Chapter 44
SERATH
I ’m lost.
Trapped in the forever dark with an expanse of gray above me that’s out of reach.
The darkness tries to pull me down, away from the gray, but I’m tethered. Somehow, Cameron tethered me. Her essence. Her power. Her love holds me here.
They can’t evict me.
My body.
Mine.
If I can gather my strength. If I can just?—
“Serath, it’s me. It’s Cameron.”
Her voice filters into the darkness saturated with hope and…fear.
“Please…please tell me you’re in there. You promised…you promised to hold on.”
Cameron! Panic fuels me, pushing me up toward the gray. I must surface. I must see. A pinprick of light blooms, and her face appears, misty-eyed, mouth parted in a plea.
Beyond her, lethal threats loom. Graynites. I glance down at my hand, but it’s no longer my hand. It belongs to a monster. To one of them.
I’ve changed, and I’m here, which means?—
“I know you can hear me, dammit,” Cameron says. “Serath, fight it. You fight whatever they’ve done to you.”
Yes. I must fight. I need to protect her. I can’t let them?—
The darkness heaves, wrapping its arms around me, trying to pull me down.
My hand wraps around her throat, and I can feel the softness of her skin and the thrum of her pulse against my palm.
Her thumb strokes my wrist, and my chest aches as I fight the force trying to pull me away from her, because if I let go, she’s doomed.
If I slip now, then she’s dead. I can feel the muscles in my arms tensing, and the thing that has control of me prepares to crush her windpipe.
“I love you, Serath,” she says, absolving me of what I’m about to do. “It’s okay. This is not your fault. It’s okay.”
Her face rushes toward mine, and a lance of pure energy shoots into me. Not mine. Cameron’s. It rockets through my soul and connects to my power, and the shackles holding me in the darkness are burned away. It blazes, engulfing my veins. My fucking veins, in my fucking body.
“NO!” The voice of the entity that houses my skin reverberates in my head. “This is my body now.”
Fury floods me, a foghorn to my beast and chimera buried in the abyss. They shake themselves out of forced dormancy and rush up to meet me.
“No!” the entity cries. “You can’t do this. You can’t.”
I fill my body with my essence and power, cutting off the bastard’s voice.
“Fuck you. This is my body. MINE!”