Naya’s eyes darkened, humor gone.
“Sorry,” Pandora mumbled, frowning slightly, because she knew the werejaguar was thinking of her brother and how much his eating habits had changed.
“We should keep moving,” Naya said, changing the subject as she eased to her feet, a little less elegantly than usual.
Pandora nodded, trying to stand, but every bit of her ached.
“I can’t get up,” she said, collapsing into a heap of limbs. Between the food and the lack of sleep, her body had finally given out. Those few short hours of rest on the helicopter hadn’t been enough. The fighting, the escaping, the constant running, it had finally caught up at the worst time possible. Because they were close, so close to the end. Two days’ hike and they’d be at the enclave. But try as she might, Pandora could hardly lift her arm off the ground.
“Come on.” Naya kicked her gently in the leg.
“I’m not joking,” Pandora told her, voice drained. But then the corner of her lip twitched. “I’ve feasted, and I can’t get up.”
Naya glared, amber eyes flashing.
“No, I’m being serious, I promise. I think I need to sleep. I’ve been going nonstop for almost two days.”
Naya pulled her bottom lip into her mouth as she nodded, realizing that while she’d been sleeping in the car for the past few hours, Pandora had been awake and alert and taking charge. “But if you sleep…”
The question hung in the air between them, heavy.
Pandora sighed, clutching her head between her hands, trying to force the fuzziness from her brain. “If I sleep, I lose control of my power. I lose my invisibility. The trackers will be here in no time. And we’re screwed.”
Okay, you can do this, she thought and then rolled to her feet in one swift move.
Just as swiftly, she crashed back down.
Okay, maybe not.
“I have an idea,” Naya said slowly—too slowly.
Pandora narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“Maybe I could…” She paused, shrugging, searching for words. “Hide your scent?”
Pandora’s brows lifted, shooting to the top of her forehead—she’d studied animals for a long time, having spent her entire childhood dreaming of becoming a vet. She knew how cats left their mark—oh, she knew all right. So she pointed, very firmly, and said, “You are not, under any circumstances, peeing on me. Especially not when I’ve lost the ability to run away…or retaliate.”
“Ew, no.” Naya cringed and shook her head. “My fur, my skin, my sweat…it secretes pheromones. I can rub against you, and then, I can—well, I could—I guess, sort of—carry you?”
“Like a horse?”
Naya bared her teeth, hissing. “No, like a friend. And if I do, you will never mention it after we leave these woods, got it?”
“I vow, on the pile of candy wrappers surrounding me, I will never speak of what happened here today,” she said, lifting her head for a moment before letting it drop back to the dirt. “If I survive, that is.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” Naya grumbled and gave her one last extremely pointed look. Then she crouched down, skin turning black as she bent, and slipped into her jaguar form.
While Pandora lay still, Naya rubbed her head against Pandora’s legs and her arms, brushing every inch of her body with soft black fur. Using the pitiful bit of strength she had left, Pandora rolled over, slouched onto her friend’s back, and wrapped her arms around her neck.
Naya took a few careful steps, finding the balance, and then started moving a little more swiftly through the trees, heading north.
Within minutes, Pandora was asleep.
“I’m sorry.”
The deep voice washed over her, making her every hair stand on edge. Pandora blinked, opening her eyes, trying to move. But she couldn’t. Her arms were stuck, and her legs were heavy. Her chest barely had the strength to lift slowly with a shuddering breath. Above her head, a sterile white ceiling ominously hung.
“I’m sorry.”
The voice came again. This time she recognized it, the way the notes lifted and fell, the tone of a singer, the croon of a tenor she’d heard so many times before.
Jax.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered this time, voice soft and slow, a lullaby as his face leaned over hers, filling the absent view with all sorts of color. The brilliant umber of his dark, framing lashes. The deep golden brown of his skin. The subtle pink of his full lips. And the sparkling saltwater green of his damp eyes wet with unshed tears.
He raised his hand to her cheek and held her in a silent goodbye. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, words so familiar, the lyrics to the saddest love song, one she could swear she’d heard before, in another life, another time. “Please remember that I love you, that I always have and I always will. And that you were right. Because I regret not choosing you. I regret it every single day. But there was no other way. There was no other choice I could make.”
The words were so familiar as they raced through her mind. She reached, grasping at straws.
What have you done, Jax?
What have you done?
But he leaned closer, closing the gap, and her feeble heart didn’t have the will to say no as he pressed his lips against hers, desperate and hungry and warm. Suddenly her limbs found strength, and she reached up, wrapping her arms around his neck as her chest sparked with heat, as though his touch had brought her back to life. He dug his hands into her hair, holding her, grabbing for her, trying to keep her from slipping through his fingers. But the fire grew, and the flames burned, scorching her skin as passion turned to pain.
She cried out.
But he held on.
His fingers turned to knives, ripping into her shoulder blades.
She screamed.
The fire grew.
She burned and burned and burned.
And when she pulled her face back, the man before her was changed—no longer dark and soulful and sad, but bright and burning and alive. Deep blue eyes stared into her exposed soul, devouring her as the flames raged around him, digging into his skin until it bubbled and boiled and burned, until his flesh melted away red and raw and angry.
“I’m sorry!” she cried.
What have I done?
What have I done, Sam?
But she couldn’t let go. Her fingers were daggers nailing him in place. But he didn’t struggle. Didn’t fight. Didn’t speak. He was resigned as the flames simmered, heat growing stronger.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, voice wobbling, losing strength. “Please remember that I love you, that I always have and I always will. And that you were right. Because I regret not choosing you. I regret it every single day. But there was no other way. There was no other choice I could make.”
And then his deep blue eyes were engulfed in orange, and his body slipped away, lost to the fire. The ground gave out beneath her, and she fell, tumbling through space and time, always running, always falling, never finding ground as she plunged through endless darkness, endless oblivion.
A knife struck her chest.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Always in the same exact spot—the spot where her heart would have been if she hadn’t given it to him.
But she didn’t cry out.
She embraced the pain.
Because somehow, she knew she’d chosen it.
She’d wanted it, once upon a time.
And with that realization, another memory struck, more painful than the rest. Two lovers, surrounded in silky ebony, skin on skin, lost in each other, lost in the little slice of paradise they’d carved from a world drowning in pain, a world—
“Ow!” Pandora shouted, waking up as teeth sank into her skin.
Naya jumped back, growling with frustration. Blood dripped from her canines.
“Did you bite me?” Pandora jumped to a seated position, staring at the teeth marks carved into her calf, at the blood soaking the bottom of her
pants. “What the hell?”
Naya whined and stomped her paw.
“Don’t give me that!” Pandora snapped, pulling up her hem to take in the damage. Really, it was more like a nip, a flesh wound. But the freaking thing hurt! And why wasn’t it healing? She was a titan now. Her skin wasn’t unbreakable the way it had been as a vamp, but it was supposed to be a heck of a lot sturdier than this.
Heal, damn you, she silently urged, pushing her palm over the wound as though it would speed the process along. She’d been injured before, in training when she was a kid. Normally, the cuts sealed shut within seconds.
Suddenly, her thoughts flashed back to the road trip with Jax. The bruises on his shoulder. The cuts on his chest, the ones she’d licked in a moment of weakness.
He hadn’t been healing properly either.
Of course, he’d betrayed her before she’d had the chance to fully figure out why. But now the question was back in the forefront of her thoughts.
Her body had felt weak, sluggish. The fighting had drained her. The chase had stolen all her endurance. She was fast, but not as fast as she remembered. Strong, but not as strong as she remembered. And she’d chalked it up to having spent four years as a vamp, but what if it was something else? What if all the titans were feeling this way, not just her? What if they were somehow losing their edge?
Naya nudged Pandora’s arm.
“Get those fangs away from me,” she hissed.
Those feline amber eyes turned imploring.
Finally, Pandora caught on. She wrapped the shadows back around them, satisfied that the bite had at least stopped bleeding. Before she had time to look up, Naya was kneeling over her, a girl once again as she examined the puncture holes.
“I’m sorry, but you were screaming,” she said, pressing her fingers gently into Pandora’s skin, testing the wound. “I didn’t know what else to do to wake you. You’d rolled off my back and were thrashing and screaming. I was worried someone would hear, that a tracker would sense you through my smell.”
Pandora closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, pushing against the tightening of her chest. “I was having a nightmare. I used to get them all the time…” She trailed off as her brows pressed together, and a memory flashed, of flames and fire and burning blue eyes watching her in pain. “I remember. I never remember.”
“I saw,” Naya said. “It was just like before, in the car. The fire. The falling. You must have sent the memory to me while I was sleeping, and again now, while you were sleeping. I thought it was someone else, but your soul must have reached out to me for help. Usually, the living don’t call on me.”
Am I living? she thought sadly. Could my life really be called living?
But then she paused, finding Naya’s distraught gaze.
“You were a vampire,” the medium said slowly.
Pandora shook her head. “No, it’s not that, I swear.”
“But you were.”
“Your brother will be fine. He’ll be cured. It’s not that. It’s me. It’s what I am. It’s what I’m trying to find out. Remember when I asked if you believed in reincarnation?”
Naya nodded, forehead creasing in concentration.
“I think maybe my past self was trying to speak to me, was reaching out to me, trying to force me to remember, to reawaken memories buried at the very core of my soul. I know that sounds crazy,” she rushed to say before Naya could interrupt. “Past lives. And prior selves. And memories of things that happened thousands of years ago, things I couldn’t possibly know. But I’ve been having nightmares for my entire life, horrible dreams and scenes I’ve never retained, until now. And that, what I saw, it made no sense, but in a strange way it did. For the first time. It was me, old me, trying to send new me a message.”
Pandora stopped, breathing, sighing, shaking her head, trying to make sense of the jumble of thoughts currently churning. The fire. Sam burning. His expression, desolate and resigned, not fighting, not angry, not anything. And the darkness, and his hands on her body, and his lips pressed against her neck. And her words—or really, Jax’s words—spilling from her lips.
What did it mean?
What could it mean?
“I believe you,” Naya said slowly.
Pandora blinked, glancing up. “You do?”
“I do, and I’m sorry.”
Pandora shook her head, confused.
“For biting you?”
“Oh, right,” she muttered, glancing down. The wound looked a little smaller. The pain was mostly gone. “It’s all right. I’ll heal. But we should keep moving, while we can. Before it gets too dark. How long was I asleep?”
“A few hours, maybe.”
“That’ll do,” she said, easing to her feet as her sore muscles protested. But she needed answers, now more than ever. And she wouldn’t stop until she had them. Not even if it killed her. “Let’s go.”
Naya shifted back to the jaguar.
Pandora pulled the shadows close to her body, conserving her strength.
And together, they marched on.
Chapter Twelve
When night fell, they were forced to stop. Naya needed to rest, and Pandora could hardly see through the darkness. With all the strengths titans possessed, night vision wasn’t one of them. And while running through a flat desert landscape lit by glowing stars had been easy, beneath a carpet of trees, spotting uneven rocks and jutting roots had become more and more difficult with the setting sun. The moon was hardly more than a sliver in the sky, barely giving off light. Through the gently fluttering leaves, Pandora stared at the thin crescent while Naya quickly fell asleep beside her.
“What are you thinking about?” Sam asked gently, appearing by her side as the medium’s eyes slipped closed in slumber.
Pandora turned to look into his deep sapphire irises, remembering her nightmare as fire flashed in the depths of his pupils. Those angry orange-and-red flames were completely out of place with the man sitting beside her. “You.”
“What about me?”
She released a sad puff of air, glancing back to the forest floor, digging her fingertips into the dirt just to have something else to stare at. “I had a dream about you, and about me. We were…” She paused, drawing circles in the loose soil, watching her hand stain brown. “We were being swallowed in fire. Or maybe just you were. And I was holding you there. I don’t know why or how or when. But it felt real. It felt like a memory, maybe.”
“It wasn’t,” he told her quietly, bringing his hand down to cover hers, skin warm as usual, touch even softer than his voice. She met his gaze, trying to probe the depths reflecting back at her. “It was a dream, Pandora, only a dream. Don’t let it worry you.”
“Don’t let it worry me?” The corner of her lip twitched as she sighed. “Easy for you to say.”
His mouth lifted into a smile. “Do I look like someone who’s been burned at the stake?”
“No,” she answered, gaze dipping to his narrow hips, to the long legs stretched out before him, to the broad shoulders casually leaning against the tree trunk at his back. Barely four inches separated their bodies, and his golden skin was unblemished. Smooth and not bubbling, clear as her eyes could see. His muscles were strong, not shriveled. His hair fell in waves around his sculpted cheekbones, not frizzed and fried.
He was perfect.
With her focus still on him, Sam rolled smoothly to his feet, able and uninjured. Then he extended his hand forward, an invitation. “I have something I want to show you.”
Pandora’s eyes flicked up to his, which twinkled brighter than the sky above their heads. “What?”
“Just come with me. It’s a surprise.”
“I’m not a huge fan of surprises.”
His grin widened for a moment. “I know.”
She narrowed her gaze, trying to read his ever-mysterious expression, but he was still new, in this lifetime at least. She hadn’t known him long enough to read the grooves of his face, the shape of his brows, the emotion
glimmering behind his eyes.
Jax had never been able to trick her, in the innocent way at least. She’d always seen through his fibs, always read the white lie on his lips. His excitement and enthusiasm jumped from his body, obvious and easy. Familiar. Comforting.
But Sam was something else entirely.
As Pandora lifted her arm and slid her hand into his, palm touching palm, her chest twinged as a bolt of energy zipped down her spine, electric. Her skin buzzed, intrigued and excited, captivated by him. And for the first time, she realized what it was—nerves. But the good kind, filled with all sorts of fantasies that fluttered at the edge of reason, veering into a place she hadn’t been before.
“Follow me,” he murmured, sinking into the shadows.
Pandora let the darkness take her, holding on to Sam as he led her through time and space. They emerged at the edge of a lake, midnight blue and perfectly still, a mirror sparkling with reflected starlight. Deep evergreen fringed the edge of the water, a frame with the universe trapped inside. Mountains topped with white cut into the indigo sky.
Sam squeezed her hand, fingers no stronger than a sudden gust of air, and signaled for silence. Smile wicked, he pointed across a bed of smooth stone, anticipation palpable as he watched her, waiting for her reaction.
Pandora squinted as she stared at the vacant spot, confused for a moment, until her breath caught in her chest. She inhaled sharply, eyes widening and smile spreading as she squeezed his hand. Looking at him for the barest moment, she found he’d never turned his attention away from her. For once, he seemed to be the one utterly enthralled.
She broke the gaze, turning back to the edge of the water where a white wolf had materialized from the shadows of the trees, a beacon in the darkness, oozing with lethal grace. She sank her muzzle to the water’s edge and dipped her tongue, drinking once, twice, sending a flurry of ripples across the surface of the lake, making it glitter. Two pups followed soon after, more cautious, hugging her paws. And just when Pandora thought the majesty had ended, the rest of the pack emerged, some guarding, some drinking, some watching the edge for prey on the cool fall evening.
“Come on,” Sam whispered, drawing on the shadows.
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