“We’re going to walk through that?” I asked, my voice a little too squeaky for my liking.
“How else do you expect to get there? Fly?” Lanier snapped, moving toward the tree line.
I didn’t move. “Oh hell no, Stony. I’m not walking into the fucking woods with you. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and you could easily slaughter me out here and no one would have any idea. Where are we anyway? New York has nothing like this…”
He laughed a bitter sound, pinching the bridge of his nose before running a hand down his face. His arm muscles flexed under the material of his hoodie. “Annalise, I’m not going to kill you. I’m in charge of protecting you, for fuck’s sake. Can we just get this over with? We have a long drive back, and I’m one hundred percent positive that you’re going to come up with more questions than I have patience. The longer we stand here, the less and less fun I’m going to be.”
“Oh sure, because you’re a total fucking delight right now,” I argued, still not moving.
He stormed toward me, slamming my body against the side of his car. I drew in a shocked breath and bit down on my bottom lip to stop the moan that threatened to come out.
He was so fucking hot.
“You’re coming into the woods with me, Annalise. I’m going to teach you how to push your wings out so that if you do decide to run, at least you’ll know what the fuck to do if you’re ever approached. Which, by the way, you would be. Probably before you even left the parking garage.” He was breathing hard, his threat settling in the back of my brain. He truly believed that something or someone wanted me dead, but I didn’t understand why. Even if I was Nephilim, why would anyone want to kill me for it? Did he even know? I didn’t have time to ask because he kept going, “But if you fucking have to, I’ll let you risk it, but only if you let me help you with this. You can be on your way, and I won’t intervene.”
I thought about telling him to fuck off. If he was going to kill me in the woods, then his promise to let me escape wouldn’t be relevant, so he clearly thought I was an idiot, but in the end, I had absolutely nothing to lose. I had no one, besides Joey—who I’m sure was freaking out in my absence—but even he had a life to live. He was on the search for his girl since I couldn’t fill the role. He wouldn’t miss me.
I had nothing stopping me from jumping in with both feet and seeing what all this was about. If Lanier was going to show me how to…push my wings out as a form of protection…then fine. I’d do it.
I put my hands on his chest, ignored the searing heat that flared between us, and shoved him off of me. I stood rooted in place, horrified, as he flew at least twenty feet away from me, landing on the ground with a hard smack.
He was up and in front of me again before I could blink.
I snarled.
He growled.
I felt Bestia stir, waking up to the commotion. I couldn’t find her, but I felt her.
She rose within me, those razor-sharp hairs on her body tickled and stung my insides as she shook off the remnants of sleep.
I was terrified of her for the first time. She brought me pain two nights ago, she nearly killed me, and I was scared as fuck to go through that again.
Panic raced in, stalling my heated session with Lanier and turning it into something else. I looked up at him and pleaded with my eyes, not wanting to admit that I was totally out of control.
“Close your eyes and feel her, Anna,” he whispered, the nickname rolling off his tongue. This one was different, more intimate, because it was my real name. I didn’t hate it.
The fight never left his eyes. Instead, they seemed to pulse and rage against the power I felt slowly creeping into my veins. The use of my nickname, one that was different from the names they’d given me, had my heart warming.
I obeyed.
One second at a time, my body changed. My core temperature dropped below freezing, my head cleared, my heartbeat slowed and changed its rhythm.
I felt it and understood, finally, that I was something new. No longer just a Human. That last little delicate part of me was put to the side as my strongest version came to the front and took over.
I was new—I was completely fucking changed.
I didn’t need to see my wings to understand. The power flooding my veins was too hard to ignore, too strong to deny.
My legs felt steadier, my arms and hands felt just a little bit longer, slimmer, more graceful. My muscles were tight and packed with new strength, my vision was twice as clear, my hearing twice as receptive.
“Hello, Annalise.” I heard her musical voice inside my head, and my eyes flew open to see Lanier watching me with rapt attention. He nodded in encouragement.
“Hello,” I mentally answered, unsure of what to do.
“Do you want to see what we look like together?” she asked. I felt a million little shards of light fall on my skin, like baby patches of sun. I looked down seeing that my skin had changed color—now my flesh was pale, almost gray.
I looked up at Lanier, unsure of how to answer. Was I ready?
No, I didn’t think I was.
“Annalise,” Lanier spoke, using his index finger to bring my face to his. I wanted to close my eyes against the intensity in his own.
“It’s going to hurt,” I whispered to him, letting him see that I wasn’t scared of what I might be, but I was scared of the pain. I had endured a lot during my twenty-one years of life, but I had never experienced the agony that I did the night before.
“It is, but you’re strong. It won’t last forever, just a few moments. And I’ll be right here,” he answered in a soft voice, completely different than the tone he usually used with me. That connection between us grew stronger until his scent was enough to wrap me up in confidence. I could do this. “You’ve already started taking on the change, but it’s different than I’ve ever seen it before. Your skin color has changed, your hair is somehow even darker.”
I blinked, remembering that I wanted to know the truth, I wanted proof that I was what they accused me of being.
This would be the only way to get it.
Though I almost called the whole thing off because I already knew.
The buzzing in my veins, the call I felt toward a new kind of power, was proof in and of itself. The skin tone, the strength, those things just put the nail in my coffin.
“Is it supposed to feel…” I started but couldn’t quite explain it. There was lightness in the power I felt, but I caught a lingering scent of something else.
Lanier’s eyebrows rose in shock before schooling into interrogation mode, “Is it supposed to feel what, Annalise?”
I hesitated, unsure of what I was feeling.
Something about this just didn’t feel right.
“Dark,” I whispered. “Is it supposed to feel dark?”
As soon the words left my mouth, I regretted them. It’s as if I gave the evil swimming through me some sort of permission. A black shadow flew from the corner of my brain and dug its roots in my power. I let out a broken scream through my teeth.
“Annalise!” Lanier yelled, not understanding what was happening to me.
I looked at him with changed eyes and tilted my head as I saw a vein pulsing in his neck and couldn’t look away.
I felt the massive swarm of needles as they stabbed into my gums, but I didn’t care about the pain this time, not as I focused on that fucking vein, the blood flowing through it.