"Do not kill them!" Sabine ordered.
Vesperin, Kit thought, as he leaped, drawing his legs beneath him as he fell into a perfect crouch behind two of the guards. He stared at their backs, wanting their focus on him—and not Vesperin, who had moved to the Soul Searcher, crouching low.
The woman with red hair was on the ground, blood spilling from her neck, coating her silver gown. She choked on her own blood, bubbling past her lips as Vesperin tried to staunch the wound from a stray bullet with her hands, teary-eyed, as the Soul Searcher tried to coax her back, tugging on her arm. Vesperin refused to leave.
Her pretty blue gown was covered in red, the white ends of her hair stained with scarlet.
His orders glitched.Return—return—b… base.
His right hand snapped out, gripping the back of one of the guard’s necks. He grabbed the other, then bashed their heads together with preternatural strength. Their skulls collided, red spraying out as brains wept from the caved-in holes.
He heard screams. More bullets.
He did not stop.
Vesperin. He had to get them away from her.
His obsession twisted. He would protect her.
He knew nothing but the haze of violence, licking against him like tepid ocean waves on unfeeling flesh.
Blood warmed his cheeks, soaked his black clothes.
The only thing that drew him away from the haze was the sound of her voice, yelling his name.
"Kit! Stop!" Vesperin begged. She was held in the arms of a guard. Blood all over her. Was it hers? His gaze swung to the red-haired woman’s unseeing eyes. Dead.
Kit heaved, reaching out for a ripped arm on the ground, the fingers still curved around a gun’s trigger. He dropped the arm and raised the bloodied gun. It felt unnatural in his hands. He tightened his fingers, and the metal turned to a heap, crushed. Bullets plinked to the blood-soaked concrete. He dropped the mass of metal.
The guard holding Vesperin was one of the last left. Another stood before Sabine and Talor, staggering as he clutched a wound at his side.
The guard pressed the barrel of a gun to the side of Vesperin’s head, arm locked around her neck as he squeezed her against him. She reached up to grip the guard’s arm where it was locked over her neck, her lips twisted into a grimace. She wore only one heel. The other was lost in her struggle, discarded further away.
The Soul Searcher’s scythe had been knocked out of his hands.
They were losing.
"Well, I have finally found your weakness," Sabine intoned. "Her."
"I will make you pay," Kit vowed.
"But will you before I order a bullet through your precious Soulbond’s head?" Sabine countered.
Fear made him go cold.
"You need her." Kit remembered that much.
"Would you bet her life on that? We have put millions intoyou. We have not been able to recreate the Phoenix. In time, we could recreate the phenomenon of Vesperin—that is what the Aetherborns are for. Testing. Using the Aether to create Nova."
"You have failed. Why are you so confident now?" Lucien’s voice was strained.
Sabine gave a laugh. "Much can be accomplished in eternity."
He did not wait to hear what else she was going to say. He would not test her claims.
Kit pounced, sweeping low. A gunshot went off. It ricocheted off the ceiling, dust falling. His fingers enclosed around the toe of Vesperin’s discarded heel as he pushed himself up—behind the guard holding her.
His breath rustled the hairs at the back of the guard’s neck as he whispered, "Too late." He jabbed the pointed tip of the heel into the back of his neck, digging in deep. The guard gave a strangled moan, gun falling from his limp fingers as blood spurted from the wound. "Go." The word came from the very pit of Kit’s Soul as his eyes met Vesperin’s.
