“To where?”
The tension in his voice had Cara sketching a soothing motion with her hands. She shooed the other woman back to the door and stepped between her and Nikolai.
“I know this is all very overwhelming, Nikolai. Your mother hid her pregnancy from us for a reason. We would have known she carried a potential Perditor.”
Nikolai’s brows rose. “Is that what I am?”
Cara nodded. “The literal translation is ‘one who ruins or destroys.’ They are rare among our kind, but have very dangerous capabilities—able to tap into the deepest and most powerful of life essences, something we call the core energy, and warp it to their will.” She glanced at the remains near the window. “As you well know.”
The label terrified him. Yet, wasn’t it what he’d done? “But... What will they do with me? You said I could be trained.”
“I believe you can be. Not all do. I will continue to plead your case, but for now, you must be placed where you can do no more harm.”
A cage. She was talking about confining him. His legs actually twitched, he wanted to bolt that badly. He looked from her to those who waited at the door. “What will they do to me?”
Cara’s blue gaze reflected her honesty. “Nothing that cannot be reversed, but it will keep you from doing anything rash until we can determine how best to handle you.”
The urge to run was overwhelming. But despair flooded him. “I don’t want to keep doing this.”
“I know,” Cara said. “I have watched you, Nikolai. You are not evil. Your anger is triggered by the desire to save—not destroy. I will work on a plan to train you.”
Nikolai’s brows rose. “Youwatchedme?”
The Watcher tilted her head to look up at him. Mai squeaked and scampered out from beneath his hair. She swarmed down his body, her little claws prickling his skin, and bounced over to Cara.
Cara bent, holding out her hand, and then cradled the shrew as she straightened. “My talents have always permitted me to cultivate eyes and ears beyond my own,” she explained.
Nikolai looked from the woman’s bright-blue gaze to Mai’s. They were a perfect match.
He’d wondered how the little shrew could be so tame. Cara had been with him from the moment the creature had climbed beneath his hair.
It should have outraged him, yet instead he found it oddly reassuring. If Cara had been with him, she’d seen why he’d done what he’d done. He hadn’t been alone through it all.
The taller Watcher stepped forward again. “Will you come with us?” she asked.
“You can’t put him in a cage.” Aria had risen from the couch. Her voice no longer trembled, but it also lacked the conviction of the past. Before she’d seen him rip another apart with energy alone. And almost kill an entire building full of people.
“We aren’t confining him,” Cara said. “But he will be rendered safe, for now.”
She was skirting the truth, he sensed it. Nikolai couldn’t look at either Aria or Lucas. They weren’t his future, he knew that now. He’d almost killed them twice. It twisted him up inside.
He’d always run free. Unhampered, unhindered. If he went with her, it would all end. His every instinct shrieked at him to flee, but he couldn’t risk this happening again.
He swallowed and nodded to the Watcher. “I will go with you,” he said.
* * *
When Nikolai followed the Watchers out the door, Aria thought her heart would shatter into a million tiny pieces.
No.
She started to push upright, determined to go with him, but Lucas caught her arm and hung on.
“No, Aria,” he said. “You have to let him go.”
“No way I’ll let them put him in a cage,” she hissed, yanking her arm free and lurching to her feet.
Cara stepped into her path. The Watcher’s expression was gentle. “Now is not the time,” she said softly. “For this next journey, he needs to walk alone.”
