Page 158 of Villainous Rise

My pulse hammered in my ears as she continued.

“Your mind, the way it works, that’s one of your Trueborn gifts, isn’t it? And now I know what happens when an intellectually gifted Trueborn is given the suppressing serum.”

She’d researched the very thing that haunted my nightmares.

“They break you,” she said. “They take what makes you special and they crush it. I’ve seen the case studies. The brilliant ones who became hollow shells after treatment.”

I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She’d seen right through me to my deepest fear, becoming that empty-eyed child again, trapped in a mind that couldn’t access its own brilliance.

But the fear that had been building in my chest twisted into something else. Something dangerously close to hope.

“You protected me,” I said, disbelief coloring my voice. “After everything I did. After I lied to you.”

“I did it because I know what it’s like to have powers you didn’t ask for. To be afraid of what others would do if they knew.”

“You could have destroyed me with this,” I said softly. “You still could.”

“I know,” she said. “But even if I hated you, I wouldn’t let anyone take you away like that. I wouldn’t let them break your mind.”

I stared at Annie, struggling to process what had just happened. She’d known, for months. My biggest secret, the one thing that could destroy everything I’d built, and she’d just kept it to herself. Protected me.

No one had ever protected me before.

“So,” Annie said, “are we going to go flying or are we going to keep standing out here staring at each other?”

I blinked. My mouth opened, but no words came out.

Finally, I found my voice. “You’re just going to drop this bombshell? Reveal that you know my biggest, deepest secret—have known it for months—and that’s it?”

Annie shrugged and gave me a small smile. “Yep.”

I just stared at her. This impossible woman. This fucking miracle of a human being who knew what I was and hadn’t run screaming. Hadn’t reported me. Hadn’t used it against me.

Had protected me.

She’d known what I was since that night on the rooftop. Known, and still came to my bed. Still let me touch her. Still fought with me, cried with me, fucked me.

She knew, and she stayed.

“Okay,” I finally exhaled, the word carrying the weight of everything I didn’t know how to say.

CHAPTER 27

CIPHER

I scooped Annie up into my arms and she gave a startled yelp, her arms automatically wrapping around my neck. I launched us straight up into the fog, feeling her grip tighten as the ground disappeared beneath us. The fog swallowed us whole, wrapping around us like a blanket, obscuring everything but the woman in my arms.

“Holy shit,” she gasped, her fingers digging into my shoulders.

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me, part exhilaration, part disbelief that I was doing this. That I was showing her this part of me. That I wasn’t hiding.

“You okay?” I asked, adjusting my hold on her as we ascended.

“Yeah,” she breathed, her eyes wide as she looked around at the nothing surrounding us. “It’s just different when it’s not Havoc.”

I tightened my grip on her, suddenly irrationally jealous of the man who got to experience this with her first. “Better or worse?”

She tilted her head, considering. “Different,” she repeated. “With Havoc, it was like being strapped to a rocket. With you,” she paused, her gaze meeting mine. “It feels more controlled. It’s like I can feel you calculating everything.”