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The shadow leaned into that touch, rubbing its face along Petra’s palm. It was strange, to say the least. Petra and the shadow were two halves of a whole, separate and the same. Yet, somehow, they also seemed to share some twisted attraction for one another.
Wasn’t that the absolute pinnacle of narcissism? Falling in love with one’s darker side? Only there was no telling which was the darker of the two.
Three more of the Lost attacked before I could give it any more thought. My blade sliced through two of them, and Leo dispatched the third, tearing the man’s arm off in a gruesome display of his raw, animalistic power.
Petra glared between us, throwing a disgusted glance at my partner in crime. “Leo.” She clucked her tongue like a condescending school marm. “I should have known you would be trouble. That conscience, it only ever gets in the way.”
She flicked her wrist, and the shadow moved Never’s body through the agitated crowd of soulless soldiers.
“I am curious, though,” she purred. “How deep do those noble intentions run?” A quick flick of her fingers was all it took to demonstrate what she meant with that ominous question.
The shadow launched at him, tackling him to the ground in a cacophony of grunts and snarls that amplified the wild energy pulsing from the Lost. The two rolled in the dirt, Never’s smaller frame twisting and striking. Leo was clearly trying not to hurt her, but when he was shifted, the wildness in him rose dangerously close to the surface.
The shadow landed a painful blow that sent the sound of Leo’s ribs cracking echoing through the crowd. He yelped, but what followed was a growl that set every hair at the base of my skull on edge.
He was losing control.
“Stop!” I yelled, sending the booming command reverberating out from my center.
Adrenaline pumped through me like a drug at the thought of Leo killing Never. It didn’t help that I could only feel her faintly now. She was still there, still fighting for purchase and control of her own body, but the longer the shadow remained in control, the harder it was for me to find that link to her in the chaotic rush of worry, anger, and unadulterated hatred churning inside me.
Leo stilled. The shadow didn’t. It lunged at him again, and his tenuous restraint snapped. He leapt at the creature, teeth bared and claws out.
I charged forward but was shoved violently back by a flicker of turquoise.
Anya.
There was only one reason she would get involved. Fury rode up my back because I knew what was coming, and I was helpless to stop it. With my next blink, the world before me started fading rapidly, but not before I saw Never pinned on her back, with blood seeping from the wounds where Leo’s claws were digging into her chest.
His lips pulled back, revealing his deadly feline teeth, as he let out a menacing snarl that could only mean one thing.
“Never!” I lunged forward, but my next step landed with a hollow, wooden thud.
I stumbled forward, reeling physically and emotionally, and crashed into the railing of my ship. Staring out across the open water at the island, rage multiplied inside me at a truly terrifying rate.
“No!” I slammed my fist down on the enchanted wood, and it buckled with a deafening crack under the force of the blow.
“Captain?”
I wheeled around, ready to tear every living thing between me and Never limb from limb. A fact that must have shown clearly on my face because William eased back one step, then another, holding his hands up in front of him.
The men behind him also shuffled back. It was a useless retreat. If I wanted to end them all, I could. There was nowhere to run in the middle of the sea, and even if a lucky few managed to find their way to one of the islands, there was nowhere to hide in this realm that I couldn’t find them. But they weren’t my concern.
Leo was.
If he killed Never, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from destroying him.
23
NEVER
Everything hurt. It wasn’t like when you take a nasty spill that jars your bones and rattles your teeth. Everything, every cell in my body, every thought in my head, was laced with agony.
I barely had a chance to register that this was the kind of pain my brother had been dealing with for weeks fighting the shadow in his body before Leo’s enormous paw tensed, digging those deadly claws even deeper into my weak human chest.
Mother fucker.
And the worst part? That fucking shadow was giddy about it. It was getting off on it. Probably because the worthless piece of shit knew when I died, it wouldn’t.
