Page 94 of Fractured Souls

It made sense now, why Enki had been barking mad, why he’d refused to set foot on Tharos ever again.

How long had he suffered this torture before Tarak had been able to retrieve him?

But his brother had survived, and Nythian was cut from exactly the same cloth. They’d survived torture a thousand times worse than this.

His fangs sank into his lower lip as he grit his teeth, and he tasted his own bitter black blood. Good. It grounded him, reminded him that thoughts were just thoughts, nothing more.

Was this a trap of some sort? Had Anuk lured them here only to try and exact her revenge?

No, no, no…

If that was her intent, then she didn’t understand a fucking thing.

Slowly, Nythian rose to his feet and drew his swords. Lodan was up too, a murderous glint in his golden eyes.

But Ektans and his crew were still on their knees, fighting off the effects of the phantom horde.

In the center of the maelstrom stood Anuk—in Alexis’s body, no less.

Were they planning to attack? Unforgivable!

But then Nythian remembered Alexis’s words.

Wait.

She was speaking in rapid-fire Tharian, her voice deep and resonant and not remotely human, and Nythian wanted nothing more than to hear Alexis speak to him, to tell him that she was okay, that this cursed never-ending nightmare was finally over.

“Anuk,” he said coldly, holding his blades low and close to his body, a sign of deadly intent if there ever was one… only now he couldn’t do a fucking thing. “That thing you were going to tell me… it had better be good news. I’ll be honest with you, Tharian. If any harm comes to that human whose body you’re borrowing right now, I’m not sure what I’ll do. I could just end up slaughtering every mortal-bodied Tharian in this room. Your power doesn’t work on me.”

Thousands of screaming voices battered his consciousness, rising to a torturous crescendo, but he stubbornly held them at bay, separating his mind into two partitions.

There was the weak part of him, with his fractured memories and cursed strange emotions that he didn’t quite understand.

Then there was the part of him that felt most comfortable right now; the soldier, the warrior, the machine.

“Hold your fury,” Anuk whispered, and the only reason Nythian hesitated was because he heard a trace of Alexis in her voice.

Anuk held up Alexis’s obsidian hand and uttered a single word in Tharian. It wasn’t just her, though. Alexis’s voice blended with hers, equally powerful.

The phantoms swirled around her in a vortex, never quite touching her, their green glow highlighting her beautiful face.

He couldn’t help but become mesmerized all over again.

As she turned to him, the glow in her eyes faded. “Nythian, relax. There’s nothing to fight about.”

And suddenly he understood.

She was in control.

She’d been in control all along.

The angry spirits relented. The terrible voices in his mind went quiet. Ektans and his men rose to their feet, stunned, furious, blades and guns flying out of holsters and sheaths.

Ektans swore viciously in Kordolian. Several of his men swore viciously. They were angry; Nythian could understand.

None of them were used to dealing with spectral enemies.

“Apparently, everything’s under control,” he said dryly as the green glow ebbed away, fading into the background.

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