Page 100 of Beg the Night

I understood that, but damn, I was tired.

“You’re getting better.” He dropped to the ground beside me, legs bent, arms resting on his knees. The annoying asshole hadn’t even broken a sweat.

“I still can’t kill people with the power like you can.”

“You don’t know that until you try it.”

A laugh bubbled out of me. “Oh, are you offering to be my test subject?”

He shook his head, but I saw the smile that crept onto his lips before he covered it up. “You’ll have plenty of test scenarios when we make it back to the Ministry.”

“If I don’t die first.”

It was a joke, but the truth in the words hit hard. Sinner was right. Until now, I’d rarely cared about my own life. Lately, though I felt as if, for the first time in my life, I had something worth fighting for.

The Ministry had to be stopped.

God, who was I? Had I become a rebel meant to shake up the government?

I didn’t hate it. Someone had to do it, right? End the corruption of the Ministry or die trying.

It was quite the motto.

“You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.”

I closed my eyes and relished the way the sun warmed my face. “Careful. It’s starting to sound like you actually care.”

When he didn’t quip back, I turned to look at him. The sun cast shadows across his face, but there was no hiding the emotion that rolled through his dark eyes.

“You’re my claimed, Athena. What we feel for each other on a personal level isn’t important. But my power is now connected to yours. Forever. I’m not going to let you die. My shadows won’t allow it.Iwon’t allow it.”

My face heated. I never could have predicted the scary, sullen tier three from the dungeons would care even the smallest amount about me. Nobody had ever cared about me. Why would they? I was a monster. A killer. A waste of oxygen, as my sister once said.

They were right, of course. Mystics were supposed to be valuable. Talented. They were supposed to possess what the world needed.

Sinner didn’t even know the half of what my power was capable of.

Once he learned, he would think differently of me.

“Let’s go.” He stood, brushing off his pants. “The others should have a plan by now. If they haven’t killed each other yet.”

I groaned. “Can’t we just lock Katherine up and take Mags and Benedict with us? It would help morale.”

Sinner pulled me to my feet effortlessly, and I caught myself on his bicep before I stumbled directly into his chest. “Keep your enemies close. Don’t forget that.”

Sinner the wise.I’ll add that to the list of his surprising qualities. “Fine,” I said. “But I want it on record that I tried to be the bigger person.”

We headed back toward town, wandering side by side. “Really? When did that happen, because I distinctly remember you rolling around in the mud and fighting while you tried to kill each other.”

I flipped my hair over my shoulder and brushed past him. “Well, I mentally tried. And that’s really all that matters.”

By the time we got back to the inn, the sun was setting and the energy had shifted. Even from the hallway outside the doorI could sense how tense the rest of our group had become. The weight of the situation was coming down on all of us.

Good. I didn’t mind that it felt heavy. Itwasheavy. If we failed, those men would stay locked in those dungeons. The Ministry would get their way. Again.

Sure, some of those men likely deserved to stay locked away. Some of them would need some serious therapy. But most were redeemable, and if we didn’t get them out, the Ministry would use them for their own twisted games.

We hadn’t even seen war. Hadn’t even touched that part of the problem, yet.

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