Page 34 of Rebirth

There. Right there. Sweet, soft voice. I hold on to it, to the grounding that Soh’fee provides here in the present.

“What’s happening?” Her voice sounds closer and adrenaline mixes with my own fear coursing along my spine. I am not yet in full control. I expected her to stay away, not come closer to me.

My body jerks again and I fight to keep my hold on the vein, to not let go and give up the growing connection between myself and it.

I can sense its grandeur. Its reach.

“This network spreads far beyond this chamber.” The words grind from my lips. “Far beyond anything we, hyu’man and Vullankin, have realized.”

It touches areas of this planet we have not yet visited. Collecting information. Feeding.

Feeling.

But I cannot tell her this. Not yet. Not until I have understood this better.

“It is…”

The pull of the connection threatens to take me away until something else snags my senses. Something that pulls me the other way. Sweet scent of the female Soh’fee.

I growl as it fills my nostrils.

She is insane. She has come even closer still.

“Go on,” she whispers.

I open myself some more, breaking down barriers I’ve built to separate this side of myself. But the more I open my mind, the more I can feel it taking control.

“The veins are changing. Adapting.”

My head tilts, teeth clenched as I search through the barrage of information coming my way. Yet, their new purpose is one I cannot grasp.

I can sense it, almost see it, but the image is cloudy, fading in and out the harder I try to hold on to it.

It will not tell me its secrets…because it knows I am not pure. But one thing is certain, it is not attracted to the Vullan in me. What it wants is something else.

Filled with the lifeblood of Soh’fee’s people, this structure yearns for only one thing. Control.

Hyu’man blood.

My Soh’fee.

This…thing wants to connect with her in a way I cannot allow.

The tentacles at the side of my face curl and writhe incessantly as the structure’s demand rises.

“He’rox?”

I must return Soh’fee to camp, and I must find a way to protect her, her people, from a force that threatens to destroy them for good.

For this war is not over yet. That is certain. I have one more purpose.

There is still more to be done.

“He’rox?!”

Something touches me and I suddenly arrive back in the present. With a roar, I pull my hand away from the conduit as I step backward, gaze moving over the web of the structure before me and only realizing at that moment that the thing that touched me was…her.

But as I turn fully toward her, the network pulses, flooding my senses with its demands. Its wants.

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