Page 84 of Silent Lucidity

Tenthil leaned forward and bit down on the tralix’s arm. His fangs punched through his foe’s tough hide. Bitter, stinging venom flowed from Tenthil’s fangs, pumping into the puncture wounds.

He held the position for several seconds, forcing more venom out of his throbbing glands, ignoring the tralix’s cries of protest and pain. Only when his victim crashed to his knees did Tenthil withdraw his fangs and release his hold. A few alarmed shouts rose from the surrounding crowd as the tralix fell face down on the street.

When Tenthil turned, the nearest onlookers scrambled back from him. Their reactions made no difference to him; they would either move out of his way or be removed. None of their lives mattered.

With a deep inhalation, Tenthil sought Abella’s scent. Once he found a trace of it, he broke into a run, following the trail. He shoved past anyone who didn’t stand aside. Their protests fell on uncaring ears; he no longer saw living beings in his path but obstacles to be surmounted by any means.

No Abella.

Fire and ice warred within him—fury and fear, passion and pain, resentment and retribution. A torrent of emotion raged beneath his thoughts, above them,throughthem, obscuring almost everything in a crimson haze.

The scent led him to the mouth of a wide alley. He skidded to a halt at the entrance; the alley, strewn with trash and debris, came to a dead end only fifteen meters ahead.

Movement at the top edge of his vision called his attention up. A figure stood on the roof of the building at the alley’s dead end, clad in black battle armor and a cloak with a raised hood. Darkness shrouded the figure’s face—darkness that stared down at Tenthil.

Touch of the Void.

He drew his blaster and fired, but the figure dropped back onto the roof, exiting his line of sight. A few seconds later, the low thrum of a revving hover engine pulsed through the air overhead. A hoverbike darted from the rooftop upon which the figure had stood a moment before, cutting hard across the alley.

Tenthil fired again, but the bolt only caught the flowing tail of the cape trailing behind the hoverbike. Then the vehicle was gone, speeding away across the Undercity’s false sky.

Clenching his teeth, Tenthil holstered his blaster and stalked forward, his thundering heartbeat becoming the only sound in his awareness. Abella’s scent—so weak, so small—lingered in the air here, dissipating near the end of the alley to leave only the stench of rotting refuse.

There were other smells, from other living beings, and he knew the underlying odor that linked some of them together—the distinct smell of the temple’s seemingly ancient recycled air.

Snarling, he dropped his attention to the ground. The front half of the alley was blanketed in bits of debris, but in the back, all the smaller, lighter pieces—including the dust—had been blow outward to gather along the edges. A vehicle had taken off from here—likely more than one.

No Abella.

Only the Void…

The message was apparent. The Master had taken her, and he wanted Tenthil to know it.

A bestial roar erupted from Tenthil’s chest, burning his throat like acid. He slammed a fist into the nearby wall. The metal buckled under the force of the blow, and a panel of it broke off to fall to the ground with a resonating clang.

This isn’t the end. She’s not dead.

Abella had become the bait for the Master’s trap, and there was no need for secrecy now. The Master knew Tenthil would come. He knew the trap’s obviousness would not deter Tenthil.

He curled his hands into fists.

I will have her. She is mine, and Iwillhave her.

Warm droplets of blood welled at the points where his claws pierced his skin.

“You willwishthe Void had taken your name before I am through with you,” Tenthil vowed.

Sixteen

When Abella drifted up to consciousness, she was in a dark place—so dark that she wondered, for a few terrified moments, if she hadn’t woken at all. She flinched and cried out for Tenthil, but her lips were sealed shut, reducing her voice to a muffled moan. Awareness swept over her like a tidal wave crashing into the shore—she was in a tight, enclosed space, hands tied behind her back, and the occasional swaying of the floor suggested she was in a moving vehicle. The sensation was reminiscent of her time in the cage on the back of Cullion’s hovercar.

She remembered the tralix plowing into her and Tenthil, remembered breaking away from Tenthil’s hold, remembered falling and landing on her ass hard enough to rattle her teeth. She’d been stunned for a moment; if she hadn’t known any better, she might’ve thought she’d been hit by a truck.

Then there’d been hands on her arms—strong hands. She’d known they weren’t Tenthil’s by the indifference in their iron grasps. But before she could struggle against their hold, before she could even call Tenthil’s name, there’d been a prick of pain against her neck and then…

Nothing.

Abella drew in a deep, shuddering breath and attempted to ease her trembling, but she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. She didn’t know where Tenthil was, didn’t know where she was, only that they weren’t together and that this situation was too much like the night she’d been taken from Earth—bound and gagged, alone in a dark place with no idea what was happening.

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