happened to Quinlan to give him this ability, it was something new. He'd never presented as anything more than human.
Faust pulled the Hummer onto the highway. The tires couldn't roll fast enough. Knox hadn't mentioned ransacking the place, and the fact that they hadn't would chafe at him later, but I couldn't be the only person eager to put the rubble that used to be Pierce's mansion behind us.
"How many hours back is it?" Storri asked with no small amount of concern. He didn't seem at all bothered by the fact that Quinlan had nearly given him a second smile with his razor whip.
"At least five," Jazz murmured.
"He'll be so scared if he wakes up in the car," Storri murmured.
While the nephilim doted over my resurrected, unconscious mate, in the forward seats, the other alphas discussed the mansion and the weapon we hadn't found there.
"Unless…the weapon is Quinlan?" Knox suggested.
"He isn't a weapon," I growled.
"You were there," Knox bit back. "He took us out in seconds. The Quinlan I remember couldn't kill a spider."
He wasn't lying. Quinlan had trouble shooing flies if they were too big or buzzed too loudly.
"Pierce had him, Knox. Who knows what he fucking did to him? Whatever Quinlan did to us today, it was for his own protection—"
"I know that, and I'm not saying otherwise." Knox's words rumbled out in a growl. "We're taking him back. Doc will take a look at him and get him fixed right up. But—"
Of course Knox would want to jump right into connecting the dots. He hated a mystery, the unknown, and right now, everything surrounding Quinlan—how he was here, what he'd been subjected to—was all unknown. As weak as it made me, I needed things to stay that way, at least for as long as I was forced to ride in an enclosed, cramped space.
"No buts. Fuck…just…no." I didn't know what I was saying. I'd lost the ability to think in full, coherent thoughts the same moment the black smoke cleared and my dead mate stood on the other side. An hour ago, I'd been empty, acting on memory and instinct. Now, my once-vacant body brimmed with emotion, but the only one I could concentrate on was fear.
When Pierce had come back, seemingly from the dead, the possibility that Quinlan could also be alive planted like a weed in my mind—unwanted and impossible to eradicate. I hadn't shared the thought with anyone. Sharing would've only brought me pity, and I didn't want pity, just like I didn't want to leap directly into pondering all the horrible things that had happened to my mate while I'd been failing to protect him.
Knox let the subject drop, and we drove in a silence that was broken only when one of the nephilim would peek at Quinlan and sigh. The three of them had a bond the rest of us didn't. It sprang up immediately upon meeting and remained, changing only to strengthen. Already, they felt a connection with Quinlan.
"He was so scared," Jazz moaned.
"He'll be fine," I grunted, repositioning Quinlan so he draped more firmly across my chest. All he needed was a bath, rest, and food.
In the back of my mind, I was aware that a bath and food would do nothing to help the terror that had filled his gaze. Nor would it change the way he'd screamed, saying I wasn't real.
Why would he say that? What had Pierce told him?
Quinlan moaned, and I dropped my chin as his eyes fluttered open, all dream-filled and sleepy until our gazes met, and his eyelids wrenched open.
"Quin—"
The black smoke covering his body swelled out like a mushroom cloud, smashing through every window and sending the Hummer careening off the highway and into the grassy shoulder. Knox shouted to the others to brace themselves while I held on tightly to Quinlan, thankful the nephilim had known to buckle up while Faust brought the vehicle to a rocky stop.
"Don't touch me!" Quinlan looked to the broken window, and the smoke there thickened like a pole. He reached out for it, letting the smoke drag him from my arms the moment his fingers wrapped around it.
I crawled after him, clamoring through the same rectangular car window. While the space had been just right for Quinlan to squeeze through, I was more than twice the size of him. The pearled edges of the tempered glass dug into my side, but the pain was negligible in the face of my mate fleeing from me.
Opening the damn