Page 129 of Fractured Souls

Well, some things hadn’t changed.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. You’re coming with us. You and those unconscious two in the forest.”

“Why?”

“You’re obviously important to my mate,” Nythian growled. “Whatever you’re involved in will be settled by us.”

“I’m not asking for your help.”

“You think you have a choice?”

Tasha stared at Nythian, then at Lodan. “Obviously not.” Her pale blue eyes settled on Alexis, narrowing slightly. “Mate?”

“Yeah.” Alexis moved to Nythian’s side. He put a possessive hand on her waist. “He’s mine.”

“Huh. I wouldn’t have picked him for your type.”

“He is most definitely my type.”

Unexpectedly, Nythian chuckled. At the deep, rich sound of his laughter, a flush spread up Alexis’s neck and into her cheeks.

Tasha’s cool mask cracked a little, her eyes widening a fraction.

“Sorry, Tasha. Nythian and Lodan are right. You have to come with us now. We’re taking Kylian and Felix too. And you have to tell us where you’ve sent Mama. I don’t know what you’ve been through all these years or what you’ve gotten mixed up in, but whatever it is, we can fix it.”

“Or destroy it, if necessary,” Lodan added.

Tasha didn’t say anything for a long time. She stood there like a statue… or a porcelain doll, watching them, her brilliant blue eyes dissecting everything.

Alexis got the sense Tasha could be dangerous if she wanted. She might love her adopted sister, but she didn’t trust her.

The gulf between them was too wide; there were too many unknowns.

“I protected you, you know. I never, ever forgot about you, Alexis.” When she finally spoke, Tasha’s voice held a trace of sadness. “The flight on the Malachi… I was the one who got it approved. When I heard it had been lost… I lost all hope.”

Now her eyes were empty in a way that chilled Alexis to the bone. “What happened to you, Tasha?”

Tasha held up her arm, wrist facing outwards. Just below the line where her hand joined her arm, there was a tiny upside-down number tattooed on her skin. “This happened.”

And for the first time, Alexis realized that there were tiny, symmetrical fissures running along Tasha’s arm—perfectly straight, as if created by a machine.

What the hell had they done to her?

“I don’t think I’m entirely human anymore,” Tasha whispered, “but maybe that doesn’t really matter, because I can see that you aren’t, either.”

“Life is strange and unexpected,” Alexis said gently, and perhaps there was a trace of Anuk in her voice. “You’re coming with us.”

“I guess I am.”

Lodan and Nythian shared a mysterious look.

“Interesting,” Lodan said.

“Let’s go,” Nythian growled.

And just like that, Alexis got her sister back, only things were a shade more complicated now.

Thirty-Two

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