My breaths seethe from my body, and my upraised hand shakes as I force myself to look at her.
She’s collapsed on the grass, her clothing burned off parts of her body, the material barely covering her breasts and pelvis. Her brown eyes are enormous, her face is streaked with tears, and she sounds…
She sounds like Peyton.
Not like a Fury.
I’m frozen. Stricken still. Even more unable to move than I was moments ago.
The air around me is screaming with noise, the harpies are only seconds away from reaching us, the clash of steel sounds behind me, and Jonah lies unconscious on the ground. I’m not sure when I knocked him out. Maybe when I rammed him against the ground. Or maybe my hand around his throat has cut off his air.
I try to take a breath, try to inhale, but it’s impossible.
All I can see is Peyton huddled against the wall in her bedroom at the Academy, clinging to the blanket she stole from me and, when she let me pry it apart, the way her shirt had gaped open at the front, every button missing, and all the fucking knife cuts crisscrossing her chest, each one bleeding.
I couldn’t protect her.
I couldn’t stop any of it.
“Striker,” Peyton whispers, her voice cutting me to pieces. “We aren’t there anymore.”
A second later, the environment changes around me.
I recognize Slade’s power as it closes around us, a realm forming before my eyes.
He has honed his ability to the point where he doesn’t have to be in physical contact with those he wants to include in the realm. He can pick and choose.
Now, the realm closes down around Peyton, Jonah, and me, and all the way back to Slade and Vanguard, abruptly cutting off the oncoming harpies.
The ground beneath my feet changes to snow, the air chilling, while an icy, barren field forms all around us. The air is a soothing cold, but the snow quickly melts around Jonah and me.
A glance at Slade tells me that he has Vanguard in a chokehold while Vanguard’s sword lies on the ice a few feet away.
“Striker,” Peyton whispers again. “You don’t have to be there anymore.”
I close my eyes. She’s reading my thoughts and emotions, but it’s impossible to close myself off.
All I can do is open my fist and release Jonah’s throat.
Stumbling to my feet, I manage three steps toward Peyton before I drop to the snow, my head bowed. I don’t want to crowd her. I just need to be closer to her, just close enough for the memories to stop.
I’m aware of a soft scraping as she pulls herself toward me, and then?—
Her hand closes over my arm, her fingers barely making it across the width of my muscled forearm.
She presses herself to my side, her hair brushing my neck, her shoulder to my chest.
“We aren’t there anymore,” she whispers, over and over. “We aren’t there, Striker.”
Hot, angry lava burns around my eyes. Not tears. In this form, it seems lava is all I’ve got.
I don’t want to burn her, so I turn my face away, but she takes hold of me, both hands pressed to my cheeks.
“Look at me,” she commands, a hint of Fury in her voice that compels me to obey.
My beast responds to her touch and her command with a terrible relish.Look at her. Look at how fucking beautiful she is. How strong she has become.
She was always my match. Always fighting me. Always challenging me.
