Page 70 of Gift from the Nexus

“To wrap up a long, boring story, it didn’t take long for her to fall pregnant, and I killed her entire Nexus in front of her the night she went into labor. I’m positive that’s what sent her into labor. Then you killed her with your birth. I thought maybe then you had a little more of me in you than her, but we bothknow that isn’t true. She was just weak and couldn’t withstand anymore.”

His condescending laugh echoes through my ears as I rise from the table, eyes fully shifting. The noise of my chair shattering against the wall is barely heard through the menacing growl leaving my lips. All I see is red. And I’m going to paint this fucking room the same color to match.

Before I can maul him the way I want to, I’m whisked through the shadows and into the castle’s lounge. I can’t stop my claws from bursting through my skin, taking over the shape of my fingers. My men’s touches barely register through my scale-covered skin, and the only noise that seems to pierce the rage is Oakly’s worried gasp as she and Jamie jump straight up from the couch and head toward me. I can barely form a lucid sentence, so I shake my head and choke out.

“I need to shift. Now.”

My voice is a deep timbre, my command clear as my dragon pleads with me to set her free, and my Nexus instantly jumps into action. I haven’t shifted since before I was taken, and she can’t take it any longer. I can’t take it any longer. I need to soar through the skies just as bad as she does.

The moment they step me out of the transport, I rush to the back lawn. My skin’s practically ripping itself apart and a mournful roar bursts from my throat as the shift takes hold and the flash of light is over before anyone has time to blink their eyes.

With two beats of my wings, I’m off the ground. I don’t wait for Draken or the others. I need to fly. I need to feel something other than this gut-wrenching emotion.

I don’t know the time that passes as all I can see is the fluff of the clouds and all I feel is the heat from my fire caressing my scales. My flames blend with the rays of the sun, wrapping around them to create purple lightning that spears through thesky and spreads like a spider web when my thunderous roar reverberates through them.

My mind can’t quit conjuring up so many different scenarios on how differently my mother’s life could’ve played out. I imagine those two hundred plus years she was free from my father as magical years. She and her men madly in love. Hidden in their solace, their sanctuary with nothing but each other to get lost in.

My heart cries out with both pride and determination, knowing she sacrificed her safety, security, to save a child from, no doubt, a horrendous situation. How selfless that decision was, despite her having to know what danger she was putting herself in.

As the noise of the mournful symphony I’ve created in the air simmers down, I release a deep breath that’s accompanied by a throng of smoke that gets lost in the tide of the wind. When the last wisp leaves my nostrils, I force myself to release my regret and guilt with it. I am not to blame. I know this. My emotions are my own, and I can’t let them undermine the decisions she made. I refuse to allow her life to be taken in vain.

I’ll do anything and everything in my power to make her death meaningful. I’ll give myself the life she deserved to have. And the man who put her through hell will get the reaping he so desperately deserves.

“Are you okay, little wanderer?” Draken mentally asks.

Some of my anger seeps out of me when his calming voice that’s tinged in a purr laces itself around my mind. He always knows when I need him. My sweet dragon.

“I will be. I just needed to get some of these feelings out.”

“The sky is the best place to let it all out, sweetness. Would you like some time up there alone?” he asks, completely understanding and as always so aware of exactly what I’m needing without me having to be the one to ask for it.

“Just a little while. I’ll come down in a few.”

His love for me and readiness to do whatever I need him to, wraps around my heart, and I feel the other two’s as well. Caspian’s doesn’t come through as starkly, but he must be concentrating hard because a trickle of his understanding bleeds into me. He, more than any of them, knows that sometimes you need a little space before you let your emotions hurt the ones that don’t deserve it.

Flying through the vast expanse, I let my mind wander on everything, I let my heart feel it all. The tears that drip from the eyes of my dragon are like raindrops falling from the dark clouds, but I don’t stop. I let them water the forest below as I get it all out.

Elementra, please explain this to me.

Please. CC said my mother loved me, but how could she when a monster forced her to make me?

She lost everything because of me.

“No, Ultima unum, she did not lose everything.”

Faster than I can blink, breathe, or think, I lose control over my wings, over my body. The clear blue and white sky in front of me blurs, then there’s nothing but darkness.

“The time has come, Iris.”

I hear Elementra’s voice in my mind and my groggy eyes slowly peel open. Trying to force them to move faster, I quickly realize, these aren’t my eyes, this isn’t my body, and that wasn’t my name she just said.

As I try to cut in and speak, I’m silenced. Clarity hits me tenfold as the questions that were just brewing through my mind are answered and I’m ordered to stay silent and listen.

Elementra has sent me back in time. Again.

But this time, I seem to have taken up space in someone else’s body. I’m not just a bystander. When the eyes of the individual finally open all the way, the air is knocked out of my lungs.

No.

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