The Brightest Night (Origin #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,80

physical reason that I can determine that explains why she won’t…” The woman’s voice faded as I slipped back into a deeper sleep and stranger dreams.

Flashes of images that formed with crystal clarity before fading and disappearing from my memories. Others that lingered and became shadows in my mind.

And I found myself standing in a city of steel that held centuries of memories and millions of voices but was now quiet. Before me, a sea of yellow cabs and black cars sat unoccupied, doors closed and engines turned off. Storefronts and hotels were silent and empty of light. Tiny hairs all over my body were standing, electrified by the currents of power in the air—in the currents of power snapping over my knuckles, light outlined in shadows.

My gaze fell to the cracked and broken asphalt. Pools of ruby liquid seeped through the fissures, humming with rage and power. Above and all around me, the city trembled. Buildings that were as tall as mountains shattered into themselves. Cement and brick crumbled into ash that glimmered like fireflies. Buildings collapsed in screams that tasted of metal. Fire the color of night blanketed a sky that could no longer hold the sun.

Coldness seeped into world.

The power radiating from me was icy heat.

“Open your eyes and talk to me.”

His voice punched through the dreams, tearing a pinprick-size hole in the rippling black flames, and brilliant diamond light appeared like a star in a far-off galaxy. Time passed, and then his voice spread that tiny hole. Light grew.

“If you were letters on a page, you’d be fine print.” Luc’s voice clashed with the dreams of cities falling, and the white light spread.

His voice was closer. “You’re going to love this one. My doctor says I’m lacking vitamin U.”

The hole widened, and I felt the warm touch of his fingers against my cheek, the strong curve of his arm around my waist as, farther in the city, billboards evaporated and giant screens cracked before turning to shimmering dust. Cathedrals decayed rapidly, caving into themselves. The world fell apart around me until nothing remained but the gaping hole of crackling, stunning light and the warm, hard feel of Luc’s body pressed to mine.

We stayed that way for a while, caught between the nothing of sleep and the life that existed beyond it.

“It’s time.”

Turning toward the voice, I saw myself standing there, wearing a shirt that was too big. A black shirt that featured a UFO sucking up a T. rex. It had to be a shirt straight from Luc’s closet. Wind lifted the strands of blond hair in the mirror image of me, but where I stood, the air was stagnant.

“Time for what?” I asked once more.

Ink bloomed under her eyes like shadows, and her eyes were the darkest night lit by lightning, and it was the same under her skin, the network of veins a kaleidoscope of darkness and moonlight.

She was power.

She bled death.

“It’s time to end this.” She lifted a hand and pointed to the ground—to a grassy knoll that had not been there before, to the boy who stood there, a bronze-haired god of enormous power.

“Luc?” I whispered.

Slowly, he turned to me—to us. All of his body, his veins were lit from within. The light poured into the air around him, crackling and spitting with the power of the Source. His pupils were the sharpest diamonds, brilliant and cold, and he didn’t look at me but to the version of me who was not his equal—something deadlier and far more powerful.

“Never,” he vowed.

That one word was a punch to the chest, and I fell apart. Shattering and breaking into a million tiny pieces that scattered until I became a part of the dead city and the glimmering ashes falling to the ruined ground.

And then I was nothing.

No memories. No sight. No sound. No sense of being, and I slipped further away into the nothing, to where dreams that felt like memories and nightmares of destroyed cities couldn’t reach me. I stayed for an eternity.

Then I heard Luc’s voice again, and I heard him call to me with one word.

Nadia.

15

Slowly, I became conscious of the body beside me, noticing first the weight of an arm curled around my waist, then the tangle of legs and finally the thigh tucked between mine. Only a few seconds later, I became aware of the solid chest pressed to mine and the soft, steady breath against the top of my head.

Then I felt, against my lips, warm skin.

My heart