I was stunned. Confused. Honored.
Taking a deep breath, I accepted their salute and tried not to let it make my heart hurt. Which was impossible. Especially with Mak and his big, brown eyes staring up at me like I was the sun and the stars, his everything. “Okay. I’m going in. Give me two minutes. Two full minutes. Then come in fighting.”
Unable to stop myself, I leaned down and kissed Mak on the lips. “Stay alive.” It was an order. If he got killed, I’d chase him into the afterlife and kill him again.
Before he could argue, I was gone, using my Nexus speed to run through the cave faster than any human, or beast, or even Everian Hunter. Although I’d never been in a footrace with Kiel of Everis, I was confident I could take him.
No mere mortal could see me, not moving at full speed. I wasn’t a blur; I was a blast of wind. Gone before anyone realized I’d passed by.
But the Hive weren’t human. Not anymore. Their implants tracked me as I sped by, but none tried to stop me.
I was Nexus. Summoned by Nexus 4. Expected.
One of them.
I could hear the buzz of excitement building in the cave with my arrival. Even though they were Hive, underneath it all they were still emotional creatures. They still experienced the effects of fear, adrenaline, anxiety.
I could hear them in my head talking to me, about me, but I ignored them all. I did smile when I was reminded of Nexus 4’s anger with me over the loss of their Soldiers on the moon, but I ignored even that, heading for the center of the noise in my head, the silent black hole at the eye of the storm. Nexus 4 broadcast nothing. He was a dead zone, a darkness so deep and dark that falling into his mind was like tumbling through an ink black well with no bottom. It went on forever, with no way out. No walls. Nothing one could use for reference. Nothing but him.
And his mind was cold. So, so cold.
That cold embraced me now and my entire body responded out of reflex, the massive number of Hive implants and microcellular integrations resonating to his call. My body was a guitar string and he’d just played an entire chord. The Hive parts of me, and there were a lot of them, hummed, charged on Nexus energy. Alive.
It felt like a million tiny spiders crawling around on the underside of my skin. My skin didn’t crawl… the cells beneath my skin did. Slid around. Moved and reorganized themselves into a likeness of him, instead of Nexus 2.
They were vain, the Nexus. Nexus 4 would not want a female who looked like his rival, the one who had made me, Nexus 2.
I stopped on a dime, less than three steps from him. But not because I wanted to stop. No. He forced me, took control of all the little parts and pieces inside me that were his.
And I hated him for moving me like a puppet master moved a marionette. Hated him with a passion and vehemence I never could have managed before Mak. Before I knew what a violation this monster’s influence truly was. What it was to be loved by a mate, to be free and wanted for being myself. What goodness was.
Still, I had a role to play. I didn’t try to hide the hate. My ire had amused Nexus 2, made him feel more powerful. I counted on the fact that Nexus 4 was no different.
“Where is Nexus 2?” His voice was deep, hypnotic, and the words flowed to my ears and directly into my mind as one. I stared at his feet, not daring to raise my gaze, not even to his waist or his chest. It was just too dangerous.
Instantly, without thinking, I offered him the truth. “I don’t know. I left him behind.”
His laugh was more hiss than chuckle. If a cobra could laugh, I imagined it would sound like him. “No longer playing games, are we. Not we don’t know?”
“I left Nexus 2. He is weak. Vain. I came here, looking for you. I had hoped you would be more powerful than Nexus 2. Not so easy to defeat. But I have lost hope. Your Soldiers were easy to find. Even easier to kill.”
He stepped toward me and I fought his desire to have me kneel. My fight lasted for only a fraction of a second as he felt the resistance and pushed harder. I landed on my knees so hard I would have cracked my kneecap if I’d still been human.
“I am not amused by your challenge, female. Those were my Soldiers. My assets. You will repay me tenfold.”
“Only if I stay.”
He was close now, so close my nose was inches from his thigh, his large blue hand right there so I could see the vile black liquid pumping through its veins. I couldn’t think of him as a man. I just couldn’t. Not anymore.
When his hand moved toward my throat, I struck. Hard. Fast. With every ounce of strength I possessed. The blade hidden up my sleeve springing forward into my palm less than a second before I shoved the silver into his torso.
But he was faster. He dodged the strike so that my dagger missed his heart by several inches.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Had it been two minutes yet?
Where was Mak? How long would it take him to get here?