The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,116

think so unless he’d been in another part of the house. Grayson didn’t take one peek in my direction as he propped a shoulder against the doorframe. He pulled a Blow Pop out of his pocket.

Jesus, he had to be the most unhelpful Luxen known to man.

Doc Hemenway shot Grayson a look that should’ve fried him on the spot. “If it weren’t for three intelligent and compassionate human women who wanted to make sure developing countries could transfuse blood without electricity, Spencer would be dead and I would be shoving my foot so far down your throat, you wouldn’t be able to think of a sucker again without shuddering.”

My eyes grew as round as saucers.

One side of Grayson’s lips curved up in a smirk right before a cherry Blow Pop went into his mouth, but then Spencer reared up again, and Luc’s curses signaled another spurt of fresh blood.

“Jeremy, get over here and grab one of his legs!” Eaton shouted, going for the one that was curling. “Evie, grab his arm. Now!”

I did as ordered, grabbing the man’s arm and pressing it to the table. Ignoring how cold and clammy and all-around wrong his skin felt, I got an up-close and personal look at the wound. “Dear God,” I whispered, stomach churning. His skin was ripped open. Skin peeled in strips, revealing shattered cartilage and torn muscle.

“Don’t look at it, Peaches.” Luc’s voice was soft as the Source flared. “Look at me. I’m pretty to look at.”

The old man holding Spencer’s head snorted.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the mangled mess. “What did this? A grenade?”

“If it was a grenade, pretty sure he’d be dead,” Grayson commented. “Well, he’d be deader.”

“Thanks for the clarification, Captain Douchebag,” I snapped, and the doc looked up across from me.

“I knew there was a reason I liked you.” She smiled again. “We should become friends.”

Spencer pushed against my hold as I said, “I’d like that, Doctor—”

“Call me Viv,” she reminded me. “Everyone else does.” She pinned Grayson with another blistering look. “Except you. You call me Dr. Hemenway.”

“I wouldn’t dare think of calling you anything else, Dr. Hemenway.”

“Get ready,” Luc said, his pupils flipping white before he closed his eyes. His veins lit up under his skin, starting at his cheeks and then fanning out across his face, down his throat, and then out from under the sleeves of his shirt. He was really pulling on the Source. An aura spilled into the air around him, outlining his body in white. Static charged the atmosphere, and I inhaled, tasting life.

My breath halted.

God, the kind of power Luc wielded was mind-numbing, but something different was happening inside me. It felt like the Source inside me had tightened into a tiny ball, and now it was unraveling, opening up, and it built, not in the back of my throat or in the pit of my stomach but in the center of my suddenly aching, empty, and cold chest. Pulse pounding, my grip started to loosen, but Spencer’s entire body tensed as if he’d come into contact with a live wire. I snapped out of it, pressing his arm down as Viv did the same across from me. The scream pierced my ears and brought tears to my eyes and …

And then I felt a wall of ice press against my back.

Goose bumps pimpled my skin, and Luc’s eyes flipped open. His all-white pupils expanded as his gaze met mine. Breathing halting in my throat, I looked over my shoulder. Grayson was stepping aside as a mass of rippling, stretching shadows pulsed in the kitchen, so dark and deep it could be a black hole. No, not shadows. A man. A man made of shadows and skin a shade of alabaster that somehow managed to appear devoid of blood without looking ghastly. His hair was so black that under the glow of the gas lamp, it tinted blue like a raven’s wing. With strong jaw and straight nose, features hard, as if he were carved out of granite, he was handsome in the same way Grayson was, remote and cold. Perhaps even cruel.

He wasn’t alone.

A short black-haired woman was behind him, a small hand curled around his biceps as she stared down at the table and her brown eyes flecked with green grew wide.

She was human, but he was an Arum.

His eyes, a blue so pale it was almost as if all color had been leached from them, flickered around the room, coasting over me, and