Page 32 of Gift from the Nexus

reveal the truth for those to find.”

A shock wave travels across the grass, flattening every man in front of me, followed by the smallest sound of glass fracturing. There’s a tense beat of silence as I hold my breath, waiting.

Just as my hope starts to dim and Donald’s grip on me intensifies tenfold, the entire structure blurs like someone’s taken a hammer to its surface. Loud popping rings out far and wide across the clearing as the concealment shatters to pieces.Shards of the crystalized concealment fall from the sky like shooting stars, then sink into the ground as nothing more than wisps of smoke.

One…two…thr—

“What the fuck did you do?” Donald spins me around and bellows in my face, but I’m not focused on him. I can’t.

Because I sense her before I see her.

A surprised sob mixed with a laugh bursts from the depths of my chest as my best friend, my sister, tears through the tree line covered from head to toe in blood like she’s been right alongside my men, painting the realm red looking for me. She stops so suddenly when our eyes collide, and I see the horror streak across her face as she takes me in.

She composes herself quickly and viciously begins beating her fist against the ward. The Mastery’s last line of defense to keep the ones I love from getting to me.

The air is knocked out of my lungs when suddenly, at Oakly’s back, an entire army of E.F. members falls out of transports, looking like they’ve been through hell and back to get here to me.

My entire world freezes as soon as I feel them. There’s not a millisecond in time between the moment I felt them to my eyes finding them. I lock on to them instantly, and there’s a split second where each of their cruel, determined, deadly masks crumble when they see me, see the man holding me against him.

As one, they move to stand beside Oakly and begin brutalizing the ward. Each connection of their magic chips away at the surface, and the more men who join in, the faster it starts to crumble.

“Backup measures, fortify the ward. MVP team, leave the baggage behind. Time to move,” Gish orders out across the field of Mastery members.

Donald’s grip on me becomes ruthless and Max steps up as well, snatching my head back by my hair, and a desperatescream rips through me. My plea is answered a second later by a vicious, bloodthirsty roar that forces Max to let go of my hair and shake himself out to fight off the command.

Although Donald isn’t a shifter, the sound is startling and his grip loosens just enough for me to pull my arm free. Rearing back, I punch him as hard as I can in his nose. The crack and instant stream of red is satisfying, but I don’t allow myself time to savor it.

I push away the pain, the agony racing across every muscle, and pump my legs and arms as hard as I can. Solely relying on the adrenaline to get me where I need to be. I just have to reach them, reach the ward, and they’ll get to me, they’ll save me.

I keep my eyes locked on my men, bouncing between the four of them as they shred the layers of the ward, both old and new. I’m so close, so fucking close.

A sliver of Caspian’s shadows slips through a crack and he screams for me to get to it, touch it, and I reach my arm out for it, willing my body to push hard. Reach him.

Forty feet…thirty…twenty…ten…

Suddenly, I slam into a body that doesn’t budge with the force of our collision and I try to shove away, but it’s useless. Leaning my head up, I suck in a strangled breath as Bryce and I stare one another down. His eyes bleed red, while mine well with tears.

Gripping my chin painfully, he spins our bodies around so fast I feel sick. The feeling deepens when I see my guys losing their absolute shit only a few feet away from me. They’re so close, I can smell them, and I take a deep breath, the deepest breath imaginable, because I know what he’s about to do, and he’s about to make them watch.

“You have an animal living inside of you. You should know better than to run from a predator. Now I had plans to make you feel pleasure beyond your wildest dreams, but you just don’tknow how to be good, do you?” He hums, laying a kiss to my neck before sinking his fangs in deeply.

“WILLOW.”

I hear them bellowing my name, all four of them, Oakly, her Nexus. They’re all screaming for me. I hear the desperation in their voices as the pain of his venom makes me crumble in his arms and bellow out in agony.

My blurry vision steals my sight of them, and I break apart.

“I love you,” I mouth out as my body grows weaker and weaker.

I don’t have any fight left in me.

“Time to go, my tasty little snack. Seems your rescuers are going to get through.” Bryce laughs as his fangs retract from my neck, and as soon as the words leave his lips, the ward comes crashing down with a wave of black, sparks of light, blue flames, and a mountain of power.

Their power.

He moves us from one end of the clearing to the next in under a second and I can’t hold back as I fall to my knees, throwing up. There’s absolutely nothing left inside of me, but that doesn’t stop the acid from burning its way through me.

“That’s absolutely—”

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