She pushed off the tree and sprinted.
The ringtone was cut off. Either the call was answered, or the phone was switched to silent. Violet didn’t care which. She focused all her attention on the door of her dormitory building.
Faster!
Only a few steps to go. She could have cried with relief as she flew through a gap in the students, ignoring their confused expressions.
Up the staircase. Up to the floor of her dorm room. Once on the landing, she finally allowed herself to pause and catch her breath, heaving enormous gasps as the burning in her chest and legs subsided.
When she at last stepped out into the hallway, it was her turn to be confused.
Instead of the area being deserted, as it normally would be at that time of night, all the doors were open, and a crowd of students were huddling about halfway down the hall. Violet racked her brain. Had she missed the memo for a social? By the looks of everybody’s attire, it must be some kind of pajama party.
She weaved her way through the crowd, no one paying her much attention. The throng of people was condensed around one door in particular. Her door.
The closer Violet got, the more her chest tightened. She picked up the pace, elbowing her way through the barricade of bodies until she had a full view of what had captured all her classmates’ attention.
A hand flew to her mouth. No! Oh, please, no!
Several paramedics and police officers, the dorm supervisor, and the dean were gathered in a tight knot in the entryway of Violet’s room. One of the police officers was trying to clear a path through the crowded students, making way for a paramedic wheeling a stretcher.
On top of the stretcher was a zipped-up body bag.
A roar in Violet’s ears drowned out the chatter and noise in the hallway. Blotches of white light speckled her vision, and a black fog clouded her periphery.
Lyla . . .
Just as her body was about to give way, someone slammed into her, and steady arms wrapped around her shoulders. “Violet, there you are.”
Violet blinked, recognizing the deep voice. “Thane?” She staggered but managed to steady herself against him. “Thane, what are you doing here?”
“Violet!” exclaimed a female voice. Autumn and Gus pushed their way through the crowd.
Thane released her, but his hand trailed down her arm and took hold of her hand.
The cousins rushed in to envelop her in a group hug. Autumn was shuddering, but Gus stood solid, almost rigid.
“Where the hell have you been? You had me worried sick.” He looked angry, but Violet could feel the concern in the tight grip of his hand on her shoulder.
Both Autumn and Gus were standing before her. Alive. Autumn’s cheeks were stained with two black trails of mascara. She was in a faded band T-shirt, the one she usually slept in, and her dreadlocks were sticking out in uncontrolled directions.
Violet opened her mouth, attempting and failing to articulate any of the questions spinning through her confused mind. She looked beyond their faces, in the direction the stretcher had been escorted. The only word she could form was “Who?”
Autumn burst into tears, and Gus’s expression turned pained.
“He killed her, Violet. She’s dead.” Autumn paused, taking in a few hiccupy breaths. “He killed Bessie.”
“What?” Violet’s eyes grew wide. “No . . .”
Not Bessie, the girl with the Irish lilt who could laugh and party like no other. The avid gamer and Hello Kitty enthusiast. The bubbling brunette who was a key member of Violet’s little group of college friends.
This can’t be happening. This can’t be real. Why? How?
Through her tears, Autumn plunged into a rambling story of how Bessie had come over to study and, after a few hours, fallen asleep on Violet’s bed. “It was late, and you hadn’t come back yet, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. So I let her sleep because I knew how exhausted she was, and I figured you wouldn’t care. And then I fell asleep—” Autumn took a few ragged breaths, then bit into her fist, her eyes clenched shut.
Gus put an arm around her shoulders.
“And then I woke up,” continued Autumn, “and . . . and . . . he was there.”
“Who was it?” They all turned at Thane’s question. He was still holding Violet’s hand, his warm closeness providing a slight comfort.
Autumn shook her head, her expression anguished. “It was dark and I didn’t see.” She grasped Violet’s upper arms. “But, Violet, he said your name. Right before he . . . right before Bessie—”
With her free hand, Violet pulled Autumn into another tight hug as her friend shook with a new onslaught of sobs.
Thane lay a hand on Autumn’s quaking back, but his attention was trained on Violet. His strong hand gripped hers tighter.
18
Venus Dimples
A few sunbeams pierced the darkened sky. The morning star shone in its dazzling glory, casting subtle beams through the windows of the Defender.
Nathan rolled onto his side for what might have been the hundredth time in who knows how many hours. He should have fallen asleep easily based on how exhausted he was from almost being harvested and enduring the evil onslaught of Aphrodite’s beams, but his mind was wide awake. Along with the usual worries, concerns, and suppressed memories of his past, his small conversation with Sagan was also getting its fair share of replays.
“. . . I saw what you did.”
Nathan shifted onto his back. The memory of the night he first met Violet Chambers returned with vivid clarity.
Nathan hung his head, covering his face with his hand and wearily rubbing his temples. He reached down to her neck to look for a pulse; a faint beat tapped against his fingers. With an instinctive flick of his tongue, he latched on to Violet’s essence, and his eyes grew wide.
How was this possible?
An Erathi’s soul-scent changed over the course of their childhood and puberty. It could be frustrating for the Veniri, but for the Erathi, the shifting scent was a benefit, especially if they happened to find themselves in a situation where a Veniri was tracking them. Violet’s missing person’s file stated she was sixteen, not yet fully matured, but her pubescence was already fading, revealing hints of her permanent soul-scent underneath—a scent that was eerily familiar.
A memory of a woman from his past snapped through his mind.
He lashed out his tongue again, and Violet’s essence reignited on his palate. His insides turned to granite. There was no mistaking it. The scents were almost identical.
Violet was definitely her daughter.
A low groan cut through the night, but it didn’t come from Violet. Nathan shone his flashlight in the direction of the man in the hoodie lying nearby, who had begun stirring. A teal blotch gleamed against the dark fabric of his torso. Based on the location, the wound didn’t appear fatal.
The face of the Veniri in human form rolled into view. Cold, piercing eyes glimmered in the beam of Nathan’s flashlight.
With slow, calculated movements, Nathan stepped away from Violet. A torturous burn sizzled in his arms as his crystalline blades sliced from his elbows.
The Veniri’s features hardened into a menacing glare, which Nathan returned with his own scowl. He hated everything about why this Veniri was far away from the safety of his hive, why he’d risked crossing other shifters’ territories and risked hunters picking up his trail. He hated that dozens of human families would be contacting the police and would spend countless hours searching for their missing teenage daughters.
He clenched his fists. What he hated most was that he’d once been a part of these kidnappings of innocent human girls. Killing this Veniri scum wouldn’t right his own wrongs or the wrongs his race had inflicted, but it would be a start.
The Veniri lashed out his forked tongue.
Nathan grinned. He knew exactly what the Veniri was tasting; rhubarb for Nathan’s initial surprise, and chalk laced with cider vinegar for his long-lived resentment and grief. But the most offensiv
e flavor would be cinnamon; there was no way he was going to let this Veniri live.
The Veniri’s eyes darted from Nathan to a small Diamantium dagger by Violet’s hand. The blade was smeared with luminescent blue.
Before the Veniri could act, Nathan swooped and plunged one of his crystal elbow shards into his victim’s neck. A startled gasp escaped the Veniri right before his vocal cords were severed.
Nathan shunted back out of reach of the Veniri’s own elbow blades.
The doomed shifter clutched his throat, and his eyes shot skyward in panic and desperation. His face shifted as his human features hazed into Veniri. Flexing scales of iridescent teal rippled to the surface of the exposed skin of his face, neck, and hands, and small hornlike crystals lined his eye sockets and cheekbones, glittering under the moonlight. Fabric tore as crystalline spires sliced through the hoodie and jeans.
Nathan scoffed. His aim had been true; the wound was fatal. The healing energy of Venus’s beams would be ineffective in healing him. The useless creature was only prolonging his excruciating and inevitable end.
The Veniri looked back at Nathan, reaching toward him with a gurgled plea.
Nathan glared. The scum deserved far worse. He turned his back, not bothering to watch the creature’s final moments. Instead, he focused on the frail girl among the leaf litter.
He shook his head, mentally sifting through the contents of her case file. This kid had already been through hell within the foster system, and now she’d been dragged into a different hell by Veniri kidnappers. If she survived this, she’d never be able to explain who or what she’d seen. Even if she could, and even if people believed her story, it would bring even more danger, not only to her world but also to his.
Regardless, her scent would forever make her a target. The fact that she’d been constantly shuffled around in the Erathi foster system, as well as her unstable childhood scent, had kept his people from discovering her so far. But Violet’s mature essence would soon become a beacon. Who else knew of her existence? Did the queen know?
He narrowed his eyes. He definitely couldn’t let the queen, or anyone else, track Violet. There was too much at stake.
He pressed the tip of his elbow blade against Violet’s flesh, right above her windpipe. This was likely the most mercy anyone had ever shown her. He would not only end her misery but also keep her away from whatever tortures would be inflicted upon her if she were caught again.
Then a thought crossed his mind.
What if he shielded Violet? His father had done it.
Nathan flexed his fingers. The procedure would be difficult, and he only knew the theory from what his father had explained to him long ago.
“Yes, it is possible to shield an Erathi from being soul-tracked. The poison glands around our heart produce a protein just for that purpose, believe it or not. If one were to transplant two glands into an Erathi host, the small amount of poison wouldn’t harm them. They might get symptoms of what the Erathi call a ‘cold,’ but once their immune system clears away the poison, the glands will still produce the protein to shield them.”
Nathan flicked a glance back toward the shack. So far, no one had followed him out, but he needed to act fast. A spike of adrenaline shot through his body at the thought of what he was about to do. This was not going to be pleasant for either of them.
He threw off his jacket and removed his shirt. Raising his face to the heavens, he hazed, making sure the change was isolated to his hips up; he’d rather avoid his leg shards slicing through his pants. He selected a shard on his torso and hacked it off with an elbow blade, then knelt down and carefully rolled Violet onto her front.
A pang of guilt stabbed through his chest. This plan was really risky, not to mention highly invasive, but the alternative of her being killed or caught was much worse.
He lifted the hem of Violet’s shirt, uncovering the two Venus dimples on her lower back. Following his father’s instructions, he used the hacked shard to gouge a hole in the center of each dimple. Liquid crimson pooled on either side of her spine, then streamed down her hips. Violet stirred a little but, to Nathan’s relief, didn’t regain consciousness.
He sped up his actions, praying she wouldn’t wake up or lose too much blood. He needed to get this done before he lost his nerve.
After cleaning the broken shard on his shirt, he placed the tip at the base of his ribs on his left side. He heaved a few quick breaths, gritted his teeth, and—before he could back out—sliced into his hide. Teal blood seeped down his torso as he dragged the shard through his flesh, carving out a gash several inches long. With an agonized grunt, he dug his fingers into the wound.
Every logical part of his mind screamed at him to stop, but he pushed his fingers farther, up along the inside of his ribs. After a few moments, his fingertips reached what he needed. Going by feel and with as much care as he could muster, he removed two small glands from near his heart.
Remembering the rest of what his father had told him, Nathan transplanted the glands into each of Violet’s dimples.
Once again, he cleaned the shard on his shirt, then turned his focus to Venus. The Venusian beams were invisible to his human eyes, but with the aid of his Veniri inner eyelids, he could perceive them easily. He held the shard under one of the beams and fiddled for a moment with the angle. Much like a sunbeam caught in a magnifying glass, the Venusian beam condensed into a small dot of light, which Nathan focused onto each of Violet’s wounds. She moaned and shifted as her flesh began to sizzle, but he didn’t stop until both wounds were cauterized shut.
He needed to seal this procedure with a mind block, not just for her safety but also to erase the horrors she’d witnessed over the past few days. His focus returned to Venus, and he raised his hands, circling them within a beam until the subtle light became tangible in his hands, fluffy like cotton candy. He gathered what he could into a loose ball and placed it over Violet’s head. Her whimpers and cries of pain became more anguished as the bundle glowed a vibrant blue.
After a few heartbeats, Violet’s whimpering ceased and her body relaxed.
With a sigh, Nathan removed the cottony beam from her mind and released it into the air, where it disintegrated and fused into another nearby beam of celestial light. He retrieved the Diamantium spike, stood up, and with his free hand, pinched the gash beneath his ribs. To cauterize his own wound, he’d need to make sure—
“Nathan? Is that you?”
He froze, his skin crawling at the familiar, delicate voice.
“Oh, it is you!” A feminine giggle followed, like raindrops on a crystal cup.
He turned, making an immense effort to prevent the raging turmoil from showing on his face.
A smoky blue apparition hovered over the Veniri on the ground, its vaporous wisps flowing and undulating into the shape of Idalia, queen of the Veniri, in human form. Her goddess-like appearance was enhanced by her avant-garde crown and stunning dress molded to defy gravity around her neck and shoulders. The neckline plunged almost to her navel.
Horror pinched Nathan’s throat and chest. Her appearance could not have come at a worse time. He cursed himself for not ending the Veniri’s life swiftly; he should have foreseen this possibility.
Nathan glanced at the Veniri male on the ground, the source of the phantasm. He still clutched at his throat, his body heaving in its desperate attempt at retaining life. Eyes wider than ever, the creature clutched in vain at the wisp above him. He may as well have tried grasping a tendril of smoke.
Idalia giggled and clapped her hands, ignoring the dying Veniri. “My dear Nathan. I thought I would never see you again. You’ve been truly wicked to me.”
Nathan gritted his teeth at the irony of her choice of words.
She reached out her hand as if she expected him, her loyal servant, to kiss it. His lip curled into a sneer. She knew full well he couldn’t touch her in the form she was in, but that wasn’t the reason he didn’t make a move. He remained still as a statue, his cry
stal shard suspended over the gash he was still pinching closed.
A hardness crossed her features. She scanned the scene, her gaze alternating between Nathan’s wound and Violet’s back, and raised a delicate eyebrow. Her expression dripped triumph and curiosity as she pointed at Violet. “Nathan, my sweet, who is that?” she asked, her tone light yet commanding.
Nathan didn’t, couldn’t answer. It was too late to hide what he’d done. Idalia’s wisp glided closer to study Violet’s unconscious face.
“Whoever she is, she’s none of your concern,” said Nathan.
He didn’t miss the slight twitch at the corner of Idalia’s mouth before her features dropped into a dramatic pout. “You’re not still sulking over our last encounter, are you?”
Nathan ignored the question. He turned his back and focused on angling the shard to concentrate a Venusian beam, on searing his wound shut. He winced and bit back his cry of pain at the sizzling burn.
“Nathan, Nathan, Nathan. What are you doing to yourself?”
Nathan scoffed. Once his gash was sealed, he pocketed the crystal shard and reached down for his shirt, cursing himself as he gave in to temptation and glanced back at the figure in the blue mist.
“Come home, my sweet, and I’ll have my personal physician tend to you.” Her words rolled over him like honey.
He glared at her. “And then what? Once I’m healed and healthy, you’ll have me prepped for execution? I bet your cousin Kronan would eagerly volunteer to remove all my shards and my head. How is that coward, by the way? Make sure you send him my ill will.”
She tilted her head back and laughed. “Oh, you are holding a grudge. What if I said I missed you and wanted you back?”
“I’d say, ‘What’s the catch?’”
Her expression turned to mock hurt. “You would question my sincerity?” She put a hand on her hip. “Are you not yearning to come home? To have everything back to the way it was?”
Nathan didn’t answer straightaway. He knew this tactic of hers. She wasn’t concerned with what he wanted; she was reminding him of what he’d once had. She was toying with him, like a child toys with an insect right before they rip off its wings.
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