said.

So that was it. The pieces finally clicked for Gillian. Without that, the whole setup had made no sense at all.

“If they want us at each other’s throats, let’s give them exactly that.” Gillian looked at Merrick, a smile tugging at her mouth. “We could start by killing you.”

Freya, Elara, and Sylas all stared.

Tristan’s eyes lit up. “How exactly are we killing him?”

Merrick’s gaze dropped onto Tristan like a blade. “Killing me? You seem really excited about this,” he said.

“Merrick, I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’m just trying to follow Gillian’s plan.” Tristan shifted in a blink into a tiny fox with eight tails fanned behind him and sprang straight into Elara’s lap. He peered up at her with the most innocent look he could manage.

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