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“The truth doesn’t matter. Only the Brotherhood matters. Your actions here further undermine it. If you were the devoted Brotherhood member you claim to be, you’d step aside and let me finish this.”
They stood almost toe to toe now. Octavius in his hooded top and torn trousers, Mikalis with a barrage of shadows waiting behind him.
“You’ve forgotten what the Brotherhood is. Or maybe it’s evolved, and you haven’t.” Octavius’s smile ticced. “We exist to stop your mistake from destroying the world, not to worship you. If you want worshippers, go get yourself some feeders and make yourself a congregation of nyk acolytes.”
Mikalis bared his fangs. “Iamthe Brotherhood.”
“No, you’re not. And I think, deep down, you’re afraid they’ll realize it—”
Mikalis shot his hand out and grabbed Octavius’s neck, plucking him off his feet. Saint tensed to attack in what would probably be his final fight, but Mikalis dropped Octavius and reeled backward, clutching his head. Octavius had attacked inside his mind. Mikalis lifted his glare. “Use your talent on me again and I will ensure your death is agonizing!”
Octavius rocked on his feet too, as though there were some mental battle going on between them. Saint had seen enough. Whatever happened here, he’d do everything he could to save JayandOctavius.
Mikalis flew at Octavius—but Saint intercepted.
Mikalis crashed into him with all the force of a freight train. Jay’s shout rang out, and then the burn of fangs sinking into his neck scorched every other sense behind white-hot fire.
Alien venom surged down his jugular, pouring into him, turning the blood in his veins to acid. He didn’t fight. There was no point. He’d already lost. But Octavius would be safe, and he’d take Jay. And in Saint’s long, eventful life, it was enough to die knowing Octavius would save them.
Because it was the right thing to do.
CHAPTER21
Octavius
It happened so fast,there was no time to intervene. Mikalis came for Octavius, and then Saint was there, in front of him. Mikalis crushed Saint in his arms. Fangs flashed, Jay let out a yell, but it was already too late.
Mikalis struck, killing Saint with a bite that was meant for Octavius.
All of this was wrong.
It couldn’t end like this.
“Stop!”Octavius pushed the demand at Mikalis. It punched through his barriers, into his mind. His eyes flicked up, locked on Octavius, and he bit downharder.
Saint was already dead—that much venom, he’d never survive. And all of this was so fucked up, so wrong. Octavius had trusted and served Mikalis for millennia. The Brotherhood had been betrayed. He’d been betrayed, by Mikalis!
“Stop, by Nyx, let him go!”Octavius thrust the order like a spear.
Mikalis gasped free of Saint’s neck, leaving a bloody, venom-stained wound.
“How?” Mikalis snarled.
He didn’t deserve to know.“Let him go.”
Mikalis let go, and Saint collapsed onto his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Sweat glistened on his pale face. Venom would be coursing through his veins, burning him up.
Octavius couldn’t lose his focus now. It wasn’t enough to stop Mikalis’s bite, he had to make him stop hunting them for good, or this would never end. Saint’s breathing stuttered, his whole body shook. But Octavius couldn’t go to him, not yet.
It was almost over. Just one final push.
He approached Mikalis. Fury rolled off the Brotherhood leader in new, dark waves. But Octavius had told him to stop, and there he stood, unmoving. Octavius couldn’t think on how, or why, the mental demand had worked now, just that it had, and he needed it to stick.“You will not hunt us,”Octavius sent.“We are free to go.”He could do more, could tell him to walk into sunlight and stay there, could make him hurt, like he’d hurt them.
Mikalis sneered. “How dare you assume to control me.”
“Someone needs to,” a new arrival said, in a deep, rumbling voice.
Storm approached from the storage area, his muscular bulk filling the doorway. He looked good for a guy who’d fallen several thousand feet from a chopper.
