Nikolai tripped. He’d pulled from her, too? She was right. Her trembling legs were barely able to climb the stairs.
Lucas’s panic pulsed through him. Nikolai reached for Aria’s hand and climbed, sweeping her up the stairs with him.
But now, he cast his awareness on a broader spectrum, sensing the life in each small apartment. The moment he did so, he recognized his limitations for pulling power—life energy might surround him, but it came at a cost. Not to himself, but to others.
If he let the rage win, it would take them all. In an instant, and in a single breath.
Five strides later, his control over the anger had turned into a battle against himself. Something within himwantedthose lives. Lusted for them, even, as hungry for that energy as any predator was for meat. In the heat of the moments, with the poachers, and in Demeti’s lair, he’d missed that—that sucking the life from others elevated him to some other plane of existence.
Someplace glorious.
He tasted it, mentally. That sweet power called to him.
Now, finally, you begin to understand,the voice taunted.
Understand what? That he was a monster?
No. That you are a god, among mere mortals.
A god? Just because he held the power of life or death over others? Nikolai’s gut twisted as he reached a landing and paused.
Lucas was on this floor.
Still holding Aria’s hand, Nikolai pushed through the door from the stairs, jogged down the hall, and paused outside another door. Demeti was with Lucas.Touchinghim...
“When we get in there, grab hold of Lucas,” he whispered urgently to Aria. “And keep hold of me.” He squeezed her hand, and she nodded.
Standing so close, the emotions pulsing off Lucas almost overwhelmed him. Demeti’s total focus was on the Morph, and from what Nikolai sensed, it wasn’t a healthy kind of fascination.
The rage rose, and Nikolai unleashed it just long enough to yank life energy, and blow the door clear off its hinges.
26
The moment Nikolai burst through the door, Demeti pulled away from Lucas.
The Torshin sent blasts straight at Nikolai. The Liberi barely felt their impact; they fizzed against him like cold water against a hot element. But Demeti reached for more and dodged Nikolai’s form to blast Aria instead.
It hit her square on, knocking her backward and ripping her hand away from Nikolai’s.
Her cry of pain ignited the rage within him. It seized his thoughts and painted everything with a red haze as he opened himself to the surrounding power.
Yes, that’s it. Show them what you can do.
The voice echoed through his mind. A woman straightened from behind the couch and made a run for the fire escape beyond the window. The Dire holding Lucas had been edging away, but when Nikolai’s eyes focused on him, he let the Morph go and tried bolting after her.
He never made it. Nikolai’s hand closed in a fist and the creature flew apart in a flash of fire. The edge of his fury caught the woman, and she screamed before following in the path of the Dire.
Demeti backed toward the window, but he kept going with a barrage of glowing blasts that did little to slow Nikolai’s progress.
Barely aware of Lucas scrambling toward Aria, Nikolai advanced on Demeti. Black fog poured from his skin, lighting the room with forks of red lightning. The sky outside the window roiled with dark clouds, and thunder rolled.
“Nikolai! You have to stop!”
It was as though Aria called down a long tunnel from many miles away. He heard her, but it didn’t penetrate the haze his thoughts had become. Instead, as more of Demeti’s blasts bounced off him, he reached deep to take the Torshin down, once and for all.
He touched the churning energy running raw, and powerful—but before he could tap into it, something interceded. Or rather, several somethings.
“Nikolai. Stop.”
