But movement in her periphery gave her pause.
Her mother was preparing the tools necessary to force Caro back into a peaceful slumber.
It would be so easy to allow it, to succumb to the numbness once more.
But a tug at her soul grounded her in the present, reminding her why she needed to fight.
Caro’s purpose wasn’t to exist inside a pod. I’m meant for more.
Yes, Sethios agreed. You’re mine.
She nearly snorted. Yet his words filled a void inside her, sending warmth through her veins that mingled with the prickling sensations of her limbs. It made her feel alive. Renewed. Reborn.
“Yes, thank you. I need Adeline, please,” Chanara said.
“She will arrive in five minutes,” a deep voice replied from the air around them.
Chanara must have hit a speaker button to communicate, or perhaps had paged a telepathic Seraphim.
Adeline would be used to return Caro to her slumber, her knack for dream states well known among her peers. If she arrived before this glass container opened, it would be a problem.
Fighting her mother was one thing.
Taking down a Seraphim known for inducing comas with a thought was entirely another.
Breathe, Caro told herself, calming her racing heart. She needed to appear unthreatening. That would encourage her mother to open the pod and begin the preparation while they waited for Adeline to arrive.
Seraphim do not feel.
Seraphim do not react.
Seraphim accept rehabilitation as a corrective measure.
Caro chanted the words through her head, needing to embody and temporarily believe those statements.
Sethios growled in response, and she hushed him through the bond. I need to focus.
If you leave me again, I’m going to compel Vera to mist me to you. Fuck the wards. Fuck the defenses. I’m coming for you, angel. Whether you’re ready or not.
Heat slithered through her at the thought, making it difficult to freeze him out. But it was the only way for this to work.
She closed her eyes, stole several deep breaths, and pretended to rest. Her mother would assume she’d exhausted herself by pulling out the cords, that Caro had just fallen back into a light slumber while waiting for the Seraphim to fix her pod.
One, she counted, doing her best to focus on the numbers and her deep breaths. Two. Three. On she went, her mind utterly consumed by the task and holding her absolutely still as the clasps began to unfasten around her.
When she hit forty-seven, a hiss of air touched her ears.
At sixty-five, the glass shifted.
And at eighty-nine, her mother’s fingers brushed her pulse.
Now, Caro told herself, reaching for her maker and grabbing her by the neck. Chanara huffed in surprise, the noise silenced as Caro took them both to the ground in a flurry of limbs and unpracticed movements.
But her body quickly remembered how to operate, her muscles entirely healed. The only part of her left to recover was her mind, which would take more time.
She’d work on that later.
For now, she had to kill her mother. Not permanently—everlasting death was impossible for a Seraphim—but temporarily. Her grip around her mother’s neck tightened, her thighs clamped down against Chanara’s midsection to hold her on the ground beneath her.
