Chapter One
Yun
“You are mine.”The voice repeated in my head, reaching deep inside me, a whisper that never fully went away.
It had remained only in very rare nightmares at first, then later in most dreams, and now? I heard it—no, felt it—on the outskirts of waking, like a piece of string that kept tightening around me, dragging me back to a place I never wanted to return to.
There, in the depths of my mind, the horrors surrounded me. A hand reached for me, clawing through the darkness, always getting closer. I remembered when it could grab me, when I had no chance to escape it, and everything it had taken from me.
I jerked awake, my eyes snapping open to find myself in a dim room, orange light from the rising sun pouring in through a window. I had no idea where I was, didn’t recognize anything around me, couldn’t make out enough details to know if I’d been here before.
I twisted, then froze when a pair of purple, glowing eyes met mine. They were so bright in the room that they cast deeper shadows on the outskirts.
Did he find me?
I yanked backward, scrambling over the soft surface of what had to be a mattress. At the end, I toppled, trying to catch myself, reaching blindly for anything. He’d said I was his, that he was coming back. Was this another dream, or had I finally lostmy mind, or maybe it was all real and he’d done what I’d thought impossible?
Light filled the space, so bright I had to shield my eyes from it. It took a moment to adjust, but when I did, the terror from before washed away.
It wasn’thimin the room, not my nightmare, not my past, but Carter. He’d turned the light on, a familiar smile painted across his lips.
With his face came back the events from…whenever it had been.
What had happened in the lobby with that corrupted—along with my time with the entire squad before that.
Heat flamed across my cheeks at the reminder of how I’d lost myself to them, to the feelings, to things I’d never experienced or dared to risk before.
Worse, I felt so much better than I had recently. I wasn’t even sore, which didn’t seem possible, given just how many rounds we’d gone. Even if none of them had actually fucked me, I should have hurt.
“Kenyon healed you.”
How did he always know what I was thinking?
Instead of addressing that—doing so would mean me having to think about and acknowledge what we’d done—I ignored his statement. “What happened to the corrupted?”
“Dead.”
Right.I recalled the sickening crack when Ingram had snapped his neck. While it was needed, that didn’t mean I had to like it.
I tried to slow my still-racing heart, standing up straight so I could figure out where I was.
It appeared similar to the hotel room from before, the same general décor to suggest the same building, but it wasn’tquitethe same. “Where are we?”
“Same hotel, but different room. The other needed…cleaning.” The way he said that last word said it all, right?
Then again, after all we’d done, it wasn’t a shock that it might need some work. I tried to ignore what the staff would think at having to clean all that, however, and prayed I didn’t run into a single person.
“How long was I out?”
“Almost a full day.”
“A day and the Guild hasn’t been here yet?”
“Oh, they were, but I refused them access to you.”
Thatsurprised me. In my experience, squads gave in to whatever the Guild wanted, always too afraid of screwing up their ranking to refuse.
Then again, hadn’t Reject Squad proven they didn’t give a fuck about their place in the Guild or how others viewed them? The exact same trait that had bothered me so much before now seemed like an unexpected benefit.
