Page 109 of Bonds of Hate

My legs won’t move. My lungs won’t draw breath. I’m frozen in place as surely as if he’d already strapped me down.

The floor trembles with aftershocks from the most recent explosion, but the halls have gone quiet. I hear distant shouts, but nowhere near close enough to hear me call for help. Thane takes another measured step forward, and my paralysis finally breaks.

“I’m willing to forgive these theatrics if you do notmake me chase you. You have no idea how pleased I am that you’ve made this so easy for me, how happy it made me to see your name printed in the society pages. Happy enough to forgive you for that unpleasantness between us from before.”

I should have known when a call never went out for my arrest that he planned to find me. Why alert the Guardians that a crime has been committed, that I assaulted and robbed him, when he planned to do so much worse to me.

I spin and flee back the way I came, nearly tripping on the debris-strewn floor. I hear his footsteps behind me, unhurried. Confident.

He must know something that I don’t. That there isn’t anywhere left to run.

I sprint through the maze of deserted corridors, my lungs burning from the dust and smoke. Every shadow makes me flinch, every echo of falling debris sounds like his footsteps. The emergency lights paint everything in a hellish red glow that distorts my surroundings into unrecognizable shapes.

His footsteps approach at that same unhurried pace as his voice drifts through the darkness. “You’re only making this harder on yourself. The palace is in chaos. No one will notice one missing Omega in all this confusion.”

Tears stream down my face as memories of cold metal tables and sharp scalpels flood back.

“I’ve made such fascinating progress since you left, though never as much as I did with you.” His voice moves closer. “The transplant rejection issues have been mostly solved. Though I still need to run more trials to be certain.”

There is a dead-end ahead of me, this hallway abruptly ending in a bare wall. I try every door as I race past, each of them locked. Finally, a handle turns. I slip inside a dark room and lock the door behind me.

It’s too dark to see well, but I think I’m in a storage closet. The space is only a few feet deep and my groping hands meet metal shelving lined with bottles and what feels like folded rags.

The handle jiggles. I press deeper into the corner, willing myself to disappear into the wall.

I feel around for something blunt or heavy, but don’t come up with anything better than what I’m pretty sure is a mop handle.

With a loud bang, the door swings open. Red emergency light spills in, silhouetting Thane’s tall, thin frame in the doorway. His eyes find mine immediately, clinical and cold as ever.

“There you are.” He reaches for me with those precise surgeon’s hands. “Now, come with me so we can continue our work.”

I grab the nearest object, a bottle of cleaning solution, and hurl it at him. The plastic bottle bounces harmlessly off his chest, but caustic liquid splashes into his eyes.

Thane staggers back with a shocked cry of pain, hands flying to his face. I dive past him through the doorway, not waiting to see if I’ve bought myself more than a few seconds of time to escape.

Behind me, his enraged roar echoes off the walls: “You’ll pay for that, you little bitch!”

I run faster, dodging around a corner. I haveto find Logan or the others. Have to find someone, anyone, before Thane catches me again.

I would rather die than go back with him.

Chapter Twenty-Five

POE

Istand over the mangled bodies, studying the way debris from the ceiling crushed their ribcages. Blood pools beneath them, mixing with the dust and concrete. Their faces are frozen in permanent snarls. These obviously aren’t clean kills, so the facial recognition software on my comm unit struggles to identify them.

A screeching sound from the speaker as the software completes its search tells me everything I need to know.

Heavy footsteps approach from behind, accompanied by labored breathing. Ares might be built like a tank, but he avoids cardio days like the plague, no matter how often I chastise him for it.

“This you?” he huffs, gesturing to the bodies at my feet.

“Unfortunately not. The roof got to them first.” I nudge one body with my boot, noting the royal insignia partially visible on his collar. “Their uniforms are palace-issued, but neither of these men are in the system. We’ve been infiltrated, no idea by how many.”

“Does that mean you know what the fuck is going on,then?” Ares moves beside me, his massive frame casting shadows in the emergency lighting. “I’m having a hard time understanding why the palace is falling down around us.”

I swear I’m done giving safety briefings. No one listens to them, anyway.

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