Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
It wasn’t a sinkhole. No, it was something much more subtle. He knew all at once that the dead psychic zone around it was formed of all the minds it had already sucked dry of energy.
A cold realization in the center of his brain, a creeping sense of the familiar. Had he been a cat like his mate, he’d have put it in scent terms: it was as if he’d scented something he knew, a psychic presence that was no stranger, was rather so akin to him that it … felt like family.
His stomach roiled.
Sensing the spider inside him beginning to stir, he pulsed the psychic space with his own brand of energy. It was a silvery wave brushed with flame, glittering and powerful to his gaze but invisible to everyone else.
The cat inside his mind pawed at the threads of shimmering silver.
A reminder from his mate that this power wasn’t invisible to everyone.
It lit up the entire area before it was sucked down by the darkness—but he’d taken a snapshot right before the moment when everything went black. And what he saw was a sprawling black spiderweb, at the center of which sat a bloated monster.
A hard tug on the bond inside him. A literal bite that he felt through the psychic space—just as a cold black spidery hand scraped over his mind. He snapped his eyes open to find Soleil looking down at him with eyes gone ocelot.
“Did you bite me?”
“You wouldn’t wake up,” she said, her fingers on the side of his neck. “And your pulse was starting to weaken. It was just a nip—didn’t break the skin.”
He raised his fingers to the other side of his neck, still able to feel the echo of that bite, that wildness. “I have to go back.”
“You’re weak,” Soleil argued. “Your hands are trembling. Look!” She lifted one of his hands.
“Get me all the nutrient sachets you have,” Ivan said, gripping at her wrists. “There’s another spider in there, Lei, and it’s killing those people. I don’t think they have much longer. I have to go back.”
Fear a hot beat in her eyes, she nonetheless rose and raced inside to gather what he needed. Ivan, meanwhile, put together a plan of attack. He’d have only one shot at this. That fucking spider was bloated with a vast amount of power, which meant its black web must have captured a massive number of minds on that island.
“She calls herself the Scarab Queen,” he told Soleil when she returned with a glass, a pitcher of water, and the pockets of her dress filled with nutrient sachets their packmates had stocked in the pantry.
Rebooting energy by overdosing on nutrients wasn’t ever a good idea. The resulting crash could stop his heart, but all those people would die if Ivan waited another day. Not only that, but the bloated spider would then have even more power—power enough to capture another piece of the PsyNet and suck it dry.
And with each dead piece of the Net it left in its wake, it’d become more capable of “eating” bigger and bigger pieces. Left alone, it was conceivable that it could annihilate the entire PsyNet, piece by desiccated piece.
He dumped five sachets into one glass, drank it down, then asked Soleil to mix another. “She’s the monster I’ll become if I don’t stop myself.” He had a vision of himself as a bloated spider just like her, hunched over the defenseless minds of all those he’d captured.
All those who he was murdering.
Soleil’s hand on his cheek. “I’m with you,” she whispered. “No matter what. Always and forever and back again.”
He gave himself a single moment of peace and turned his lips into her palm.
Chapter 48
Ager’s vitals are beginning to deteriorate even faster than predicted. I’m sorry to report that they are on the brink of a total neural shutdown. You must prepare for the worst.
—Dr. Lee Luang to Payal Rao, bearer of Ager Lii’s medical Power of Attorney
THE SCARAB QUEEN stirred out of her torpor and reached out a slow psychic hand to capture the beautifully strong power she’d sensed the second prior. Most of the power coming to her was dull, even her Scarabs failing her. She’d chosen the wrong ones for this experiment, chosen the weak ones.
It was no huge problem. She’d simply make better choices next time around. But there was someone in this network whose power was a breathtaking punch. Not only that, it resonated along the same frequency as hers—she knew that if she took it, she’d amplify her own power by an order of magnitude.
Her lethargic pulse accelerated the instant she made contact … but then the power was gone, blinking out of existence without a trace. Had it been a Scarab that had imploded? She saw no debris, no psychic dust. But that had to be it, because she’d made certain no one could leave this island of their own will.