Chapter 37 #2
I was able to help Willow by giving her some of my energy. And the Vims are always syphoning some from me and I never notice it. Maybe I can send Cyrus a little to help.
Focusing on the energy inside me, I reach down further and feel for our bond, finding it in seconds. Grasping onto it, I imagine a ball of light building around it before seeping into it slowly.
Seconds is all it takes for Cyrus’s pallor to return to normal. A moment later his eyes grow brighter, and his breathing evens out. I don’t stop sending him energy until we’re outside the entrance to the cave.
He frowns, as if thinking about something, before whipping his head to me, his eyes widening when he realizes.
“Sena…”
I give him a little smile, squeezing his hand and releasing it to scan around us as relief fills me.
Steeling myself, I take a step inside when I feel him come up behind me. “You shouldn’t have done that.” His hands wrap around me from behind.
“I—”
“But thank you,” he whispers before placing a kiss on the side of my head, leaving his lips to linger a moment before pulling away.
The opening of the cave is dark, but not so dark that I can’t see my other three mates as they give me a look telling me how worried they are about me being here.
They move closer to me, glaring around at the cave walls as if they’ve somehow annoyed them.
“How the hell are we supposed to see in this?” Knox asks.
Theo frowns. “We probably should have made a light from some of the flames outside.”
Knox gives him a deadpan look. “You think?”
“I’m not the only one with a brain here,” Theo replies before smirking. “Or maybe I am.”
Men. Why do they always have to make things so difficult?
Before they get into it again, I call on my sword of light and it instantly forms in my hand, lighting up the entire cave.
They all stare at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“How can you—” Zane starts but I cut him off, not willing to get into explaining everything.
“How do we know we’re even going in the right direction?” I ask.
Zane looks at me for another moment before taking something out of his pocket, revealing the crystal.
That’s right. Levington gave it to him to help us seek out the heart stone. Apparently like calls to like.
A rush of anger sweeps through me at the thought of Levington constantly hacking away at the crystal like it’s nothing to him, putting every Shadow life in danger.
Zane holds out the crystal and frowns before glancing over at Colton with a silent question. Colton nods his head and Zane pockets the crystal.
“Colton can also remember any location and direct us to it,” he says. “No matter where we are. Once he’s sees it once, we’re good.”
I glance over at Colton with a raised brow, and he winks at me, giving me a little flirty smile that has all my mates growling at him.
Cassius moves between the two groups, acting like a buffer between them.
“How have you been?” Cassius asks while I glance around and make sure nothing is about to jump out at us from the shadows. But then I notice that every single Shadow male in here has slowly spanned out around me creating a damn shield
“I’d be fine if the idiots around me didn’t think I wasn’t capable enough to look after myself,” I mumble, narrowing my eyes on them.
“They can’t help it,” he says before giving me a soft expression as if trying to make me understand. And I guess I do. I just want to be able to protect them, too.
Zane and his team are mumbling to one another, too low to hear, while my men share a silent conversation between themselves.
My gaze lands on Cassius and I realize I finally have him here to ask some of the things I’ve been wondering about.
“I…” I start but then realize Zane’s team is a little too close by for my liking and I don’t know how good their hearing is.
I lower my voice and move closer to him. “Why can’t I remember my name? My real name?”
Cassius gives me a sad look. “Sena is your real name.”
“Yes, but—” He shakes his head, that sad expression still on his face.
“You are Sena,” he says. “No one else.” He looks like he wants to say something else but thinks better of it and sighs. “Your body was taken from you without your say or knowledge. Something that should never have happened. But I’m glad it protected you from the alternative all these years.”
As if sensing the question on the tip of my tongue, he looks at me. “They would have sensed you. The faction that killed off your… your family and line. You would have died alongside them.”
While I try to digest what he just told me, he takes a minute to compose himself.
“When I was able to switch you back, I knew it would be hard enough adjusting after being away from your body for so long.” He frowns. “So, I wanted to make sure you knew no matter where you were or whose face you wore, you are and will always be Sena. No one else.”
The complete conviction and emotion in his voice leaves me a little stunned. His words finally filter pass my muddled brain, hitting me hard when I truly realize what he means.
My name is Sena. Has always been, Sena. The body I grew up in was never mine to begin with. Nor did it ever belong to me. She was my deception and mask I hid behind, and nothing more.
Cassius wiping her name from my mind only really gave me back what should have always been mine.
“It’s not much, considering everything you’ve been through but—”
“I understand,” I tell him while trying to swallow against the knot forming in my throat. “Thank you,” I tell him and then look away trying to blink back the burn in my eyes.
Theon glances over at me with a frown, before narrowing his eyes on Cassius. He starts to make a move toward him when I shake my head and give him a little smile, mouthing ‘I’m fine.’
He stays along the cave wall but doesn’t stop glaring over at Cassius.
I clear my throat attempting to clear some of the emotion for it. “Where have you been all this time?” I ask trying to change to subject.
“I told you I would protect you,” he says making me feel nothing but confused.
I give him a frown and questioning look. Wouldn’t protecting me mean he’d have to be around me?
“I was tracking down your… old Sena’s family.
They were paid good money to protect your…
body,” he clears his throat, “but lied about everything.” He sighs.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on them even before the switch back.
But I heard they got ahold of a device.” He gives me a pointed look, reminding me of the device I stole for my fake brother.
“What was it?” I never really thought about what it was. It was small enough that I didn’t think it would do much damage.
“It opens a portal.”
I freeze. “To outside the academy?”
He nods and I mentally kick myself. I literally had my way out in my hands. But—I glance over at my men as they scan every inch of the caves passageway as we move along it while their eyes flit over to me every few seconds—I guess I wouldn’t have left any of them by then anyway.
Even if I wasn’t ready to fully admit it to myself at that time. There was no way I was going to be able to leave them.
“I set them up,” he says with a little proud grin. “They’ll be spending the rest of their time in a human cell.”
I smile, shaking my head at him. “Thank you for cleaning up my mess and for the pendent. It’s definitely come in handy this last while,” I tell him and reach up to where it’s hidden underneath my layers of dark clothing.
He frowns. “What pen—” the ground and walls begin to tremble around us making everyone freeze.
A horde of Big-Foot lookalikes with black leathery skin burst into the passageways and quickly surround us. Before I get the chance to make a move, my men are already there in front of them, their shadows out as they rip and tear through every single one of them.
They finish off the last few while Zane shouts over. “We’ll just wait here,” looking at my mates with new eyes. In fact, his entire group is.
“It’s what I’m normally left to do,” I tell him, and he shakes his head just as they finish and make their way over to me.
“What the hell are you?” Theo asks them.
“Seriously?!” Zane says. “We’re Elites and the best of the best and I’ve never seen any Shadows move or fight like you four, winged or not.”
“Maybe it’s their Alita and mate bond,” Ajax says thinking it over.
I shake my head. “No. They were this… special before they met me.”
My mates move closer to me, all wearing little smirks like they think it’s cute I’m calling them special.
Malakai opens his mouth to say something when another tremble slides through the cave.
Before we get a chance to move, another horde of beasts rush us, this time a mix between big-foot lookalikes and Terrigons.
My mates have no other choice but to let us help. There’s way too many of them to handle on their own.
Cassius stays by my side as my men and Zane’s group jump right into the fray, killing anything around us.
Just as I start to head toward the group, something moves from the corner of my eye.
I glance over in the direction and freeze when I spot a familiar face staring back at me.
But it’s not his smug smile that has ice crawling down my spine, it’s the way he lifts one of the big-foot creatures and literally sucks the life out of him, leaving it as nothing but a shriveled husk of a being before disappearing.
Fuck. Talos is here.