For an alpha male, he was surprisingly cool with letting me be a bit alpha too. But this time I could hear the absolute ‘no’ in his voice. He would not be moved.
I didn’t argue with him. I simply cleared my mind of all thought and before he even had a chance to recognize the determined glint which had surely entered my eye, I traced.
Right into Que.
I knocked the kneeling, whimpering male down. The bastard still had his eyes closed, but as we tumbled down together the lids shot up and I was the one to almost scream now.
His eyes were white. Just like Francesca’s had been.
What the … Somehow, upon taking her soul, he’d stolen her gift. A gift he was never supposed to have access to. I understood now the yelping cries. He was experiencing the craziness of her visions and, since he wasn’t equipped to deal with them, he could not control the power, and it was screwing with him.
I gathered every bit of bravery I had inside, and tried to force myself to grab Que’s hands. I had to do this. I trusted Francesca’s vision – and we had to not only stop Que and free the souls. But I also needed the original energy he contained. It could spell the difference between success and failure.
I couldn’t make my arms move.
Brace didn’t want me to do this, and we were a team. I shouldn’t have made the decision without him. But if I couldn’t free the souls and take back the rest of the original energy from Que then we would all die.
Everything was moving in slow motion; Brace was above me, reaching down to pull me away from Que. I had to make the decision now.
Of course, in the end, the decision wasn’t mine to make.
Que gave a strangled cry, and before I could react he latched onto my hands.
“I just need it to stop,” he said.
Then my world went dark and hazy.
There was enough conscious thought in my body to know I was dying, but not enough to do anything to stop it. I felt the pull from Que; he was stealing my life-force. I knew I should care about that … definitely something … I should … care … about. I drifted in a nice haze for a few moments. A voice reminded me that since I had so much more power than most Walkers, it was taking him longer to kill me.
That was nice.
Fight, Abby. Damn you; fight him.
Words sort of flowed around me. I was familiar with the concept of speaking but couldn’t quite remember how to do it. Fight? Against what? This was relaxing; there were no worries here. No end-of-the-world responsibilities. I was eighteen … or nineteen, whatever. Too young for this crap.
Abigail Swish, I will come in there and kick you fair in the butt if you don’t pull yourself together. You cannot die. I won’t allow it.
This time it was a tinkle-like voice, high-pitched and annoying.
A chord struck deep in my chest, like the rumble of the deepest note. A sliver of sense returned to me. That voice was one I had loved as long as I’d been alive. It was my best friend, a pesky green pixie, and I knew she really would kick my ass.
Red … baby. You aren’t allowed to leave us. We haven’t had the happily ever after yet.
I loved that husky voice too. Brace.
Holy hell – Brace and Lucy. I remembered.
Together my mate and my best friend did what no one else could have: they woke me up. My anger was also awoken, and suddenly I remembered why I had to fight.
I flung out my tether, my conduit power flaring to life, as I prepared to take back what was mine. All of my stolen energy. And once I was done with that, I was taking back the original power which Que had filtered out of the universe and forced into his body.
My well inside swelled as surges of pure energy reversed their path and started flooding back into me. I was strong and I was pissed off. Never a good combination.
Que tried to fight against me, but the conduit was infinitely stronger than he was.
Finally, when my body thrummed with all of my returned power, I searched for the originals’ essences. It was everywhere inside Que, intertwined into his very cells.
No problem.
Without pause, I stripped every iota of the original power. Piece by piece I pulled it into my body. I was born of original power, and it wanted to come home to me. The level of energy was intense, but when my power well filled I just stored the original essence in my filing cabinet, switching out original energy with whatever had been in there before.
Que continued to fight. He threw himself backwards in an attempt to dislodge our hands, but unlike him, I didn’t need to touch. My tether was the one connected, and no one could sever that except me. And I would not stop until everything was stripped from him.
As more of the original power left Que, the bionic arm and leg fell away. He ended up on his back like a turtle.
Who’s weak now, asshole?
He never begged or said anything, even when he knew that there was no way for him to fight me.
When I felt Que’s energy dip to a dangerous level, I attempted to sever the tether, but it was too late. The original energy did not belong with Que, and there was no stopping its return to me.