Faith, help her. She couldn’t hope to outpace him. Though she wasn’t helpless—far from it.
Pure Atlantean blood coursed through her veins. She felt the heat of it rising inside her with every frantic step she took. Her palms tingled, already beginning to glow at her sides.
From behind her, the warrior’s words grated in a hiss. “Damn it, female, I said stop running.”
She sensed the instant he leapt into the air at her back, but it still came as a visceral shock to see him land on the ground right in front of her.
Phaedra jolted to a halt, her breath heaving. As tall as she was, this Breed male towered over her by several inches. Hulking shoulders and muscled limbs moved with the predatory grace of a big cat.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
The gaze that had skewered her across the distance when he first spotted her was no less arresting up close. His eyes were too beautiful on the face of a male built for war. The stormy shade of lavender burned away as she stared at him, amber sparks lighting his irises with unearthly fire.
“Answer me.” Full, sculpted lips peeled back from gleaming white teeth and long fangs. “Who are you? What are you doing out here?”
Phaedra edged backward. “I could ask you the same thing.”
His lips flattened. “It’s not safe for you.”
She didn’t think this awful stretch of deadness could be safe for anyone, possibly not even this dangerous male or his comrades. “What is this place?”
“You don’t know?” A flicker of confusion softened the hard edge of his suspicion, but only for a moment. He glanced down at her hands and a tendon jerked in his jaw. She could feel the glow in her palms increasing under his scrutiny. He cocked his head. His eyes glowed now, filled with amber fire and suspicion. “Holy shit. You’re one ofthem.”
He took a step toward her.
“Stay back.” Phaedra brought her hands up in front of her like a shield.
More than a shield, they were a terrible weapon. The Atlantean light she carried inside her was a fearsome power, one she was loathe to wield, especially when this Breed warrior hadn’t threatened her with any harm.
Yet.
He reached out a black-gloved hand. “You’re coming with me.”
“Don’t move any closer or I’ll—”
Far from afraid, he bit off an incredulous-sounding curse, his teeth and fangs flashing white in the moonless night. “Or you’ll what?”
Faith, she didn’t know what she’d do. Nor did she have the chance to respond.
All at once, the inky night sky exploded. Blinding white light erupted all around them.
Unearthly light.
Not from her, but not of the mortal world, either. Phaedra closed her eyes, but it did little to block the blast of illumination behind her eyelids. The power of it buffeted her, taking her legs out from beneath her.
She felt herself flying backward, yanked by an invisible hand. She waited to feel her body crash down onto the hard forest floor. Instead she was still in motion, pulled backward even faster, as though caught in a vortex.
Somewhere, growing ever more distant, the sound of men’s screams shook the lifeless forest.
Agonized screams. The sounds of indescribable suffering.
Was the lavender-eyed warrior among the tortured and dying?
For reasons she didn’t understand, the thought that he might be sent an arc of pain like a dagger into her breast.
“No!” Phaedra felt the cry erupt inside her, but it stayed trapped in the back of her throat. Caught in that invisible grasp that hauled her backward, she couldn’t speak at all. She tumbled through an endless chasm, the sounds of annihilation still ringing in her ears.
The anguish of it raked her to her soul.
