Page 7 of Gates of Rapture
Leto stared at it.His cheeks cramped as a round of nausea swept over him.Still, he persevered.“Do we know exactly what this is yet?”
“The techs think it might be some kind of satellite mapping technology.We tried to get them all, but this is a huge perimeter.”
“Shit,” Leto muttered.“They’re mapping the location of the colony through negative space.”
“That’s what it looks like.Maybe they can’t see the mist, and maybe the mist turns them away, but laying out these transmitters will eventually create a map.”
“It also means we’ve run out of time.”He wasn’t even sure they’d get through the three days set aside for the warrior games.
Gideon seemed to settle into himself as he said, “Agreed.”
Leto turned the box over in his hand and breathed through another heavy vibration.This news wasn’t good, but his current physical situation right now was even worse.His vision had started the paring-down process; soon he would see everything through a black tunnel.
Brynna sent,You’ve got two minutes.
Got it.
He turned back to Gideon.He was really feeling the change coming.His lips parted and he started breathing through his mouth.He leaned forward in his chair.Could he even get the next set of words out?
“You and your men get cleaned up and double the patrols.Let’s get as many of these transmitters as we can.That should buy us some time.”
Gideon nodded, turned, and left the room.Thank God.
His breathing grew rougher, heavier.This one had come on so fast.
Shit.
“Get up,” Brynna said.“Now.”
He pushed up from the chair.Sweat popped all over his body.
By the time he stood, he was hunched and shaking.“Get me out of here,” he said, between clenched teeth.
He felt her palm on his shoulder.He cursed long and loud as the slide through nether-space began.He didn’t know why, but it hurt like a bitch to dematerialize when the transformation started.
He arrived in the basement of his cabin.He’d built his home deep in the forest, at the edge of the mist-dome, to keep what he went through as private as possible.He collapsed on the hard stone floor, laid and mortared by his own hands.He curled up in a fetal position, trying to stop the process.
“You gotta let go,” Brynna said.“Stop holding it in.Just let go, you idiot-bastard.”
He huffed a laugh.“I… don’t want… this.”
“I don’t know why not,” she said sarcastically.“You look so comfortable on the floor sweating like a pig.”
“Now get out of here.You know what happened last time.”
“Hey, the scars are almost gone.”
Again, he chuffed a laugh.Brynna was a powerful vampire.She’d stayed once, they’d fought, he’d cut her up some but she’d healed within an hour.
“Leave.”
“Fine.Just don’t soil yourself again.”
He coughed and laughed at the same time.“Bryn, you’re such a prick.”
“Thank you.Best compliment ever.Adios.”
As she dematerialized, he felt the faint movement of air over his boiling skin.The shaking started.
