Page 82

His smile widens.

The pulse burns against my palm, the thrumming rising to a crescendo. I’m about to give in to temptation when a loud crash sounds in the distance. Bells ring out. People shout. I dash towards the noise. My heart beats against my chest, claws shred up my throat. And that horrible feeling returns. Fear.

“Get away!”

The most bizarre sound explodes out of my throat. Something like a whimper. Panic singes my nerve endings, while my eyes dance around in their sockets, desperate to land on the source of the voice.

A body launches out into the open as I round a building. And there, covered in filth and sweat…

“Saren!” I can’t stop moving. Can’t keep my distance. I propel forward like a shooting star and crush into him.

A soft oomph escapes his lips as I wrap both arms around his shoulders and hiss a warning.

Several humans have guns trained on him. One lies dead. “Ryx?”

“Get behind me,” I growl, not waiting for him to obey, and manipulate him behind my back. I rip off my gloves and summon the pulse.

A slow clap barely registers. The group of humans laugh. One of their own lies dead, and they’re laughing. Something sharp pokes at my lower lip.

“So it is true,” Levi muses, but there is no humor in his face. Something darker peeks out from behind his smile. “I never thought I’d see the day, Aryx. We could have done this years ago.”

Saren, ever so fucking stubborn, steps out into the open. “I said stay behind me!”

“They know where Salem is,” he tells me, a single hand reaching toward my face, then pulling back. “What is happening to you?”

I meet his lilac eyes.

All those dreams feel so real now that I can smell him up close. It’s startling that the pulse vanishes. Warmth pools low in my stomach. The hairs on the back of my neck rise, and everything is brighter, more vivid. My entire focus starts and ends with Saren’s eyes. All those disconnected cords inside me solidify into something stronger, complete. It’s a knowing so deep that it borders on painful.

And because of my distraction, Levi can manipulate me.

A force knocks me to my knees, and then it all goes dark.

30

Saren

“No one is this powerful,” I spit, restrained once more by this stranger.

After Ryx’s animalistic entrance, where he grew literal fangs and his eyes went pitch black, I was certain he’d do something. Kill the abomination holding me prisoner. Avenge me. Anything at all. Instead, he stared at me like he wanted to eat me alive and got himself knocked out. I was almost free, too. I’d successfully weasled into my guard’s mind, finding a crack in his mental shield and plucking the information that I needed out before ending his life.

I was so close.

And then he showed up.

The omega who held Ryx’s affections however long ago. The Telex hybrid that is too strong to be real.

In all my life, I’ve never seen someone manipulate mastery like he does. And what’s worse, he doesn’t seem to have the same cravings I do. Maybe it’s due to his human nature. Maybe he’s been experimented on—crafted to be this monstrosity. I’m not sure what is true anymore, only that we need to leave.

The Others are long gone by now, headed for Hale Valley as suspected, but their final destination is so far away, I doubt we’ll ever reach it.

Briar Peak.

“Communities are built to stifle and oppress.”

Ryx and I sit in rickety chairs inside the longhouse. Levi doesn’t bother with typical binding—using his mind is sufficient. Several people meander around, curious but wary. I glare up at the stranger perched on a table, swaying his feet and gnawing on some animal leg.

“I’m going to rip your heart out,” I threaten, meaning it with every fiber of my body.