Opposition

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  After cocking back my arm, I slammed my fist into his jaw. He stumbled into the wall, raising a hand to his face. A sick sense of satisfaction twisted up my insides.

  He raised his head, tilting it to the side. “Jesus.” He grunted as he lowered his hand. “I didn’t kill her. Obviously.”

  My thoughts emptied like a bowl of water being tipped over as I drew in a shallow breath.

  “I knew what I was doing, Daemon.” He glanced at the door, his voice lowering. “There was nothing else I could do.”

  Launching forward, I gripped the collar of his shirt and lifted him up onto the tips of his boots. The reasons were not good enough. “You have never had any measure of control when it comes to using the Source. Why in the hell would it be different now?”

  The pupils of his eyes started to glow white. He shoved his arms between mine, breaking the hold. “I had no other choice.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” I stepped around him, forcing myself away from my brother before I threw him through a wall and in front of a tank.

  Dawson turned, and I could feel his shrewd gaze on my back. “You need to get control of yourself, brother.”

  I stopped in front of the closed doors and looked at him over my shoulder.

  He shook his head. “I’m—”

  “Don’t,” I warned.

  Dawson’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and when they reopened, he was staring at the closed doors, nearly devastated. “How much longer?” he whispered.

  Real fear punched me in the gut. It was too much. I knew his defenses were down and he had been put in a bad position. He didn’t have any other choice. “I don’t know, because . . .”

  I didn’t have to elaborate. Understanding dawned on his face. “Dee . . .”

  My eyes met and held his, and there was nothing else to be said. Facing forward, I pushed open the door, and the constant hum banging off my skull grew stronger as I entered the wide, circular office.

  Newcomers were in the room, but it was the one in the seat with his back turned to me who mattered, the one we’d been drawn to the moment they’d shown up at the cabin.

  He was sitting in a leather chair, watching a big flat screen on the wall. It was a local TV news station broadcasting images of downtown Coeur d’Alene. Totally different place than it had been three days ago. Smoke billowed from buildings. Fire covered the west like a burning sunset. The streets were a mess. Complete war zone.

  “Look at them,” he said, his voice carrying a strange lilt as he navigated the new language. “Scurrying around on the ground aimlessly.”

  Looked like half of the humans were looting an electronics store.

  “They’re so helpless, unorganized. Inferior.” His laugh was deep, almost infectious. “This will be the easiest planet for us to dominate.”

  It still amazed me that they’d been out there this whole time, generation after generation since the destruction of our planet, holed up in some godforsaken universe that was apparently not as comfy as Earth.

  He shook his head, almost in wonder, as the screen flipped to images of tanks rolling into the city. He laughed again. “They can’t defend themselves.”

  Another newcomer, a tall redhead dressed in a tight black skirt and pressed white shirt, cleared her throat. Her name was Sadi, which was fitting, because I referred to her as Sadi the sadist.

  She didn’t seem to mind, because in the short time I had known her, the nickname was well earned, and the only other thing I did know about her was that her gaze was usually attached to my ass.

  “Actually, they do have weapons,” she said.

  “Not enough, my dear. This is happening in some of the largest cities in every state, in every country. Let them have their little weapons. We may lose a few, but those losses will not impact our initiative.” The chair wheeled around, and the muscles along my back tensed. The human form he’d chosen was that of a trim male in his early forties, with dark brown hair parted neatly and a wide, perfectly straight white smile.

  He’d taken the form of the mayor of the city, and he liked to be called by the dead human’s name: Rolland Slone. Sort of weird. “Our goal will still be reached. Isn’t that right, Daemon Black?”

  I met his stare. “I really don’t think they’ll be able to stop you.”

  “Of course not.” His fingers steepled under his chin. “I hear you brought something with you?”

  He posed it as a question, but the answer was already known. I nodded.

  Sadi’s body angled toward mine with interest as her bright teal gaze lit up, and by the wall, the other one stirred.

  “A female?” asked Sadi, who must’ve picked up the fleeting image that had flickered through my thoughts.

  “The last time I checked, yes.” I smiled when her eyes narrowed. “But I’m still not convinced you’re rocking all the right girl parts.”

  Sadi’s fingers straightened at her sides. “You want to check that out?”

  I smirked. “Nah, I think I’ll pass on that.”

  Rolland chuckled as he hooked one knee over the other. “This female. She’s not exactly human, is she?”

  Sadi pulled her attention from me when I shook my head. A muscle or a nerve or something else equally annoying started to twitch under my eye. “No. She’s not.”

  His hands rested in his lap, one folded on top of the other. “What is she exactly?”

  “A mutant,” answered Dee as she strode into the room, her long, dark curls spreading out behind her. A sweet smile formed on her lips as she looked at Rolland. “Actually, she was mutated by my brother.”

  “Which one?” asked Rolland.

  “This one.” Dee nodded at me as she popped her hands on her hips. “He healed her about a year ago. The girl is a hybrid.”

  Eyes flicked back to mine. “Were you trying to hide that from us, Daemon?”

  “Did I really get a chance to answer that question?”

  “True,” Rolland murmured, eyeing me closely. “You’re a hard one to read, Daemon. Not like your lovely sister here.”

  Folding my arms across my chest, I shrugged. “I like to think I’m an open book.”

  “Out of all of us, he’s always had little use for humans,” Dee said.

  Rolland’s brows rose. “Except for this girl, I imagine.”

  “Except for her.” Guess Dee was now my own personal speaker. “Daemon was in love with her.”

  “Love?” Sadi coughed out a surprisingly delicate laugh. “How very . . .” She seemed to search for the right word. “Weak?”

  My shoulders stiffened as I muttered, “‘Was’ being the key word.”

  “Explain to me this healing and mutation thing,” Rolland ordered, leaning forward.

  I waited for Dee to chime in, but for once, she appeared happy to remain quiet. “She suffered a fatal injury, and I healed her without knowing that it would mutate her. Some of my abilities were transferred to her, and we were connected together from that moment on.”

  “What made you want to heal her?” Curiosity colored his tone.

  Dee snorted. “I don’t think he was thinking with the head on his shoulders when he did it, if you get what I mean.”

  While I resisted the urge to shoot my sister a look, Rolland stared at me for a moment, and then smiled like he not only got what Dee meant but was also very interested in a whole lot of detail.

  “Interesting,” murmured Sadi as she flipped a wealth of coppery hair over a slim shoulder. “How tight is this bond or connection between you?”

  I shifted my weight, glancing at the silent Luxen male who was still leaning against the wall. “She dies; I die. Tight enough for you?”

  Rolland’s eyes widened. “Well, that is not good . . . for you.”

  “Yep,” I drawled out.

  A slow curl of Sadi’s lips made her look hungry. “And does she feel what you feel? And vice versa?”

  “Only if it’s a near-fatal wound,” I answered, voice flat as the floors.

  Sad
i glanced at Rolland, and I knew they were communicating. Their words were lost in the hum of the others, but the eagerness that suddenly crept over Sadi’s face had my fists tightening.

  I didn’t trust her.

  I didn’t trust Quiet Dude, either.

  “You don’t have to trust her,” Rolland said, smiling widely. “We just have to trust you.”

  Dee stiffened. “We can be trusted.”

  “I know.” His head cocked to the other side. “And there was something else there, right? It got away?”

  Back to being the ever-helpful minion, Dee nodded as she sat down in an armchair, all but draping herself over it. “An Origin, a product of a Luxen male and a hybrid female. I hope we don’t have to kill him. I think he’s kind of cute.”

  “Interesting.” Rolland glanced at Sadi, and again, I knew they were getting all kinds of secret squirrel chatty with each other.

  Coming to his feet, he buttoned the front of his beige suit jacket. “There’s a lot we don’t know. These hybrids are new to us,” he said, which almost made me laugh. For a race of beings who’d never been to Earth, they seemed to have a lot of knowledge about the layout. There was something more that I hadn’t figured out. Something, or a bunch of somethings, had been working from the inside. Seemed important. “We’re counting on you and your family, others like you, to aid us in these situations.”

  I nodded curtly, as did Dee.

  “Now. I have things to do.” He came around the side of the oak desk, and the Luxen male finally moved away from the wall. “People to meet and to put at ease.”

  Surprise caught me. “Put people at ease?”

  As Rolland strolled past me with Sadi and the Man of Few Words snapping at his heels, he smiled broadly once more. “See you in a little while, Daemon.”

  The doors closed behind them, reinforcing the fact that I wasn’t privy to every thought and whim. There was a lot hidden.

  Sighing, I turned to where my sister sat, and for a second, realization poked free. I barely recognized her.

  Dee glanced up, her eyes meeting mine.

  “Thought you were supposed to be watching her?” I said.

  She shrugged. “She’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Dawson knocked her into next week, I think.”

  The back of my neck tensed. “So no one is with her?”

  “I really don’t know.” She frowned at her nails. “And I really don’t care.”

  I stared at her a moment, unthinkable words forming on my lips, but I pushed them down. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring up Beth.”

  She arched a brow. “Beth is weak—weaker than Katy. She’d probably run away the second she saw us, fall, and kill herself, taking out Dawson in the process. I think we need to keep her a secret for Dawson’s sake.”

  “You’ll lie to Rolland?”

  “Haven’t we already been lying to him? Obviously Dawson’s keeping that little secret buried deep, just like you have, and so have I. They don’t know about Beth and didn’t know about Kat until a little while ago.”

  Pressure clamped down on my chest, and I forced it out of my system when Dee tilted her head to the side to watch me. “If you think that’s best.”

  “I do,” she replied coolly.

  There was nothing left to say, so I turned toward the door.

  “You’re going to her.”

  I stopped but didn’t turn around. “So?”

  “Why would you?” she asked.

  “If her wound festers and she dies, well, you know where that leaves me.”

  Dee’s tinkling laugh reminded me of icicles falling from the roof of our porch back home during the winter. “Since when do hybrids get festering wounds?”

  “Hybrids don’t get colds and cancers, Dee, but who knows what a charred hole in their flesh does. Do you?”

  “Ah, that’s kind of a good point, but . . .”

  Turning to her, my hands clenched at my sides. “What are you trying to say?”

  Her lips curled up. “The worst thing that could happen is her arm rotting off.”

  I stared at her.

  Tipping her head back, she laughed as she clapped her hands together. “You should see your face. Look, all I’m trying to say is that it sounds like there’s another reason why you want to go see her.”

  A twitching muscle moved from under my eye to my jaw. “You were right earlier.”

  She frowned. “Huh?”

  I let the kind of smile that was a lifetime ago pull at my lips. “Thinking with a different kind of head.”

  “Ew!” Her nose wrinkled. “God, yeah, I don’t need to know anymore. ’Bye.”

  Winking at her, I pivoted around and left the room. Dawson was no longer in the atrium, and I didn’t like that I had no idea where he was or what he was doing. No good could come from that, but I really didn’t have the brain cells to deal with that on top of what waited upstairs.

  I hadn’t brought her back here.

  Dawson had, and I hadn’t been with him when he’d carried her upstairs, but I knew where she was without asking. Third floor. Last bedroom on the right.

  Framed photos of the real Mayor Rolland Slone and his family adorned the stairwell, a pretty blond wife and two kids under the age of ten. I hadn’t seen the wife or the kids when we came here. The last photo on the second floor landing was cracked, smeared with dried blood.

  I kept going.

  My steps were faster than I intended, but the upper floors were virtually empty, and as I started down the wide hall with paintings of the lakes surrounding the city covering the forest-green walls, the hum and chatter faded until it almost felt like it was only me in my head. Almost.

  Thrusting a hand through my hair, I let out a ragged breath that immediately turned into a swift curse when I spotted the last door.

  It was cracked open.

  Had Dee left it that way? Possible. My hand fell to my side as I drifted toward the door. My heart jackhammered against my ribs as I reached out, pushing it open. Abnormally bright light spilled into the hall.

  A Luxen was in the room with her, bent over the bed, its form completely blocking her.

  There wasn’t a single thought in my head.

  4

  { Daemon }

  The edges of my vision tinged in red, and like a ticked-off cobra striking, I shot across the room as the Luxen sensed my presence and straightened. He turned as he shifted into the human form he’d adopted—a male in his early twenties. I think he was going by the name of Quincy. Not that I gave two craps about his name.

  “You shouldn’t—”

  My fist crashed into the space just below his ribs, doubling him over. Before he could fall back on the bed, I gripped him by the shoulders and tossed him to the side.

  Quincy bounced into the wall, the impact rattling the framed pictures hanging on it. His blue eyes flashed white, but I exploded forward, punching my hands into his shoulders, slamming him back into the wall again.

  I got all up in his face. “What were you doing in here?”

  Quincy’s lips pulled back over his teeth. “I don’t have to