I hopped up and paced the short length of the cell, the concrete icy on my bare feet. My skin burned, raw and overheated, as if I’d been forced through one shift too many without rest and proper food.
Answers were in even shorter supply than space. I reached for Jude through our bond, but it was a throbbing void in my chest, a hollowed-out wound. In its place was something new, a more delicate, intricately woven connection. Tracing its thread, my awareness snaked into the adjacent cell, landing on Wade. He was curled in a corner, radiating a weary sadness, but whole. Beyond him were Ezra, Bobby, Tiana, and even Victor. A ghostly map of our teams, each occupying a cell in the SED’s limited dungeon.
The air left my lungs in a rush, a sucker punch of realization. My entire team, jailed. Was it for interfering on a closed case? Or had they seen the monster I became and locked us all away for safety?
I slammed a fist against the cold metal door. The boom echoed in the small space. “Hey! Is anyone out there?” I demanded, my voice rough. I needed someone to acknowledge me, to see the man and not the beast. Maybe now, clothed in human skin, they’d give me answers. Or maybe they’d just transfer me to whatever nightmare prison the military built for monsters like me.
“Angel?” Wade’s muted voice trickled through the walls. If not for my sensitive hearing, I likely wouldn’t have heard him at all.
“Wade?”
“Yeah. You okay?”
No.The word echoed with a dozen different griefs.I’m not okay.
I let my head thud against the cold metal door, utterly drained. “No.”
Silence from Wade’s cell. I understood it. There were no words. When he finally spoke, it was just two, heavy with shared failure. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for what? For not saving Jude? For failing to stop my rampage? For our own people throwing us in a cage?
“Everyone’s here” I whispered, my new, strange awareness painting a map of despair in my mind. Tired, hungry, grieving hearts. All except one. I focused, tracing the threads again, my blood running cold.
Remi.
His thread was missing. Not tied to us.
A snarl ripped from my throat; the sound barely human. Had I been right? Had he set us up? Was he the reason that shadow god stole my mate?
“Breathe, Angel.” Wade’s voice was a calm, steady command that cut through the static in my head, feeling more internal than physical. “Your control is better than this.”
“Remi,” I growled, the name a curse.
“He’s fine,” Wade assured.
He won’t be for long.I should have known better than to trust a practitioner, variant or not. Power corrupts. I’d seen it happen too many times, watched kind eyes hollow out and turn into something monstrous the second true power whispered to them.
“Unconscious,” Ezra’s voice cut in from a distant cell. “The magical feedback nearly liquefied his brain.”
A spellhehad triggered. The unspoken accusation hung in the silence between us. Had he known? How could he not?
My legs gave out, and I slid down the cold metal door, collapsing to the floor. My stomach roared, a hollow, gnawing ache as if I hadn’t eaten in years. The cost of rapid, violent healing. But how could I think of food when Jude was gone? Ripped from me? My heart lurched with the loss, sluggish and irregular in its beat.
But a phantom warmth lingered in every cell, a gentle, persistent hum. The ghost of his embrace, woven into the very fabric of my being.
“Jude,” I whispered, the name a prayer to the ghost in my veins.
A thrum of power echoed down the corridor like a warning shot. I winced as it slid over me, touch tentative, heavy, but familiar.
Xavier.
Only once before had Xavier used this kind of magic on me. I’d been younger, my mind fracturing under the runes carved into my skin, and his ancient power had pinned me to the floor like a butterfly to a corkboard.
This time, it slid right off. A wave trying to crush a mountain.
I fought back a snarl, my instincts screaming to lunge for his throat the second he drew near. But then a different energy trickled down the hall—a gentle, bright pulse that felt achingly familiar. My chest tightened.
“He’s not himself,” Xavier stated as the footsteps drew closer.
