“Right here. I couldn’t cross that barrier with all of you. For multiple reasons.”
“Why—”
“We don’t have time for this. Can you settle down whatever power this is coming out of her so we can get to the house and figure out our next steps?”
I bristle at Amick’s tone and what came out of his mouth.
“There’s no way I just heard you right. I know for a fact, Amick, you haven’t been working with me for a week on accepting mypower, and now you’re telling him to restrain it the second it gets too chaotic.”
“This isn’t Chaos, and I’m not—”
“This is exactly that. I’m sorry mine isn’t giggles and cute, deadly creatures that you’re all so used to, but this is my Chaos.”
The rolling in my belly slows with the recognition.
He, Creed, and Kyzen examine me with varying degrees of confusion. The pain, anger, panic, and multiple other things we’re all experiencing trample through my chest, and my soul doesn’t know which rope to focus on.
“That’s the difference we all didn’t recognize. Where Riven’s Chaos intensifies the emotions in the air, Thayla pushes her emotions onto others,” Derivius states.
Shit, I didn’t realize that.
No wonder everyone was on their knees crying.
Thayla
2
Everyone’s voices are grating on my nerves, and I swear, if Yemi or Rose touch my arm again, I’m going to scream bloody murder.
The battle brewing in my mind is far harder to conquer than the one we faced minutes ago. Within seconds of us arriving back at the house, everyone came barreling in.
Lambrit, Yemi, Havar, Sevryn, and V. Seismet and Verlet are somewhere in the trees close by.
They’re all being supportive. Ready and willing to jump into this fight to go get Riven.
I want to scream that over my dead body will Yemi, Lambrit, Rose, or Havar be joining us, but my voice won’t work. If I speak out loud, something mean or ill-natured might come out.
My patience is wearing thin, and I’m straining not to flip my shit.
I ignorantly believed we’d be coming home, equipping ourselves to the brim with weapons, and then leaving once again.
From the bits and pieces of the conversations I can focus on while I pace, I learn that ambushing the Abandon takes more strategic planning than that.
The God of Obliteration isn’t just an evil waste of fucking space. He’s brilliant, smart, cunning, and always paranoid, which makes him always ready.
They warned me about this before, but I guess I didn’t take it seriously enough.
Every time I think we’re getting closer to a solid plan, Amick comes up with a counter that foils it.
“That won’t work,” he says for the umpteenth time.
I grip my roots and groan. “Gods, how much longer will this take?”
“As long as it needs to.”
Some unflattering noise comes out of my mouth as my hands slap against my thighs. Creed doesn’t bother glancing at me after his smart-ass remark. He keeps staring and shaking his head over the map of the Abandon, while muttering that it’s wrong. That’s pissing Amick off even more.
“Verlet, have you heard anything?”
