“Come on,” I heard Lucas murmur as he fisted the key in one hand while gripping the door with the other, a glove keeping his skin off the metal. “Come on.”
Lori’s eyes rolled to Nate, who’d gone so still even his hair had stopped fluttering. I released Mom’s hand and stepped toward him, laying my palm between his shoulder blades.
He jumped before craning his neck and offering me a despondent smile. There and gone. “Hey, Pinecone.”
“Hey.” I squeezed myself between him and Nolan and wrapped my two hands around my eldest brother’s arm.
Bea still hadn’t moved, but her skin, although not the picture of health, seemed to have taken on a richer hue. Was it because I’d moved forward and the lighting was different where I now stood?
A snuffle followed by a resonant gasp had my brother’s arm turning to steel beneath my fingertips.
My gaze cut back to the origin of the noise. Found Bea’s eyes wide-open and staring at the ceiling while her body seemed to color in. Her hair, which had hung limply down her back, thickened and glossed as though someone had plunged each lock into a vat of expensive varnish. Her pale skin gleamed like a field of freshly fallen snow at sunrise.
Lori released Bea’s neck and hoisted herself onto her paws, before skittering backward, her claws tinkling against the cement like hail pellets.
“Get the door, Lucas.” Although his voice was calm, Liam’s crossed arms and squared jaw betrayed the tension thrashing within him.
Lucas dragged the door open, wide enough for Lori to scurry through, then rammed it back into place, metal clanking against metal. After spinning the key, he lunged back.
Lori licked her crimson muzzle and dropped onto her back haunches, long lashes swathing her violet eyes.
“Did it happen exactly like this last time?” I asked my brother, who seemingly hadn’t taken a single breath since Bea had taken her first.
“Yes and no. Last time, the venom deformed her features.”
Bea crooked her head, and my lips parted. Although her irises were luminous like ours, the color cinching her pupils blazed red like fiery coals. I waited with bated breath for her to speak or move or dosomething, even if that something was growl. What I wasn’t expecting was for her to vault to her feet like a gymnast and streak toward us at warp speed.
Her thin fingers wrapped around the bars, not a wisp of smoke forming where her skin met silver. “Nate? Baby?”
She’d recognized him. Called him baby. Stared at him as though he was her moon.
Whatever she’d been reborn as carried Bea’s memories.
My brother stiffened, and although he didn’t retreat, he also didn’t inch forward.
“Nate?” She poked her fingertips through the bars, trying to reach him.
When he made no move to touch her, she batted her eyelashes, and a single tear trickled down her cheek, dark and red.
Was that—Was she crying blood?
My brother’s throat moved with a jagged swallow, his silence resonating louder than everyone else’s.
Another viscous tear beaded down Bea’s cheek.
Someone had to say something.
When still no one spoke, not even Darren, I opened my mouth. “How—How do you feel?”
Her lips curved, their color so red they seemed stained in berry juice. “Incredible, Nikki.”
When she turned her head to take in the rest of her audience, I searched her neck for the fang wound. Her skin was unblemished, as though Lori had never bitten it.
“Can you shift?” Liam’s stance was wide, thighs as rigid as tree trunks.
She brushed her knuckles over one cheek, smearing the burgundy trail. “I’m not sure how—” When she caught sight of the blood, she gasped. “Do I have a head injury? Is that why you’re all staring at me like . . . like . . .”
“You’re crying blood.” Nate sounded clinical.
