Chapter 23

Agreat metallic tearing sound echoes around the cavern.

“Fuck! They’re coming through,” Ash growls, just as a narrow band opens up at the bottom of the thick metal door. “Take cover!”

I’m snagged around the waist as the team collectively dives for the cover of the containers on either side of the room. We drop down behind a shoulder-height rectangular one with strange alien-looking writing on the side. It’s thick and sturdy, but it doesn’t feel anywhere near enough. Ash is beside us.

“Noah?”

“He’s on the other side, Isla. Keep your fucking head down.”

I’m yanked from where I’m trying to peer around the side. But not before another deafening boom accompanies the door blasting inward. The thick metal plate flies across the room and smashes into a container at the back of the cavern. Stone and dust rain down—the blast has taken out half the door frame with it.

A hail of weapons-fire opens up, pinging into the containers.

“They’ve got a fucking death walker down here,” Seb snarls, his back to the container to my right as the whirrs and pops of automatic fire unleash into our container.

I feel the impact of every shot. Death walker? What the hell is a death walker? I’m hyperventilating. I can’t seem to bring myself down. My vision is flickering in and out.

The firing ceases abruptly.

“We want the omega,” a voice calls. “We know you have her. You’re out of options. We both know your backup won’t get here in time. You can hand her over, or we will kill you all. Those are our orders. We’ve played this game enough for you to take us at our word. If you don’t want her to die, make the right choice.”

I’ve never been a great judge of character. That I picked Derek is testament to that, but the voice strikes dread into my heart. I fist the front of Ash’s body armor. “Don’t.” I shake my head, seeing the conflict in his face. Maybe he has orders to kill me rather than let them take me? Maybe I don’t know Ash, either. “Seb, tell him no. I won’t go with them. I’d rather die.”

A barely audible ping is accompanied by a shout of pain.

“They’re picking us off,” Seb growls. “Noah’s been hit.”

Ash swings to peer around the container and unloads his weapon with a series of staccato bursts. More cries, and then another tsunami of weapons-fire follows in both directions.

Noah.

I feel like I’m building up with static electricity. I feel like I’m about to shatter. Am I dying? My heart is beating so wildly in my chest that I think I might go into cardiac arrest.

I try to speak, but the words won’t form.

They have got Noah and hurt him. Noah with his easy smile. Noah, who I can’t imagine being angry with anybody, even though he’s a soldier in whatever this war is.

“Fuck!” Seb roars. He reaches for me; his mouth is moving like he is still speaking, but I can’t hear anything over the sudden ringing in my ears.

Then the shaking begins.

I push Seb away, and he flies back several feet to hit another container.

Did I do that?

His jaw hangs open in shock.

Like a sleepwalker, I rise, intent only on getting to Noah, giving myself up so that he might survive.

Ash makes a dive for me, but he just bounces off, his hands seeming to slide right past me. Distantly, I realize something is very wrong, but I’m intent only on saving Noah as I stagger around the side of the container—and stop.

Noah is bleeding on the floor; an Uncorrupted soldier standing over him, weapon trained on his head. But my focus shifts to the monstrous robot in the center of the room. A killing machine standing head and shoulders above the men, with two high railguns and two lower cannons… all trained on me.

I see figures move, running for me. Both friend and foe. A flash of yellow fires straight toward the center of my chest.

A great pulse of light goes up as the blast is sucked into a glowing barrier that pops up around me.

Then silence.

The ringing has stopped. Not even my breathing or the frantic pounding of my heart penetrate the void.

My hand lifts and a blast of blue energy flies from my palm. It slams into the death walker and dances across the floor before connecting with the Uncorrupted soldiers one by one.

The death walker’s lights fade out, and its cannons swing toward the floor.

The Uncorrupted collapse or freeze. It feels like time stops.

The blue barrier surrounding me implodes, and a cacophony rushes back in around me.

Screams, cries, and the terrible sounds of death come for me in a rush as I collapse to my knees.

“Noah?” I croak.

Someone is kneeling over him, one of ours, as the rest of our team surges forward to kill the enemy.

“We’ve got him.” Seb drags me into his arms, his purr is manic and discordant to my ears.

I’m trying to process what I just did. How I blocked a shot aimed for my heart, the shield, the blast… the way it sucked the energy out of the enemy exoskeletons and weapons.

I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter. Only now do I realize Ash and his team are using knives and their hands: not their weapons.

“What have I just done?” My words come out slurred. My ears begin ringing again before my eyes roll back and blackness calls.

I wake up to a faint, droning sound and a purr underneath my cheek.

And scent; rich, compelling scent that curls heat in the pit of my belly.

Then everything comes rushing back: the gunfire, the screams, the strange blue energy. I thrash my way out of the dark, suffocating panic, and my eyes snap open to see Seb staring down at me. There are specks of blood across his face. His jaw on the right is turning black, while the bruises under his eyes are the yellowy purple of healing.

I’m sitting across his lap.

“Noah?” I demand.

“Right here, Isla,” a familiar voice says from behind me, and I twist to see Noah sitting on the seat behind Seb’s. “They got a healer to me.”

Healer? The term is unfamiliar—I presume they mean doctor or medic.

“But I thought they shot you. I saw blood.”

He stretches out his left shoulder. “Good as new. They only had one healer on the team, so they prioritized the critically injured. The rest will wait until we hit the base.”

This is all so advanced. The bases. Their weapons. The death walker. The exoskeleton suits. Both sides have technology far beyond my understanding. It stands to reason that their medical skills are similarly advanced.

He looks whole. I blink, trying to equate this version of him with the one who lay bleeding over the cold stone floor. Even after seeing this healer, I would expect bandages… or something along those lines.

I want to reach back and touch him, yet to do so seems too forward. Our eyes lock. I wonder if he’s remembering what we did together… and that Ash and Seb know nothing about.

His lips kick up the faintest amount, and his eyes lower to my mouth.

My belly tightens in response. Feeling emotionally exposed, I turn back around, my nose twitching again as Seb’s scent fills my nose and lungs. I glance around, taking in where I am and the strange ‘at sea’ feeling in my belly. The configuration reminds me of the shuttle I took from Sarendon to Chancely. Ash is sitting directly beside Seb; beyond him is an aisle, and beyond that, another two seats with soldiers I recognize from our party, more rows of seats ahead and behind.

Only the angles feel all wrong, like we’re heading up a steep incline.

Beyond Ash and the other two soldiers is a window—all I can see is blue sky… and a distant dome.

Panic claws at me even as I try to crawl up Seb. Strange plastic mittens cover my hands, hampering my attempts to become one with his body.

“What are these? Where are we going?”

We’re in the sky, high. I’ve never even been on a pleasure flight inside the dome. Now I’m outside of it, and climbing fast.

“They need to stay on,” Ash says, his voice snapping me out of my mounting panic, “until they can get you tested.” He smiles. “Can’t risk you shutting down the system while we’re riding in a shuttle.”

Is that what I did? Memories rush at me again: the giant assault robot seeming to cut loose, and then all the Uncorrupted’s exoskeletons freezing.

“What did I do?” I whisper, trying to piece together the sequence of events, and not get distracted by the arousal pooling fast and urgent between my legs.

“I’m no expert,” Seb says. “But it was a form of EMP.” His smile is broad and shows a lot of teeth. “We knew you were going to be special.”

“Oh god,” I mutter. All those times when devices broke under my touch… Has this always been inside me? Panic clamors again as I stare down at my hands. I’m on a shuttle in the sky. “What if it can get out of me in some other way?”

Seb palms my throat, and his face fills my view, his eyes on mine. I like his hand there; just the feel of his warm, roughened palm against my skin is doing riotous things to my libido. “Breathe, Isla. You’re going to be okay. You’re not the first person to manifest this gift, apparently. Although, from what I hear, the way yours manifested was more extreme than most. That’s why you’ve got the gloves on. You’re not going to hurt anybody or anything here.”

Calm is slow to arrive. My body still thrums, and it’s really distracting. My gaze shifts from Seb to the window. The shuttle dips to the right, and my stomach takes a tumble as I see a vast stretch of forest and, beyond it, dome after dome.

“I never realized there were so many,” I say, quietly.

“Hundreds,” Seb confirms.

I frown. My belly takes another dip that’s nothing to do with the banking shuttle, and my pussy performs a slow clench. What is wrong with me?

My nose twitches again. The rich scent feels like it slides down my throat and into my belly, where it generates increasing heat.

The mittens don’t make for easy movement, but I try to tug at the collar of my suit.

“I’m very hot.”

Ash stills in a noticeable way. Only, he’s not looking at me, but at Seb.

I fidget, distracted by the throb that kicks off deep in my pussy. “Why am I so hot?” I try to push away, needing air that’s not saturated with them… needing space.

Seb’s arm tightens. It feels like I’m suffocating on their scent. My clit tingles, my nipples peak. My breasts ache. A strange fluttery sensation kicks off in the pit of my stomach that soon morphs into a terrible fisting cramp. “Oh god!” I double over. I press my hand into my stomach. The panic is back, except this time it relates to what’s happening inside me, not what I could do to everyone else. “Oh god. What is happening to me? Am I… dying?”

My breathing turns choppy as I ball my mitten-covered fists against my cramping belly.

“Fuck,” Ash mutters. “Kayce, get your ass over here!”

A young man crouches in front of me and Seb. I bite my lip to hold a whimper of pain inside as he puts his hand against my cheek. His build is slight, and his face has an ethereal beauty, with bright blue eyes and dark, ebony skin that is so lustrous it shines.

“I can’t help with this,” he says, a genuine sadness entering his eyes. “She’s going into heat.”

“Jesus Christ,” Seb mutters. “Better call it through.”

The beautiful man rises and beckons to someone at the front of the shuttle.

Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. I feel like I’m spinning, and my vision splinters into colors before solidifying back into the shapes of people. I cling to Seb. There’s a lot of movement going on around me. People are calling instructions I can’t make sense of.

Beyond the window, a dome is approaching.

“Breathe, Isla.”

Seb’s hand is against my throat again. But, this time, it doesn’t offer either comfort or distraction.

We are high in the sky, outside the domes, and I’m looking down at the giant swirling barrier as it grows larger and larger. The shuttle banks in a different direction, and I see another dome, closer still.

“We’re coming into land,” Ash says.

We bank again, and all I see is the sky.

A whooshing noise fills my ears. The bottom drops out of my stomach. Outside, I can see skyscrapers… then, a big metal tunnel swallows the shuttle up.

Someone presses a cylindrical metal device against my arm, and I hiss at the sharp sting.

“God, not more of the virus.” My words grow slurred. “Please, no.”

“It’s just pain medication.”

Everything becomes hazy, and a giggle bubbles up. “Where are we?” I mumble. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth.

“Welcome to Chancely,” Ash says dryly.