The Brightest Night

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Movement all along the street caught my attention. People coming out from behind the warped, cracked fence across the street. Bodies moving forward. One was Blue Eyes, his face smeared with dirt. He came to a stop on the stained pavement. “Oh, shit.”

  Behind him was a female Luxen, eyes amber. Both were powerful. That, too, I could sense, but neither could take me. Blue Eyes looked pale, appearing thunderstruck. The female looked … ready.

  The back of my neck crawled as power pressed against me. I looked over my shoulder. Purple Eyes stood there, his hair blown back from his dirty face—a face full of tiny scratches. He’d been too close to the house. He wasn’t alone. A man made more of shadows than flesh stood kitty-corner. On the other side was another Luxen, one who I knew I’d made bleed before. His green eyes held the memory of that.

  Blue Eyes at my back. The Arum to my right and the Green Eyes to my left, and him to my front.

  They were caging me in, and I didn’t like that. And I didn’t understand it, because I didn’t wish to hurt them. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew it wasn’t my will. I rapidly calculated the most threatening.

  Purple Eyes. He was powerful. His body shone with it. He could be a threat, that I knew, but I did not want to hurt him. Nor did I want to hurt the others.

  My gaze shifted to the Arum. He was a different story. He wanted to hurt me. I remembered that. There was a reason, a sad one. I remembered feeling sad, but now …

  He was a predator.

  But I was the apex.

  Rising upward, I pulled on the Source, and I felt it sputter before it sparked, weakened but there. I turned to the Arum.

  “Dammit, Hunter,” Purple Eyes growled. “Tone it down.”

  The darkness around him flickered and then faded, revealing a dark-haired man. He didn’t look happy, but he was backing down. I watched him, not trusting the retreat.

  “Look at me,” came a soft command. I only obeyed because it was him. Purple Eyes took a step forward, hands lifted at his side. Soil caked his fingers, and I imagined he and Blue Eyes had had to dig their way out. I doubted they’d liked that, but they were alive, weren’t they? “Evie?”

  Evie. That was one of my names.

  “You remember me? Right? You remember all of us.”

  I did. I know I did. I just needed a moment to make sense of what I remembered.

  “It’s okay,” Purple Eyes continued, and his voice was soothing. I liked it. I loved it—the sound and how it made me feel. “You did good. Made sure she couldn’t hurt anyone here. You did really good.”

  I didn’t fail.

  Relief flickered across Purple Eyes’s striking, dirt-smudged features. He was solely focused on me, only me. “No, Peaches, you did not fail.”

  I lowered myself, and my feet had just touched the ground when there was a sharp, cracking sound, a popping noise. Pain exploded in my back, between my shoulders and then my chest, stealing my breath away from me.

  25

  Everything happened so fast.

  Purple Eyes spun toward the green-eyed Luxen, who was also turning around. A man stood there, hands clutching a gun.

  “What have you done?” the green-eyed Luxen gasped.

  “She’s the intruder, right?” The man kept the gun pointed. “She has to be, right? She just took out the building! I had to—”

  Stunned, I looked down at my shirt. It was a light gray color, and a small dark stain had appeared in the center of my chest, an irregular circle that doubled in size within seconds—

  The sound that tore through the air was a roar of pure, unfathomable rage, and it came from him. From Purple Eyes as a network of veins filled with the luminous glow of the Source, spreading across his cheeks and down his throat.

  Green Eyes spun. “Luc—”

  His arm cocked back as the bolt of energy exploded from his right hand. A streak of crackling energy shot like lightning across the space, finding its target. The man’s scream ended just as it began, cut off as the Source consumed him, burning through clothing and skin, obliterating muscle and bone.

  Seconds, only seconds had passed between the popping and the burned patch of ground.

  I tried to take a breath, but red-hot pain swept through me. Managing only a thin, wheezy inhale, I lifted a hand to my chest. Blood stained my fingers, seeped through them. Wet warmth trickled down my back as I stumbled back a step and then my knees went out—

  Someone caught me from behind. A Luxen. The one with blue eyes, the one who always had a lollipop. “She’s down!” he shouted, and I tried to pull away, but I didn’t seem to have control over my body. Blue Eyes was holding me as he went to the ground, on his knees. “Luc!”

  Confusion clouded my thoughts as I stared at my hand, at the blood coursing down my arm, over the rapidly churning black dots.

  I hadn’t seen the shooter. I hadn’t known the threat was there.

  An arm slid under my neck, and the scent of pine and burning leaves surrounded me. Instinct fueled by the Source told me I would heal—that I just needed to find somewhere safe, and where I was now wasn’t safe. I needed to get away, but whatever messages my brain was sending to my body weren’t getting there. I tried to summon the Source, but the flutter in my chest was even weaker. The marks on my skin no longer appeared like glittering shards of onyx. I couldn’t move, and I wasn’t safe—

  “You’re safe, Evie. I got you,” a deep voice intruded, a voice that belonged to hands gently brushing my hair back from my face. “I won’t let anyone else hurt you. You’re safe.”

  I was being laid down, and the rapidly scattering dark clouds were replaced by a face I knew, by eyes the color of wild violets, pupils a brilliant white. Him. I knew his name. It was on the tip of my tongue.

  Moving his hand from my cheek, he placed it on my chest. Mine had fallen limp and useless to my side. As if it were some long-buried reflex, I kept trying to summon the Source, but the hum of energy was faint and growing weaker.

  “I think it went in through her back,” the blue-eyed Luxen said. “The chest is where it exited.”

  Purple Eyes tugged at my shirt, lifting it. With a curse, he started to turn me onto my side, toward him—

  Burning pain shot across my shoulders, so sharp and sudden that I screamed. The Source throbbed in response to the pain, pulsing out from me.

  Purple Eyes grunted, jerking back, but he held on tighter. “I’m sorry, Peaches. I’m so sorry.” He continued to turn me until I was on my side, the agony an endless wave that tore another scream from me. “I know I’m hurting you. I’m sorry.”

  The Source didn’t respond this time, not even when he shifted, pressing his hand to the throbbing pain. Heat flared from his hand, beating back the ragged stinging. The warmth flowed down my back.

  “Open your eyes. I need you to do that for me. Please. Open those beautiful eyes.”

  Please.

  They weren’t open? My body seemed to obey that almost desperate plea as I forced my lids to lift.

  His entire body glowed, not just his eyes, and the pulsing warmth was everywhere, ebbing and flowing. “There you are.” He smiled, but I thought it didn’t look right. “You’re going to be all right. Do you hear me, Evie?”

  “I … failed.”

  An emotion akin to pain tightened the lines of his features. “You did not fail, Evie. You did not. I failed.”

  I opened my mouth, but a wet cough came out instead of words—a cough that tasted of rich iron.

  “It’s okay.” The beautiful man’s face above me grew fuzzy around the edges. “It’s okay. I promise you. Just stay with me.”

  He bent over me, and a shock of electricity flowed through me as he pressed his lips to the center of my forehead. Memories flashed of him doing just that time and time again. His lips against my temple, against my skin and my own lips. He’d kissed me many times before, because he was …

  “I’m your everything,” he whispered, curling his body around mine. “You’re my everything.”
/>
  * * *

  I woke up remembering everything.

  Sprawled atop Luc with my cheek plastered to his chest, we both were nude from the waist up. A sheet was draped over us, and I had a vague recollection of Viv and Zoe stripping away my blood-soaked shirt and bra to examine the healing wound.

  I cringed. Things were spotty, but I clearly and unfortunately remembered clinging to Luc like a squirrel monkey when Viv and Zoe tried to separate us. I was so bad that Luc had to carry me here.

  God.

  He was probably never going to let me live that one down.

  My behavior probably had something to do with the fact that I couldn’t remember who Viv and Zoe were at that moment, and in my weird Source-infested mind, I’d felt safe with Luc because he’d healed me.

  I also remembered Viv being rather excited about my behavior, something to do with it giving further credence to her rebooting theory. At that time, I had no idea what she was talking about, but now I did. When I had let the Source take over, it had done so in a way that had been different from in the woods. I had been different but not randomly homicidal. So that was an improvement.

  Getting shot, though? Not so much.

  I couldn’t believe I’d been shot or that I was alive and felt okay except that the space between my shoulder blades was sore. And I had Luc to thank for that.

  I had a distinct impression I would’ve healed without his intervention, but the same instinct was telling me it would’ve been a longer, more painful process. Did I have regenerative abilities? Or was it like how Luc had removed those bullets from himself? He’d thought he could heal himself once he got them out, but those bullets had been different. They’d been modified with a weaker form of the EMP, designed to wound and not kill. Would I have known how to heal myself? I had no idea.

  Luc’s chest moved in the deep, steady rhythm of sleep under mine. The fine hair along his chest tickled my sensitive skin. I didn’t remember falling asleep like this, but based on what I did remember, I probably climbed right on top of him. While I was a little embarrassed that others had witnessed me turning into a DEFCON 1 clinger, I wasn’t ashamed that he’d evoked such a response from me while I hadn’t entirely been myself. That was a sign that maybe I was less dangerous than before. At least to him.

  But not to that girl.

  Not wanting to think about any of that right now, I opened my eyes. A gas lamp flickered softly from the nightstand, casting light across the bed, and another sat on the dresser, pushing at the deepest of shadows—

  I zeroed in on the chair nestled in the corner, just outside the reach of the lamp’s faint glow. The chair wasn’t empty, and that wasn’t a shadow shaped like a person.

  Grayson.

  The breath I took hitched as he rose from the chair and crossed the room, as silent as a ghost. He knelt a foot from the bed, his head turned to Luc, and then his gaze drifted to mine.

  He didn’t speak. Neither did I.

  And then he did, his voice so low I doubted it would wake even Luc. “He’s not unstoppable, you know. He can weaken.”

  My stomach hollowed at the thought. Luc always seemed incredibly larger than life itself, never weak, never tired, but I knew better than that. “I know,” I whispered.

  Grayson closed his eyes, and then a golden glow radiated from the center of his chest. The light washed over him as he slipped silently into his true form. A human-shaped being of light so bright it was almost like looking into the sun. His arm rose, and from within the light, I saw his hand, his fingers as he placed them on Luc’s arm, the one closest to him. A ripple of light danced up Luc’s arm, scattering across his skin in a glittering, golden wave. I felt the warmth and the low-level buzz of energy where my skin met Luc’s.

  Luc still slept, his breathing even deeper, and Grayson was giving Luc some of his own energy, replacing some if not all of what was surely lost from trying to save Spencer and then healing me.

  Grayson withdrew his hand and then stood, gliding back from the bed, his true form fading until he was once more in his human form. He left without saying another word.

  * * *

  Not too long after Grayson left, Luc’s arm around my lower back shifted, tightening and then relaxing. I lifted my head to watch his eyes flutter open. His gaze focused, meeting mine and holding.

  “Hi,” I whispered.

  “Hey.” His voice was rough with sleep as he lifted the arm Grayson had touched. He placed his hand against my cheek. “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel okay. My back aches a little, but I don’t feel like I’ve been … you know, shot in the back or anything.”

  “Good.” His gaze remained locked with mine, and there was an intensity in his stare that I was only beginning to recognize and realize had been there every time he looked at me. It sent a shiver of knowing over my skin.

  “You?” I whispered.

  “Like brand-new.”

  I wondered how much of that had to do with Grayson, but I said nothing. I had a feeling Grayson didn’t want Luc to know what he’d done for him.

  “You sure you feel okay?” he asked. “That was one hell of a wound. Got one of your lungs. Nicked a couple of vital arteries.”

  My skin chilled at the knowledge unspoken in his words. If I’d been human, I most likely would’ve been like Spencer, bleeding out before anyone could do a single thing. “I feel fine,” I told him. “Because of you.”

  He still hadn’t looked away. “I killed that man.”

  “I know.”

  “He didn’t know who you were. Eaton had managed to get an alert out that there was an intruder. He saw you and thought you were it. He was just doing what the community trusts him to do, and I killed him.”

  My gaze searched his as I rose a little onto my arms. There was a tender pull against the skin of my back, but nothing more. “Luc—”

  But he hurt you. He made you bleed. His voice slipped through my thoughts. I don’t regret what I did.

  “I would’ve done the same,” I admitted, and that was the truth, right or wrong. It was the truth.

  “I know.” He dragged his thumb along my jaw and then slid it to my throat, where the pad of his finger rested over my pulse. “I had no idea if you could die from a wound like that or if the SOL guy was right about what could kill you.”

  Massive brain trauma. That was what Steven had claimed could take out a Trojan, and apparently blowing them to smithereens could, too, but that wasn’t something we knew for sure. Especially if I was different from the others, and it was really beginning to look like that was the case.

  “You were bleeding everywhere. That blood still stains your skin right now. It stains mine. That’s the second time in a very short period of time that I feared I’d lose you.”

  “I’m—”

  “Don’t apologize, Evie. Don’t.” He cupped the back of my head as he eased upward into a sitting position. The motion was fluid, causing little strain on the area between my shoulders. “There are a lot of things we need to talk about. Sarah. Hunter. What happened with her—with you—but right now, I need you. I need to feel you, be surrounded by you.” His forehead pressed to mine. “I need to forget that we’re both stained with your blood.”

  Closing my eyes on a shuddering breath, I cupped his cheeks. “You have me.”

  Luc kissed me, and there was nothing slow or tentative about the way his mouth moved or how his lips parted mine. The kiss deepened, and there was an edge of desperation to it, a hint of lingering fear.

  The sheet tore away from us, landing somewhere near the foot of the bed on the floor. He broke the kiss, easing out from under me. Before I could question what he was doing, his lips pressed to the space that ached between my shoulders as I felt his fingers curling around the band of my pants.

  Cool air washed over my now bare lower half, but the heat of Luc quickly chased it away. He moved behind me, skin against skin. A shiver rolled up my spine as an infinite spark transferred between us, something
that could never be forced or fabricated.

  The sight of his hand planting into the mattress beside my head and the feel of the hand at my hip flipped and twisted my insides into a heady mess that had me digging my fingers into the sheets. Desire wasn’t the only thing that charged the air around us. There was so much more as he pressed against me, into me. Love. Fear. Relief. Acceptance. I reached out, placing my hand over his, threading my fingers between his.

  A long, antagonizing moment of stillness passed, his body coiled tight as a rope about to snap, and then he moved. The sound from the back of his throat seared my skin, and there was no sense of control or restraint. We fell in together, headfirst and without reservation, sinking deep into the flurry of sensation that went beyond the physical. I lost track of everything except Luc, the way he felt, the way he moved, and how there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me. How there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him.

  And when we both toppled over the edge, we went spinning, falling together, and I don’t know how long we stayed there, bodies fitted together, trembling and hearts racing.

  Luc dropped his forehead to my shoulder, keeping his weight supported by his arm, the one I had, at some point, all but curled my upper body around. “I haven’t hurt you, have I?”

  “No.” I kissed his hand, and I felt his shudder travel all the way down his arm. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Luc chuckled. “I might’ve pulled a muscle.”

  I laughed at his dumb joke. “Good.”

  “I probably should’ve controlled myself,” he said, his breath warm against my neck. “This was wildly inappropriate of me.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  He shifted behind me, and I felt his lips touch the achy area between my shoulder blades once more. “But I’m thinking you like it when I’m wildly inappropriate.”

  I smiled. “Yes, I do.”

  Another kiss against the place a bullet had ripped through hours before. “Which one of us is the bad influence? I’m going to say it’s you.”