Rowan examined her datapad, her hands shaking as she keyed in the commands that would trade the drill’s head for a weapon we’d perfected in our war with an enemy that was more machine than man. The electromagnetic pulse we were about to unleash would be directed. Localized. It should deactivate the Hive machine we’d uncovered.
I wanted to scream at Rowan to hurry. We were running out of time.
The Hive were closing in, their attention focused on our position, on the ancient machine under our feet. It was conscious, part of their collective, and it was screaming for help.
I felt them all, the pressure building inside my skull, a slow tightening that spread from the implants embedded in my brain to every nerve in my body. My skin prickled as the energy field in the atmosphere gathered strength, as the storm grew.
I staggered back as a wave of static crashed over me, my vision blurring into a haze of gray shadows and jagged white lines. Every implant in my body buzzed with a life of its own, a rhythmic hum that vibrated through my bones. The cold,probing touch of the Hive’s network clawed at the edges of my mind like icy fingers digging into flesh.
I bit down, hard, tasting blood as I fought back, pushed against the invasive pull with every fiber of my being. Fighting them felt like pushing against a current in a storm-swollen river, and with every second, the Hive’s grip tightened. Their whispers filled my head, a cacophony of voices overlapping and writhing, speaking in a language I didn’t know but somehow understood, a language that seeped into my consciousness like poison, thick and suffocating. A snake coiled around my brain, squeezing until my skull throbbed with pressure. My grip on reality slipped, my thoughts tugged apart thread by thread. Terror crawled up my spine.
What if I couldn’t stop them? What if I lost myself? They would use me against Marz, against Rowan. An even darker thought crept in—what if I had no choice? What if I had already drifted too far?
“Vance.”
Rowan… Her voice flashed through my mind, a burst of color in the gray fog, and I clung to it desperately, like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline. She anchored me, the one clear thought in the chaos threatening to consume me. I pictured her face—the warmth in her eyes, the stubborn set of her jaw when she’d marched onto that shuttle next to the governor, when she’d refused to stay out of this fight. The way her hot pussy wrapped around my cock. The way her soft cries of pleasure made me feel whole. Alive.
The way she loved me. Accepted me.
Wanted me.
If I failed her, the next time she looked into my eyes, the Hive would stare back.
No.
I wrapped her love around me like a shield, drove back the Hive’s influence, held onto who I was—what I fought for. Yet even as I did, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. Taunted me. The ancient one beneath my feet was older than the rest, eons older. Angry at being left behind. Forgotten. Forsaken.
As its rage intensified, so did the storm, and the fury in my mind. Each gust of wind tore at armor. The toxic rain soaked the ground until the mud sucked at our boots with every step.
My vision returned as if I’d flipped a switch. I staggered in a circle, looking for enemies, the ground slick beneath my boots. I watched Marz cut through the Hive Soldiers with the ferocity of a mate possessed. His fists flew in brutal arcs, the dull crunch of bone on metal echoing in the distance.
He froze, his gaze snapping to me. Terror flickered in his eyes—a terror that twisted like a knife in my chest.
He knew. Did he hear them? Could he sense my struggle not to become like Perro, my implants twisting me into a puppet of the enemy? Marz’s voice always hardened when he spoke of that betrayal. Now that we shared a mate, I’d felt his bitterness through the mating collars, the loss lingering in his mind like the aftertaste of smoke and ash.
I knew he feared he would lose me the same way.
“Vance!” Rowan’s voice cut through my chaotic thoughts, her tone desperate, tinged with a tremor I’d never heard before. She ran toward me, her face pale inside her helmet. Her breath came out in ragged puffs of mist. “You have to fight them! Don’t you dare leave me!”
The Hive’s whispers grew louder, swelling into a roar that drowned out even the wind. My consciousness slipped, the cold edges of the Hive network’s control wrapped around my mind like chains, each link tightening with every breath I took. Fear squeezed my heart until my chest ached.
I could almost see Rowan’s face twisted in despair, Marz’s eyes filling with bitter resignation as he held a blaster to my head…
“Vance, come back to me. I need you.” Rowan commanded, her voice grounding me, pulling me back. She stood as a constant—a light in the darkness that threatened to swallow me whole. I needed to fight for her. I needed to hold on.
I focused on her, on the way her hand felt when she’d touched me earlier, on the memory of her fingers brushing mine, the softness of her skin, the way her body felt wrapped around mine. The way the smell of her skin lingered when she leaned close. I replayed our first kiss, a moment I’d held onto, replayed in my mind a thousand times.
She was more than my anchor; she served as a lifeline, tethering me to reality. I drew strength from our connection, her emotions, the way her warmth invaded every dark place in my soul. I pushed back against the Hive’s control. My muscles tensed as I reached out with my thoughts, struggled to disconnect from the machine buried beneath us. Its dark, living presence pulsed in the ground like a heartbeat, a deep, resonant thrum vibrating through my bones.
The Hive’s presence surged, crashing against me, trying to overwhelm me, to bend my thoughts to their will. The Hive’s integrations sparked with pain, a white-hot lance that shot through my skull and sent stars bursting across my vision. I gasped, each inhale burning, their grip weakening as I fought back. Gained ground. Forced them from my mind.
The moment my mind made contact with the ancient machine’s thoughts, its consciousness surged through me, a flood of alien thoughts and commands that burned like ice. I watched them pass by like stars in the night sky, refused to let them consume me. I latched onto the machine’s controlprotocols, twisted the connection, forced those commands to bend to my will.
My fingers tingled as if they were on fire, and a chill ran down my spine as the implants crackled with static, but I refused to let go. I couldn’t let go. If I did, the machine would unleash its full power, blast everyone and everything within miles into space dust.
“Kill it Rowan. Kill it now. I can’t hold it for long.” My command rumbled around inside my own skull like stones thrown inside a pot. If she didn’t hurry, I would be lost. And so would they.
“I tried. We already fired the EMP! It didn’t work!” Rowan shouted over the comm. Her voice rang raw with fear. I heard the strain as she struggled to keep the drill stabilized, the grinding of metal echoing through the storm. “We’re lining up for another shot, but I think we just pissed it off.”
