I heard him before I saw him. “Step away from her.”
It cut through the fog. I tried to turn my head toward his voice, but everything was going soft and far away. Cristian’s footsteps drew closer. The tether between us snapped taut, alive with warning.
The room tilted again.
Cristian’s voice came one last time, sharp and cold. “Get your foot off my door.”
Then everything went dark.
Chapter 12
Cristian
The pull had struck like a blade to the sternum. One breath I was still. The next, I was moving.
Nadia was in danger.
I reached the front door in time to find her on the floor, her body slack, her color wrong. A man crouched beside her, hand outstretched, a faint shimmer of energy passing between them.
Hammond.
The sight of him turned the air in my lungs to ash. “Step away from her.”
He didn’t startle. He looked over his shoulder, smiling that same hollow smile he’d worn the day he and the rest of the court locked me in a coffin. “You still come running when a woman calls, I see.”
I ignored the jab as I knelt, fingers at Nadia’s throat. Her pulse fluttered under my touch. I exhaled once.
She lived.
I stood slowly, keeping my body between her and him. “You could have killed her.”
He spread his hands. “You should know better than anyone that power must circulate, or it dies. I was merely sampling.”
“Sampling usually requires permission.”
He chuckled, but it was false. “Still righteous as ever. Still pretending to care about their kind.”
“Not pretending.”
Hammond’s gaze slid to Nadia’s still form, then back to me. The faint curl of disgust on his lips made my hands twitch.
“The court will be interested to know you’ve taken a pet. Maybe a long sleep and a pet to dote on is exactly what you needed to soften your will to our advances. Nothing likeattachmentsto remind oneself of one’s weaknesses.”
I stepped closer, forcing him to meet my eyes. “Careful.”
His smile widened. “It’s the same weakness that kept you from joining us. All that strength, all that power, wasted on sentiment.”
“I won’t make the same mistake and turn my back on you again,” I said. “You won’t put me back in stasis. And no, I don’t want your ranks, your council, or your lies.”
His smile faltered. “You’re as defiant as ever. The court was surprisingly pleased to hear of your awakening. We would like to revisit what you could contribute to our cause. Yourskillsare desirable.”
I met his gaze, still as stone. “You don’t want my skills. You want my power, and the illusion that you can control it. You want to siphon it, pass it around, pretend you’ve earned what you can’t create yourselves.”
He flinched, only slightly.
“You call it sharing,” I went on. “I call it theft.”
Hammond’s smirk returned, but it was thinner now. “You misunderstand. The court, we elevate one another.”
