“I gave you an order, and you disobeyed it. That’s treason.” He aimed the gun.
Her temper blew. “You’re overstepping your authority.” Her voice shook, she was so angry. “You’re nothing more than a figurehead. The president is our leader. She is the one who put you in place, and she’s the one I answer to.”
“Not anymore. I rule our people.” The ambition he’d always shown had turned darker. More intense. “My path is the right one. The Seven must be stopped for good.”
“I won’t let you hurt Logan,” she said, her head reeling.
Niall shook his head. “How could you choose him? I’m your king.”
“Someday you’ll fall in love, and you’ll understand,” she said, trying to be gentle when all she wanted to do was kick him again.
“You’re not in love.” Niall aimed at her. “You’re just looking for excitement like you always have. Jumping in headfirst, and this time with the enemy. You’ve chosen the wrong path, that of a traitor.”
She didn’t know the right path, but she had to pick a side. Heck. She’d chosen a side the second she’d mated Logan. Her legs bunched, and she gathered energy. The second Niall fired, she backflipped into the air and dove into another dimension.
He followed her, breathing down her neck. She caught her breath and jumped again, leading him on a chase through too many dimensions to count.
She was good, but she’d already jumped three times that day, once when carrying Logan. The guy weighed a ton, even when the universe took over.
But she had to find him. She jumped from dimension to dimension, trying to find familiar ones, until she felt an energy. A new one. Logan. Closing her eyes, she concentrated with all her strength and trusted the marking to help her find him.
She went through several more dimensions with Niall right on her ass. She couldn’t outrun him.
He brought her down in an unfamiliar dimension. This one was filled with odd, froglike creatures on a pink carpet of what felt like velvet. She rolled and came up swinging, punching the gun out of his hand. It flew through the air to land on a frog. The reptile squealed and turned from green to red, rising on its hind legs and expanding to the size of a full-grown elephant.
Shit. Closing her eyes, Mercy leaped through another portal, having no clue where she was going.
Niall followed right behind her, and her limbs started to tire. Never in her life had she jumped this many times at once, and her heart rate began to slow alarmingly. Her blood was sluggish in her veins. Her muscles went lax.
Logan’s smiling face filled her mind. So good and strong. She could find him. While jumping, she concentrated on the marking pounding against her flesh.Hismarking.
Going on instinct, using all that she had left, she jumped one more time.
Chapter 39
Logan plunged, falling fast and slamming into a sparkling diamond of a rock that threw him back in the air. This time he landed on his feet, bouncing slightly. The surface was covered with the odd rocks, while trees rose high and tall around him, their branches a deep crimson and covered in spikes. Thank God he hadn’t landed on one of them.
A blast of energy filled the air, and a rush of wind hit him. He dropped to his belly out of instinct. Fire swept across the land, burning the trees, scalding his back, then disappearing.
Quiet reigned again. Until something roared in the distance, the sound so raw that chills rippled down his spine.
He had to get out of there.
His body ached, the pain a part of him now. Heaviness attacked his limbs. Exhaustion would soon take him. Yet he rolled to his side and looked at the trees.
A gap between two of them caught his attention. He glanced warily around for more fire, stood, and ran toward the gap. His legs moved in slow motion like a nightmare he’d had once about playing baseball and not being able to run the bases. He lowered his head and forged on, growling with the effort.
Finally, he bounced off the last mushy diamond and landed on hard-packed dirt. A spike caught his arm and ripped through flesh.
He ignored the newest pain and ducked to avoid more spikes.
A cave lay ahead. Energy ticked from it—faint and intermittent.
His back flashed hot and deep along every rib of his shield. “Ivar?” His senses tried to tune in to the energy, but the air was changing around him. Shit. Just as the blast of fire hit again, he dove headfirst into the cave, striking his forehead on a rock. A solid one. Flashes of light pierced the backs of his eyes.
The flames followed him in, burning the bottoms of his bare feet.
Then they receded. Again.
