Emerson hit him twice before the alley exploded into blue fire.
“You think this is going to work out for you?” Mihail shouted at Emerson, tipping his head toward Audrey. “You won’t be able to handle her. And when Ryker finds out what she really is?” His smile grew wider. “All you’ll do is piss him off.”
Audrey’s patience snapped. She struck her fist into Mihail’s nose.
His head jolted back, blood spraying the gravel. “Still think you’ll walk away from this?”
Audrey watched, breathing hard.
“Of course,” Mihail said, smirking. Blood painted his teeth. “It’s all perspective.”
“You’re insane,” Audrey said. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” He closed his eyes and drew in a long breath.
Then he moved.
Flames licked up his fingers, lighting the alley in haunting blue. They roared into a perfect circle, sealing them in. Audrey scanned for an escape, but flames hemmed them in, heat punching the air from her lungs.
Emerson glared, shooting bullets blindly toward the outline of Mihail’s shape, but the shots disappeared into the blaze.
A shadow slipped at the edge of the fire. Mihail lifted his hand, and the ring collapsed with a hiss, sucking back into nothing. Nikos appeared behind them like he’d been made from the dark itself, big hands clamping down on Mihail’s shoulders.
They moved faster than thought.
Audrey hit the pavement hard. Her wrists were bound before she could move. The bands around them buzzed. She flexed on instinct, receiving a sharper sting—an electric warning humming throughout her bones. Something about the bracelets muted her abilities.
Indeed, the restraints weren’t just simply metal like handcuffs. They were thin bands that sat flush against her wrists, humming at a frequency that she felt in her teeth. Every time she reached outward with her mind, the stinging vibrations pushed back—blunting the edge of her thoughts, smothering any flare of her power. Whoever made them built them for people like her.
Who had designed such technology? It was miles beyond anything human authorities could imagine. As the bands pulsed, Audrey guessed they weren’t made on Earth. Only those who’d battled telepaths for years—and only off-worlders—would know how to silence her powers or have access to such materials.
Next to her, Emerson grunted, muscles tensing, but whatever held him was just as strong. She could hear him still fighting the cuffs, his breath harsh and furious through his teeth.
Nikos planted a boot between Emerson’s shoulder blades and leaned his weight into it until Emerson’s muttering turned ragged.
Audrey twisted enough to see the hierarchy more clearly. Nikos was the muscle, the weight holding them down. Mihail was the one giving orders. Jaxon was gone entirely. Emerson, pinned and bleeding, had lost whatever claim he thought he had over the situation.
That left Mihail.
Not just physically, but operationally, she was his now—his failure if this went wrong, his explanation when they got wherever home was. The realization landed cold and immediate. There would be no courtroom, no police, and no appeal. Just a transfer of ownership from one man to another.
Audrey tested the bands again, thinking about how the gun had responded to her earlier. She tamped down the impulse as the buzzing increased in response.
Nikos muttered something harsh in a language Audrey didn’t understand. Mihail replied in English, then nudged Audrey with the side of his boot. Emerson, straining against his own cuffs, cursed at them in what she assumed was Ezebethian.
“We should’ve kept Sophia alive,” Nikos said under his breath, his tall form looming over her.
“Sophia knew what Audrey was,” Mihail muttered. “A gold triad.”
Nikos swore under his breath. “Ryker will want to see her for himself then.”
Audrey froze against the vibrating restraints.
Gold triad.
The term kept circling her like a vulture and still meant nothing. The words felt less like a description and more like a sentence. Her mother had tried to kill her because of them. Mihail wanted to own her because of them. And now therewas this other thing—fraying—which sounded like some slow collapse waiting for people who couldn’t control what they were.
A fresh tide of anxiety threatened to choke her.
