Something’s wrong.
She crouches until our faces are level, her delicate hand cupping my jaw.
Something’s wrong.
I open my mouth to scream, somehow knowing it’s in vain. Knowing even before my brain can process the why, the how, the what.
“Luna,please?—”
My lips stiffen as she kisses me, her breasts flattening against my chest. Eagerly, forcefully, and somehow … coldly.
No.
Harsh metal scrapes my hip as she tucks something into my waistband.
I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
No. No. No.
Nails claw my wrist as she grips the bracelet Zephyr gave me. With a sharp yank, it snaps in her grasp; scratches my cheek as Luna uses both her hands to squeeze my face.
The fence slips through my hands and rings back into place.
“No hard feelings,” she says, her face brutally serious.Scary.
Real.
Something bites into my flesh just before an electric current cuts through my body and stops all thought. I don’t hear what happens next, but I feel Luna’s presence leave me.
When the current stops, there’s a half-second reprieve before a fist slams into my jaw, a crunch bursting through my ears as pain explodes. A large mass pins my pelvis before another blow comes, this time to my chin.
“Enough,” Luna growls. She catches the wrist of my assailant when he goes to swing again. The tribal tattoo circling Thorne’s arm blurs, but for the first time, I feel as though I can see him clearly.
And I know.
Before everything can slip into place, I know.
“There will be plenty of time for that later,” Luna finishes.
Thorne yanks free, his weight leaving me as he stands. Or not, I don’t know. All at once, the feeling in my limbs, my jaw, my chest leave—my mind slipping from my body. Drifting to rest on a low-hanging branch.
Reality stops being real.
Someone flips me over and ties my hands behind my back while I watch from the tree. No fight in my limbs. No words from my mouth. Not even as I’m jerked to my feet in front of Luna. In front of the Head Keeper. In front of their queen.
“You’ve failed your initiation, Sawyer Hansley,” Luna says to me with her chin lifted, righteous indignation both new and familiar. Her face both strange and recognizable.
I know this woman.
Yet we’ve never met.
Her chest expanding, she addresses one of several Keepers that approach, their silhouettes joining us from behind trees. “Put him with the Dregs.”
Our eyes meet as I’m dragged away, and though my mind has lost all authority, I see hesitation. Uncertainty. Emotions so hard to fake for anyone except the deepest of pros. The most elite of Machiavellians.
I feel no fear.
Only shock.
