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But I couldn’t move or breathe.
Fetid water filled my throat, and darkness blurred the edges of my vision. I can not believe that I’m fucking dying, which makes me scared and pissed because I did not want this.
And then a hand grasped my jacket and hauled me to the surface as I gasped. But I was so busy coughing up water that I didn’t look to see if it was Kye or the shadow guy.
But I knew one thing. With my payday pulsing inside my chest, Mr. X would kill me.
3
I’m alive.
I think.
If I were dead, I wouldn’t shiver, and my teeth wouldn’t clatter against each other like a ritual voodoo rattle. Was I in shock? I could be. Kye had beaten me all to shit, and I probably suffered a concussion.
Yup, the pounding in my head announced a serious head injury was a distinct possibility.
Roiling nausea in my stomach confirmed my impromptu diagnosis.
Except I didn’t find Kye’s sneering face when I blinked the water from my eyes, so whoever grasped my leather jacket at the chest must be the dark presence that fought my ex and got thrown against the wall for his trouble.
His firm hand held my one-hundred-twenty pounds of dripping, sticky goodness with no trouble. After I coughed my lungs out in an explosive spray of water, I caught his eyes, illuminated by the moonlight, and gasped. His pupils swirled gold, and the irises pooled in milk chocolate flecked with gold. Despite the warm Louisiana night, my trembling intensified.
“Ssh,” he said. My tremors calmed, and a strange heat filled my core. I was unsure if his fiery gaze or the talisman burning in my chest stoked this internal fire. I could only focus on those eyes while his face remained cloaked in shadow. That alone should have shot alarm bells, warning me that I was dealing with another paranormal. But those mesmerizing eyes seemed to ease the pain of Kye’s brutal assault, and I relaxed.
“Rest now, Elena.”
His rumbling voice thrummed through my abused body, and as if he gave me a command, my eyes closed against my will. The last thing a paranormal like me should do is collapse in the arms of any supernatural creature, especially one I do not know. And I’m not asleep either, but caught between waking and dreaming, like a coma.
And I witnessed strange shit.
Immersed in quiet darkness, a luminescent sperm shape floated toward me. It was tadpole-ish, white with light radiating from its core, making it almost impossible to gaze at it directly. But instead of wearing a head, the body tapered off into a point at the end. Hence my sperm reference.
The unknown sperm thing swam, floated, or whatever in the void that contained us. It advanced toward me, close enough that its ‘head’ stared right into my eyes, and stared through me. It scrolled through my secrets with a violent intensity that violated me. I wanted it to leave and never bother me again.
Then a booming voice ricocheted through the infinite black around me.
“Things will change a great deal, Elena. Get ready.”
The light flared impossibly bright, trapping me within this strange parallel reality. I struggled to wake but couldn’t.
The form withdrew, and the need to glance away faded with it.
It retreated until it winked into a dot of light on my vision’s horizon. But it must have retreated only to obtain a running start because it suddenly returned, flying straight toward me.
The entity smashed into my dream self, startling me awake. I gasped, my eyelids shot open, and my body hummed with a newness I couldn’t place.
The artifact, what happened to it?
My hand flew to my chest, or tried to. It flopped uselessly at my side. Oh, hell. A paralyzing malaise gripped my body. I’m weak all over, which is a poor bet for future survivability.
Well, I did get the shit beaten out of me.
With each body part protesting, I attempted to fire my engines. I curled and straightened my toes, stretched my legs, then wriggled my fingers to roll my shoulders, finally winning a full-body stretch that sent my back crackling. Muscle and sinew woke slowly, but with it, so did my pain receptors, causing my eyes to water as my head throbbed.
Yeah, I was never getting up close and personal with my ex again.
Bastard.
