Chapter 38
What the hell is Talos? I’ve never seen a Shadow be able to suck the life from something. But I guess there are plenty of Shadows who have powers I don’t know about.
Shaking off the shock of seeing him, I jump into the fray, slicing my sword through the nearest Terrigon and instantly turning it to ash before moving onto the next beast near it.
My gaze flickers to each of my mates, ensuring they’re okay, and find their eyes on me just as much.
Along with Zane’s team, we work through the horde, completely destroying them within minutes.
Once the last one is dead, I turn to my mates as they rush over to check me, scanning me from head to toe to make sure nothing is out of place.
“I saw Talos,” I tell them, and they freeze.
“Are you sure?” Malakai asks just as Zane comes over to us.
“You saw Commander Talos? Here?” he asks with shock and worry in his tone.
“It was him,” I tell them all. “I’m positive.”
“Fuck,” Theo whispers before sharing a worried look with his team.
“We need to hurry,” Zane says. “We have to find the heart stone before he does. Or everything we’ve worked for up until now will be for nothing.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the crystal before his gaze finds Colton. They have some silent conversation before they get moving.
“I guess we’re following.” Knox rolls his eyes at their retreating backs.
We rush after them, running as Zane and Colton take the lead, turning down passageways, rushing through small tunnels before coming to a path that divides into a dozen different corridors.
Zane pauses and we take a minute to catch our breath. But a minute is all it takes for dark smoke to come from nowhere, completely swallowing us making it hard to see anything but its darkness.
“Malakai? Knox? Cyrus? Theon?” I call out while attempting to see through the dark smoke, but no one answers.
“Zane? Theo…” I call out just as the smoke clears. But I’m not at the center of the dozens of passageways anymore, I’m in a small cavern with no one else around me.
How…
I immediately reach into my connection with Knox trying to figure out what the hell happened. “Knox? Where are you?”
But no one replies. I try again and again, digging deeper into our bond but each time it’s like talking to a wall.
Shit. I glance around the cavern to try to find them and soon spot a passageway out.
Heading for it, I’m about to step into the long tunnel when something stops me, my gut instinct telling me to turn around and go to the opposite side of the cavern.
I step away from the passageway and turn around. As soon as I do, a warmth fills me as if telling me I made the right decision.
Just as I reach the other side of the cavern, another passageway appears from nowhere with the warmth feeling inside me still growing and growing pushing me toward it.
I step into the passageway and follow what must be my gut instinct to hopefully my mates. But instead of finding my mates, Cassius, or even Zane’s team, I walk into a chamber with a small frail woman with long dark hair, bent over rocking back and forth.
Her face whips up revealing a white pallor with dark eyes. She opens her mouth wide, and a loud shriek sounds out, making me grab my ears attempting to stop the pain now splicing through them.
Within seconds the sound stops, but before I even get the chance to open my eyes, I feel a hand snap around my throat as my back slams into the rock wall.
“You will not kill me… I will not die…” she growls.
Instead of letting panic overwhelm me, something rises inside me. An energy that slides across every part of my skin before bursting out of me.
Light slams into the dark-haired woman throwing her back into the wall across from me.
I fall to my knees and catch my breath but glance up to make sure she’s not about to attack me again when she looks up at me and I spot green eyes now instead of black eyes staring back at me. They hold so much pain and absolute heartbreak in them that they make me pause.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I can’t… I can’t leave.” Her voice and body trembles as she glances from her hands to me.
“Who are you? How did you end up here?” I ask while also trying to figure a way out. Her other side could come out to play anytime. Even though I somehow managed to get her off me, I don’t know if that will work a second time.
“Help me,” she begs. “Help me be free.”
I frown and scan the room around us. She’s not chained or tied to anything and if I can get in, surely, she can get out? “How?”
“Kill me, kill me, kill me,” she chants but her words bounce off the walls surrounding me as she slowly moves toward me. “End this suffering.”
That voice… it sounds so familiar… it—my eyes widen when I realize. On the beach when I met my Alita. I felt something call to me. It was her.
A royal Alita but also… “You’re the heart stone.”
She tilts her head, her eyes growing sad. “I am but a piece of what still exists. And you are the last royal Alita,” she says while scanning me from head to toe. “My dark energy does not work on you.”
“Dark energy?” I ask as my stomach drops.
“It’s around us all. Seeking. Luring… Destroying.” Her eyes slowly start to turn darker, and I realize I don’t have long before this version of her disappears.
“But you’re also a royal Alita?” I ask trying to help her remember who she once was.
The darkness from her eyes recedes a little. “I was… once.” She glances around. “A long time ago.”
“I thought I was helping. But I was betrayed.” She stares straight at me. “Royals bring the Shadows peace. Balance. Without it, they will die.”
But she was once a royal. My eyes widen when I realize… “It’s why many Shadows feel a semblance of peace near the Hollow, isn’t it?”
She nods. “But they should not be tethered to me… to what I am now. It will only destroy them.” The darkness tries to take over, but I watch as she winces and pushes it back a little.
My time is running out. “How do I find the heart stone? How do I find the rest of… you?”
Her eyes close and she tilts her head upward. “Follow your heart. Trust your gut. And destroy me before it’s too late.”
A crack sounds out and she hunches over in an unnatural position before snapping her head up and shrieking. “You will not kill me… I will not die!”
Wincing at the instant pain the sound causes, I grab my ears and try to reach down into that gut instinct that has never led me astray.
Following it, I head over to a wall across from me. There’s no indication that it’s anything but a wall, but everything inside me is telling me I need to go this way.
I reach out and watch as my hand goes through the wall.
“You will not kill me… I will not die!”
I peek over my shoulder, and my stomach drops when I find the dark-haired woman crawling up the side of the wall and cavern ceiling, heading right for me.
Ready to take my chances on whatever is on the other side of this wall, I step through it and out into another cavern full of Terrigons and beasts fighting.
“SENA!”
I wince as all four bonds slam into me at once. “Knox? Where are you?”
“Fuck,” he rasps. “Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again.”
“Where are you all?” I ask just as a Terrigon reaches me. I slam my sword into it before moving to the next.
“We got pulled into an illusion of some kind,” he says.
“The heart stone must be close if it’s going all-out to stop us from getting any closer,” I tell him before spinning out of the way of a beast before slashing my sword across its side.
“Is everyone okay?” I ask.
“We’re all fine now that we know you’re safe—why are you fighting air?”
“What?” I ask as I slam my sword into another Terrigon, turning it to ash. “There are dozens of Terrigons and beasts around me.”
“Malakai says there’s nothing there. It must be another illusion.”
Another… But it looks so damn real.
Clenching my hand on the sword, I slowly bring it to my side and decide to put my trust in my mates and back up to the nearest wall of the cavern while keeping my eyes on the Terrigons and beasts.
I stop fighting and the Terrigons and beasts all immediately rush for me.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I wait for the hit or slash of pain, but nothing comes.
After a moment of holding my breath, nothing happens.
I open my eyes and sigh in relief when I see that there’s nothing around me.
No beasts. No Terrigons. Just an empty cavern.
“It was another illusion,” I tell him. “How did you all see past yours?”
“Cyrus was able to see through them and found us all. We should be able to find you too. Get out of the room you’re in in case the illusion starts back up—it happened to us— but don’t go too far.”
Not wanting to stick around and see another illusion, I head out of the cavern and into another passageway. It opens up to three others, but it’s only the far left one that draws me to it. As if there’s a beacon calling me toward it.
I’m about to take a step toward the passage when I hear voices from behind me. Seconds later I’m engulfed in hugs.
Hands slide around my stomach from the back as Malakai steps in front of me, his hands cupping my face, his eyes looking at me with nothing but fear that slowly eases.
He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that I’m okay and leans forward to press a kiss to my head before moving back for the others.
They take a minute to make sure I’m okay and I scan them from head to toe to make sure none of them are injured before allowing myself to feel at ease.
The feeling quickly flees when I realize it’s just the five of us here.
“Where’s Zane and the others? Cassius?” I ask glancing between them.
“We haven’t seen any of them,” Theon says, taking my hand and squeezing it as if trying to reassure himself that I’m here. “Not since we got divided.”
Shit. “Should we search for them?”
Cyrus sighs. “I was only able to find my bond brothers because of our bond. I can’t do it with the others. And there’s no guarantee we won’t get pulled into another illusion.