The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,125

blanket to the girl’s back. The woman looked at me then, her gaze never leaving me as she moved farther away.

Movement all along the street caught my attention. People coming out from behind the warped, cracked fence across the street. Bodies moving forward. One was Blue Eyes, his face smeared with dirt. He came to a stop on the stained pavement. “Oh, shit.”

Behind him was a female Luxen, eyes amber. Both were powerful. That, too, I could sense, but neither could take me. Blue Eyes looked pale, appearing thunderstruck. The female looked … ready.

The back of my neck crawled as power pressed against me. I looked over my shoulder. Purple Eyes stood there, his hair blown back from his dirty face—a face full of tiny scratches. He’d been too close to the house. He wasn’t alone. A man made more of shadows than flesh stood kitty-corner. On the other side was another Luxen, one who I knew I’d made bleed before. His green eyes held the memory of that.

Blue Eyes at my back. The Arum to my right and the Green Eyes to my left, and him to my front.

They were caging me in, and I didn’t like that. And I didn’t understand it, because I didn’t wish to hurt them. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew it wasn’t my will. I rapidly calculated the most threatening.

Purple Eyes. He was powerful. His body shone with it. He could be a threat, that I knew, but I did not want to hurt him. Nor did I want to hurt the others.

My gaze shifted to the Arum. He was a different story. He wanted to hurt me. I remembered that. There was a reason, a sad one. I remembered feeling sad, but now …

He was a predator.

But I was the apex.

Rising upward, I pulled on the Source, and I felt it sputter before it sparked, weakened but there. I turned to the Arum.

“Dammit, Hunter,” Purple Eyes growled. “Tone it down.”

The darkness around him flickered and then faded, revealing a dark-haired man. He didn’t look happy, but he was backing down. I watched him, not trusting the retreat.

“Look at me,” came a soft command. I only obeyed because it was him. Purple Eyes took a step forward, hands lifted at his side. Soil caked his fingers, and I imagined he and Blue Eyes had had to dig their way out. I doubted they’d liked that, but they were alive, weren’t they? “Evie?”

Evie. That was one of my names.

“You remember me? Right? You remember all of us.”

I did. I know I did. I just needed a moment to make sense of what I remembered.

“It’s okay,” Purple Eyes continued, and his voice was soothing. I liked it. I loved it—the sound and how it made me feel. “You did good. Made sure she couldn’t hurt anyone here. You did really good.”

I didn’t fail.

Relief flickered across Purple Eyes’s striking, dirt-smudged features. He was solely focused on me, only me. “No, Peaches, you did not fail.”

I lowered myself, and my feet had just touched the ground when there was a sharp, cracking sound, a popping noise. Pain exploded in my back, between my shoulders and then my chest, stealing my breath away from me.

25

Everything happened so fast.

Purple Eyes spun toward the green-eyed Luxen, who was also turning around. A man stood there, hands clutching a gun.

“What have you done?” the green-eyed Luxen gasped.

“She’s the intruder, right?” The man kept the gun pointed. “She has to be, right? She just took out the building! I had to—”

Stunned, I looked down at my shirt. It was a light gray color, and a small dark stain had appeared in the center of my chest, an irregular circle that doubled in size within seconds—

The sound that tore through the air was a roar of pure, unfathomable rage, and it came from him. From Purple Eyes as a network of veins filled with the luminous glow of the Source, spreading across his cheeks and down his throat.

Green Eyes spun. “Luc—”

His arm cocked back as the bolt of energy exploded from his right hand. A streak of crackling energy shot like lightning across the space, finding its target. The man’s scream ended just as it began, cut off as the Source consumed him, burning through clothing and skin, obliterating muscle and bone.

Seconds, only seconds had passed between the popping and the burned patch of ground.

I tried to take a breath, but red-hot pain swept through me. Managing only a thin, wheezy inhale,