Kate
Rune jerks me forward.
I try to pull back, my heart thrashing furiously in my ears, my fingers raking his off my skin. But he doesn’t let go. He drags me even when I fall, my metal heels trailing wide tracks through the snow and mud. The metal mask tightens around my mouth in a vice grip, blocking and muffling my screams.
I don’t care how many of them are standing around me. I want to kill them all. I kick out my feet, grappling with his legs, but still he rips me from the crowds. From saving my sister.
Outside the compound, humans huddle around trashcan fires, rubbing their hands over the flames to keep warm. One of them looks a lot like my father, dressed in fatigues from head to toe, a shredded teddy bear dangling from his back pocket. I stop struggling, hoping to get a better glance, but the man disappears, melting into the dark silhouettes of others by the fires. The air is icy, and mist seeps past moving lips. Rune drags me down the embankment toward the water, the soles of my boots slipping over the noisy gravel. When we reach the water’s edge, I can finally yank away from him, and I stumble back with the effort. He stills and looks back over his shoulder at me. “You need to get out of here, Kate.” He presses a small area on his jaw, releasing the mask from his face. Behind it his features soften, his eyes weighed down by dark circles and hollowed cheeks.
“Claire was in there,” I grit out, the pain of the mask, pinching my jaw shut tight, stabs up my cheeks and through my ears, bringing tears to my eyes.
Rune’s eyes widen and he reaches out to press the release on my mask. The pain instantly stops as the mask drops to the ground.
“Why didn’t you let me save her?” I spit.
“Save her? You would have gotten yourself killed,” he yells, leveling his face with mine. “You have no idea what you’re up against. You need a strategy.” Rune clenches his hands into fists.
The clank of metal knuckles popping enrages me. “I’m not scared, Rune. I don’t care about anything but getting Claire!” I whirl around, ready to rush back, fists blazing. I’m just going to run straight in there and—
He grabs me so fast that I see only blurs until he has me pinned down on the ground, the full weight of his body pressing into mine. “No,” he breathes, the heavy rise and fall of his chest pushing into mine. “I won’t let you.”
This close, his scent makes me dizzy, and for the life of me the only thoughts in my head are his lips and teeth against my skin. “I should hate you. I should hate you for all of this.” The slight grind of his body over mine makes heat pound between my legs.
“But you don’t.”
I watch his Adam’s apple move up and down. I don’t know why I’m focusing on it. Something doesn’t feel right. I’m not myself.
“The armor, Kate. It’s making us desire each other. That’s what’s happening. It has to be what they are programing into it. They changed all the plans.”
I try shoving my hips upward to move away from him, but it only makes the sensations between us worse. It spreads the heat between my thighs to ache deep inside my chest, and a low gasp slips through my lips. “I’m just some scrawny, irritating human to you, try and remember that. Now let me go,” my voice shakes.
He lowers his head and touches his lips softly to just under my ear. “I’ve been trying, Kate. The problem is, I justcan’t.”
And with the world kicking and screaming around us, I feel his tongue slip out and caress my neck where his lips had been. My universe narrows to that one spot, that one tiny sensation, and feels nothing else. My body turns to liquid under his. The touch—the sound of his breathing hot against my skin—is hypnotizing.
I should be afraid. Terrified.
But it feels like I’m floating, tingling, vibrating, my entire body glowing with his strange supernatural heat.
It lasts only a moment then he pulls himself up, a deep rumble sounding from his chest. “Come on, Kate. Let’s go make a plan to get your sister so I can rid myself of you.” The words sound awful, but he’s smiling and the spot where his lips were against me turns cold and empty. My skin puckers and hardens—I’m almost too weak to stand.
Suddenly, I can’t see where the enemy stands. The lines have blurred and I feel as if I’ve had my very first taste of some strange new drug, and I’m instantly addicted.
These suits make you feel things, things you shouldn’t feel.
“Kate, come on. I know where your father is.”
