Alterant (Belador #2)(96)

“That’s not true!” She caught Storm moving from cover, where fog smoked around him. She shook her head again.

He growled viciously, padding back and forth, ready to leap.

The sulfur stench burned her throat on her next breath, and yellow haze fingered closer to Tristan’s group.

The voice behind the loudspeaker said, “Evalle. Back. Away. Now.”

When she looked over her shoulder this time, seven men had emerged from cover in full battle gear, holding Isak Nyght’s mega blasters. In fact, Isak led the group.

She called out, “Isak, stop. Don’t shoot.”

Webster and Aaron roared, and she knew without looking that they were starting to change into beasts.

But the damage had been done the minute Isak saw Tristan’s and Petrina’s green eyes.

In that moment of thunder rolling, Storm snarling and Isak shouting, everything felt as if it happened in slow motion as she realized she had a way to save others even if it meant the end of her last hope.

She had one Tribunal gift left.

Speaking the words that would seal her fate, she called out, “By the Tribunal power gifted me, I command Kizira’s fog to disappear—” She thought fast, adding, “—and never return.”

The fog vanished.

Aaron and Webster hadn’t shifted much. They looked at her as they returned to human.

“Move now, Evalle!” Isak called through the bullhorn again.

She stared at Tristan. “I did not set you up.”

He gave a look past her shoulder, then back at her. “Going to be hard to prove that once we’re all dead.”

“I know. Get out of here.”

His eyes narrowed with suspicion.

Putting more power into her voice, she ordered him, “Go, because the only reason he’s not shooting yet is to keep from killing me. The minute he decides I’m a threat to humans, too, that will change. I could call Tzader, but he won’t get here fast enough to stop Isak.”

Tristan told Webster, Aaron and Petrina to walk away single file behind him. He backed up as they did, keeping his eyes on Evalle.

She could see his confusion and inner debate over what he should do, but they both knew he was out of options.

And so was Evalle as she watched her only chance at freedom disappear into the woods across the street. She turned to find Isak’s team moving forward, but they had thirty yards yet to cover.

Isak called to her without the bullhorn. “That was a mistake, Evalle.”

She nodded her understanding.

Storm snarled and she jerked around to him. “Don’t come out here. You promised. If you break that promise, I bet it will hurt you as much as lying, but it will hurt me more.”

Energy flushed the rain away from her in a short blast.

Sen appeared in front of her holding the hourglass . . . empty. “I don’t see three Alterants with you.”

“What the hell is that?” Isak yelled, no longer using his bullhorn and heading toward them.

Sen turned with an annoyed expression. Red laser dots peppered his head and chest. He lifted his hand, pointing a finger toward them, a clear sign of aggression to a black-ops team.

A blast of power exploded from one of the weapons.

Sen flipped his palm up, stopping the round in midair inches from his hand.

What was this guy? Evalle expected Isak’s men to unload everything at that, but they had all turned into living statues, locked in whatever position they’d been in when Sen had lifted his palm.

She asked, “How long will they stay frozen like that?”

Sen turned back to her with a negligent shrug. “Until I leave, and they won’t remember any of this.”

What she wouldn’t give to have that kind of power, especially with Sen still holding the empty hourglass.

He glanced around with a smug smile. “As I was saying, I don’t see three Alterants with you.”

“There’s a good reason why.”

“Like I give two shits?”

From the corner of her eye, Evalle saw Storm step from the shadows, eyes glittering with deadly intent. He dropped into a crouch, getting ready to attack Sen.

A suicidal move.

She yelled, “Don’t!”

Sen didn’t even turn around or move a muscle, but she knew he was the one who sent a wicked blast of power that knocked Storm against the apartment building. Bones cracked viciously when his body smashed against the bricks. A sickening sound rattled from his lungs as he slid down into a boneless heap.

Blood trickled from his mouth.

She lunged for him, screaming, “No!”

But her body halted in midair. Sen held her there for a minute, long enough to make her realize Storm’s chest hadn’t moved. He wasn’t breathing.

When the world started spinning, her arms and legs functioned again. She beat her fists in every direction, trying to hit Sen, whose laughter rolled through the swirling colors.

She called up her kinetics. Useless.

Storm couldn’t be dead.

That couldn’t be the last vision of him she’d carry with her to a lifetime of isolation. The Tribunal would listen to nothing she had to say. No provision for failure.

Oh, dear Goddess. Failure.

If she’d thought her heart couldn’t take another hit, she’d been wrong.

What would the Tribunal do to Brina?