Author: Sophie Jordan

I struggle free of my clothes, letting them drop at my feet. We lunge forward, but we don’t reach Miram. Someone else beats us to her.

Suddenly Tamra is there. Magnificent in full manifest, pale mist flows from her, seeping from every pore. Like an angel, she hangs suspended several feet off the ground, her glistening wings flapping and creating great gusts of wind, spinning leaves and other small debris on the air.

Pride swells in me—to see what Tamra is, what she’s become, and in so short a time. She really is this beautiful, powerful, wondrous thing.

The hunters cry out, shouting orders as they scramble for their weapons. Even as mind-numbing mist pours from Tamra’s body, I see that it’s not happening fast enough. It won’t take out the hunters in time. Not before they begin shooting.

Cassian realizes this, too. He sweeps in and snatches hold of Miram, getting her out of there while everyone’s attention is still fixed on Tamra.

I step out into the open, shouting to distract them from shooting Tamra. I get my wish. Their attention swings to me. Will plunges into the fray, yanking me out of the way just as a tranq dart whizzes past me.

I regain my feet and watch in horror as a hunter lifts a crossbow, aiming directly for Tamra’s chest.

“No!” I dive through the air. Wind surges around me as I cut directly in front of Tamra. My lungs contract and swell. The heat rushes through me and explodes out on a breath.

Orange-blue flames scorch the hunter before he can squeeze the trigger. The shape of him is there, a dark smudge, a blurred figure lost inside a burst of fire.

His screams claw my ears as crackling flames engulf him. I touch down on the ground, frozen. My blood curdles in my veins, disgusted at the sight of what I’ve done. The other hunters surround him, stripping off their jackets and pushing him down on the ground, shouting at him to roll as they attempt to beat out the flames devouring the man. The smell of roasting flesh fills the air.

I did this.

The mist swirls thicker than ever, and the hunters’ movements grow slow, sluggish, as one by one they start to fall, dropping into deep sleep.

“Jacinda!” I look up. Will jumps over a fallen hunter and grabs me by both arms, giving me a small shake. “Are you okay?”

I snap from my daze and look away from all the fallen hunters. The odor of charred flesh still chokes me. Okay? No. I’m not okay. Tamra’s eyes close and her head rolls almost drunkenly on her shoulders.

I catch movement to my left and spin, ready to release my fire again even though I’m stunned at the damage I wreaked. Despite what that hunter would have gladly done to Tamra, to me, I’m shaken that I could have killed him.

But it’s no hunter standing there. It’s Deghan, watching us with bemusement in his slate eyes. He scans us, his attention lingering on my sister. Tamra takes an unsteady step and he’s there, catching her when her legs give out from under her. He lifts her up against his chest. She closes her eyes and presses fingers to her temples as though her head pains her.

His gaze locks with mine. I give a single nod, accepting that he’s got her. He’ll keep her safe.

My gaze sweeps through the mist, measuring each of the fallen hunters, lingering on the one with smoking burns on his arms. I motion to him, knowing that without treatment, left here unconscious, he might not survive.

Cassian is there again, Miram close to his side. He shakes his head at me. “We have to go. There are probably others, waiting for them to report in.”

“I won’t leave him to die.”

“He would have killed us—”

“I don’t care!” I look at Will and see he’s staring at the smoking body, too. Will’s eyes look distant, oddly glazed … and I can’t help thinking if he’s wondering about his family. That his father or Xander could be lying there. That I could have burned any of them had they been the ones to track us. That it could still happen. Is he sickened at what I did? As sickened as I am …

Will’s lips barely move when he speaks. “We can’t leave him to die here.” Relief washes through me that he’s with me in this.

Cassian snorts, his dark eyes flashing annoyance. “Of course you would say that.”

“Why don’t we call nine-one-one?” Tamra offers, blinking as though fighting to regain control of herself. She motions for Deghan to set her down. He carefully releases her, one hand still on her arm in case she should lose her balance again. “Leave an anonymous tip. An ambulance will come.”

Will and I share a look. I nod. “Okay.”

“Good,” Cassian declares. “Now let’s get moving.”

My chest tightens. I massage there, right in the center, as if I can rub out the feeling. Useless. I doubt it will ever go away. That I’ll ever feel normal again. Normal for me, anyway.

I may have killed a man. Knowing I did it to save my sister doesn’t make it any easier to accept. Suddenly I’m not sure what I should do anymore. What’s right. What’s wrong. Every direction I look, I see pain. I send a sidelong glance to Will. His features are intense, like something carved from stone.

With a grim nod, I follow, plunging back into the woods. But I don’t feel relief. I don’t feel free. My chest feels heavy, weighed down … with every step, every mile, that burden only gets heavier. This journey feels … endless.

When we reach the van we stop, our breaths ragged, but I think it’s more from the emotion and tumult of everything that just happened than from our actual sprint.

Will’s face is stoic, his square jaw locked as he opens the door for us and stands there, blocking us from getting inside. “Before we go anywhere we need to talk, get a few things straight.”

I nod. The rules of the game have changed.

Tamra glances around us uneasily as if more hunters might appear. The trees climb to the sky, blocking out the afternoon sun and shrouding us in long shadows.

Will arches an eyebrow at me. I nod dully. He’s right, of course. It’s on me to explain. I’m the one that figured out about the homing device in Miram.

“The hunters are going to track us again.” I swallow and cut my gaze to Miram, amending, “You. They’re going to find you again.” I look at Deghan, wondering if he knows what I’m talking about and just hasn’t bothered to tell us. “And you, too. Wherever you go, they’ll track you. Both of you. You can’t lose them.”

“How’d this happen?” Cassian demands, his eyes brightly feral, pupils quivering with emotion as he grapples with the knowledge that his sister isn’t free. Not yet.

“The enkros plant tracking devices in the heads of their captives.” I reflexively brush my fingers over my own pale patch of flesh hiding in my hair. I nod in the direction of Miram. “That’s how the hunters were led straight to her.”

Will watches me intently, missing nothing—including the way I rub at my head. They’d come so close to putting their mark on me—inside me.

“Did they do it to you?” Cassian asks.

I shake my head, dropping my hand. “No. You stopped them right before they could do it.”

“You were lucky,” Deghan says in his rumbling draki speech.

“And you?” Cassian’s head whips in his direction. “You were there a long time. They implanted you with the chip, too.”

“They could never get close enough to me to do it.” He glances down at his steel-colored flesh. “Anyone who did …” His voice fades, but I understand.

“They never knocked you out with one of their tranq guns?” Cassian asks.

“When they tried, they couldn’t break my skin.” He taps himself. “Good as armor.”

Suddenly, I have a good idea of why he survived so long with them—why he lived when all the others in his pride perished. They could never touch him.

Cassian drags his hands through his hair and paces a short invisible line, pausing only to stare in misery at his sister a few feet away, gazing off into the thick press of trees. She has to have heard what we’ve said, but she shows no reaction. She hasn’t stopped shaking since she found herself surrounded by hunters. Since she learned what’s inside her. She’ll never be free until we figure out a way to remove it. I’d probably be shaking, too. My fingers move to that shaved spot on my head again. Maybe worse. I might be clawing that thing out myself.

“What do we do?” Cassian swings around to look at each of us. This is the moment when I could—should—say, What do you mean we?

I say nothing. Only think agonizing, gnawing thoughts. I’m supposed to be leaving, walking away from all of this. I did what I promised and got Miram out of the stronghold. This should be the end of it.

I feel Will’s stare on the side of my face and know that’s what he’s thinking, too. That we’re supposed to be free of the pride. Right now. Freedom is close, almost ours—if I’ll only take it.

Cassian’s gaze cuts into me, and worse than that penetrating stare are the waves of absolute helplessness rushing from him to me like a raging, swollen river. His need and desperation mingle with my own emotions … overcome them, drown them until they’re just a whispery echo. I can’t ignore them. I can’t ignore him.

He shakes his head again. “We can’t go digging around in her head to get this … thing out of her. We could kill her doing that.”

I nod slowly. “I know. You have to take her home, talk to the others.” As much as I distrust Severin and many of the elders, they’ve been around longer than any of us. They know things. Especially Nidia. Maybe they’ve faced something like this before. “Maybe Nidia or one of the verda will know what to do,” I suggest.

I can’t think of a better solution. It’s not like we can admit Miram to a local hospital and ask them to remove the implant. I gnaw on the edge of my thumb. My mom would have had ideas, I’m sure. She could have removed the chip without killing the patient.

This only reminds me that she’s gone. That they banished her. I bite down a little harder on the salty edge of my thumb, welcoming the stab of pain. I can’t think about that betrayal right now. It will only make me angry and cloud my thoughts, and I need a cool head right now.

“You want to take her home?” Tamra leans closer to Deghan, and I wonder if she’s conscious of the action. “Back to the pride where the hunters can follow? How is that smart?”

“Not directly to the township. Miram can hide somewhere nearby … on the mountain,” I say, thinking fast. “If hunters track her to that area, it’s not that great of a risk. They already know draki are in the vicinity.”

I’m referring to Will’s family, of course.

Will stares at me, his gaze unreadable, and I wonder what he’s thinking. At least with Cassian I know his emotions. That’s what happens when you experience each and every feeling together. And then, just as suddenly as I have this thought, I feel bad for comparing the two of them. For wishing my relationship with Will to be anything like what I have with Cassian. Will and I are real. What Cassian and I have is a manipulation, a result of bonding. Nothing more.

Cassian nods. “Yes. That will work.” He approaches his sister and squeezes her shoulder tenderly. She looks up at him, finally showing that she’s paying attention. “You’ll be fine, Miram. We’ll go home … we’re going to fix this.”

She nods and leans into him. He puts an arm around her shoulder and strokes a hand over her sandy brown hair, petting her like she’s a child. And I realize that she pretty much is. Older than Lia, but not tougher. At the thought of Lia I wince. Could a hunter already have caught her? What about the rest of the freed draki? Roc and the others? Were they already captured? Or worse?

I exhale a heavy breath. I can’t worry about them, too. We have our own problem to deal with. Miram in Cassian’s arms fills me with such desolation … It’s impossible to remain unaffected. To not care. Especially with Cassian’s emotions bombarding me. Rage. Defeat. Fear and sorrow.