Tate took a step back, turning in place. No one around her fit his description.
Let’s separate. There’s too many to search in this way.
“If you find him first, signal. Don’t try to bring him down alone.”
You’re the one more likely to do that.Night disappeared into the crowd before Tate could comment.
“More likely, my ass,” she muttered.
Night was just as much of a loner when it came to hunting. Maybe even more so.
Tate pushed through the people in front of her. There was a heaviness in her chest that made her feel like time was running out. Each second that passed added to the weight.
Tension heightened her senses as she tried to concentrate. Fearing what hadn’t happened yet would only slow her down.
Her progress was slow, the crowd resisting the more she fought through it. Until finally, a large man with a barrel chest, snagged her collar as she passed and yanked her backwards.
“Get in line and wait your turn,” he sneered.
Tate twisted out of his hold when he tried to throw her to the ground. Only to be shoved again by a woman standing behind her.
“Who are you to cut the line?” the woman demanded. “We’ve been waiting hours.”
Tate lightly touched the shoulder, not answering.
A finger jabbed her in the chest. “Hey! Are you listening to me?”
In fact, Tate had long since dismissed the two as unimportant, more interested in scanning the faces around her.
That person was too short. That one too tall. The coloring of that man’s hair didn’t match Peter’s.
On and on until she’d worked through the people in her immediate vicinity. Tate took a step forward only to be brought up short as the man from before grabbed her arm in a harsh grip.
Ilith snapped, flooding Tate’ consciousness.
Tate/Ilith whirled to face the man. “Do you want to die today?”
Fear rose in both the man and woman’s faces as their gazes locked on Tate/Ilith’s. Tate knew without needing a mirror that her eyes had shifted to the dragon. With rage scorching her insides, those eyes were probably deep pools of black.
The smell of urine tainted the air as the front of the man’s pants grew wet. The woman stumbled backwards, tripping and falling on her ass. “Dragon-ridden.”
Their reactions should have made Tate feel something. Regret. Remorse. Anything. Instead, all she felt was distant and detached, a barrier between her and her emotions.
It was a side effect of the mind melding, Ilith’s conscious serving to blunt normal human emotions. Things like compassion and mercy.
It wasn’t that Tate didn’t feel. More like those feelings came to her from some far-off place and by the time they reached her they no longer seemed so important.
Logic and reason reigned supreme.
Like this, Tate could see how she annihilated one of the Saviors’ bases before her sleep without ever changing her expression. The thought snapped her out of the mind meld.
Ilith hissed as Tate broke free.They deserve to be punished. They tried to hurt you.
Maybe so but not like this.
She never wanted to be someone who terrorized others. A person who took joy in another’s pain and fear. The coldness Ilith offered was tempting. There was no fear in that space. No uncertainty. No pain. Only cold, hard assurance.
It was a subtle and addictive poison, allowing you to act from a place not influenced by the darker side of human emotion. It also ran the risk of turning her into a monster. Intellect was only one side of the coin. Emotion was the other.
