Page 88 of Rebirth

I don’t move, sensing a predatorial energy emanating from him, and all along my body, the ba’clan pulse like an external heartbeat. In comfort? As warning? I do not know.

“Something’s changed,” I whisper. “Hasn’t it?”

He’rox closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, they are blacker than ever. Slowly, he nods.

I stare into those eyes, just as something snags my attention.

Sound. On the other side of the wall.

I turn my head almost too slowly, gaze snapping to the white wall. In my periphery, He’rox stands like a shadow, unmoving.

And there, across the wall, somewhere on the other side, the raging voices of Fer’ro and Adira, Sam and Ga’Var, filter through. They are trying to get in. Something about He’rox losing his senses and the change having taken full effect. Something about not being able to trust him fully now.

Something about him being a danger to himself, to Unity, and most of all, to me.

They do not know how to get in. Or maybe, He’rox has locked us both in this lab. Shutting them out.

“The darkness you call the monster…” I whisper. “It has overtaken you.”

I turn my gaze back to He’rox and his ears twitch.

He may think he is a monster, one he’s been chasing away all along, but that little movement tells me more than he knows.

He nods once, chin jerking sharply to chest.

He doesn’t move. As if he is afraid of coming even an inch closer to me.

“Why did you do it?” I ask softly. “Give me your ba’clan, binding us together?”

He’rox is silent for a long moment. Then, “You were dying. I could not save you any other way.”

“The same way you’ve been preserving yourself,” I whisper, the extent of what he has done for me becoming even clearer. “The only way you’ve been keeping yourself whole.”

He doesn’t answer and I don’t expect him to.

“But at what cost?” I whisper. “You said if you lose the ba’clan…you die.”

We stare at each other for long moments, his black eyes fathomless. “Some costs are worth bearing, if it means the one you care for lives.”

It’s unexpected, the small smile that twists my lips. That makes me want to reach out to him, even though he’s put a huge warning sign between us.

Because I never expected this. To find someone who would care about me as much as this male does in a world that’s falling apart.

When I exited my bunker, I expected to be alone. To maybe find a group, but in essence, still be on my own. Every man for himself.

He’rox represents none of that.

“But if you’re dying…”

“I am already gone,” he says. “I cannot…”

He cannot undo the change. The fact his eyes have remained that black color is evidence enough. And this is all because he’s tried to save me. Has saved me.

“And if I give the ba’clan back to you—”

I’m unable to blink before he’s right before me.

A breath shudders through him. “You must not. I beg you, Soh’fee. They must remain with you.”

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