Beneath her perch on the soaring precipice, water swelled and roiled, devouring the valley below. It had been a city down there; she knew that. Knew its entire population was being swallowed up, drowned by the sudden, punishing flood.
"No!" The word exploded in her head, but her mouth made no sound at all. She watched through uncaring eyes as the catastrophe spread, destroying everything in its path. "No! Noo!" Bereft, sick with horror, she hardly felt the soft, warm touch on her arm. The din of chaos and annihilation was deafening. The entire world around her had gone dark and bleak. Empty.
"Jenna."
She startled at the sound of the feminine voice - someone else alive with her in this hellish plane, someone who knew her name.
"Jenna, can you hear me?" Claire Reichen's voice, velvety and steady, coming from the left side of her. "Look away from the carnage, Jenna. See me. I'm here with you now." She did as instructed, amazed to find she had the strength. The racket of the disaster and the death it was leaving in its wake still filled her head, but there was a peace now too. A tether reaching out to her from the dark.
Claire took her hand and nodded. "I found you. Do you want to try to go back to the beginning with me now that I'm here?"
Jenna nodded, unable to command her voice - the voice of whomever she embodied in this dreamscape - to speak. She wanted to go back. She could do this. She had to.
A sudden jerk of motion yanked her backward through the darkness.
The waves retreated at hyperspeed, flood and destruction unwinding in an instant. Rolling her back to the moment she always entered the dream, teetering at the brink of coming destruction. Then back even further.
She looked down from the tall crag, astonished. The moonlit city in the valley below was ancient. Columned white temples and bricked roads spread out in all directions. Massive gates and stone towers, protective moats and water-filled canals that ran like arteries through the heart of a pristine, thriving metropolis. Its beauty was mythical, breathtaking.
She swiveled her head to see if Claire was witnessing the same thing. But before she could glance her way, a sudden bright light flashed on the far horizon in front of her, illuminating the night sky like a newborn sun.
The earth rumbled beneath her feet. The tremor rocked with terrific force, so massive she staggered where she stood, nearly losing her purchase on the jagged mountain ledge. The entire planet trembled, as though about to crack open at its core.
And out over the sea beyond, a great cloud was forming. It billowed high and furious, ashes churning up from a stalklike funnel crowned with a roiling mushroom head. The cloud blew a gale of heat so intense, she had to lift her arm to shield her face from the burn.
Below her in the valley, some of the taller white temples began to shudder and break apart. People poured out of homes and taverns, spilling into the cobbled streets in a din of panic and confusion. Their screams went up on the dry night wind like banshee cries.
The wail and howl of a population experiencing its own sudden, wholesale demise.
As the waves rose up from all directions, Jenna tore her gaze away from the carnage about to take place. She searched for Claire beside her, but she was gone.
Now someone else stood next to her on the cliff.
An Ancient.
There were three others with him, all the same immense height, hairless heads and bared torsos covered in otherworldly dermaglyphs. Their thin-pupiled eyes were catlike in the darkness, raptly enthusiastic as they watched the destruction taking shape before them. They were exultant.
And they had done this terrible thing, she was certain of it.
All at once, the reality of it hit her. Here, in this moment, this awful landscape, she wasn't Jenna. She was one of them. One of these Ancient marauders - the one who implanted his bit of alien material into her human body and made her into something else. A shadow of himself. A vessel to carry his history, no matter how cancerous and ugly it was.>"To say nothing of the glyph that's spreading like kudzu from the spot where the chip was implanted."
Tavia met Nikolai's eyes in the mirror. "So, did the Ancient turn her into one of you - one of the Breed?"
"She's not Breed," he replied. "But she's not exactly human now either. Gideon's been running all sorts of tests, and the best he's come up with is the Ancient's DNA is replicating faster than her own Homo sapiens DNA. It's taking over her nervous system and vital organs, even her blood."
"My God," Tavia murmured. "It must be terrifying for her."
"It's no picnic," Nikolai agreed. "But she's coping with it like the trouper she is. Not too bad of a deal, all things considered. She's stronger, faster, healthier than any human could hope to be. And from Gideon's findings, he's guessing her life expectancy has increased exponentially." "Still," Tavia said, unable to keep from relating Jenna's sudden changes to her own unexpected revelations. "It's not easy finding out you're something other than you thought." Renata's gaze was sympathetic. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm okay." She nodded, realizing it was true. "I was scared at first, but I'm glad to finally know the truth."
Nikolai went on. "I think the scariest part for Jenna now is the dreams. Gideon thinks the chip is projecting the Ancient's memories into her subconscious. She's been having wicked nightmares lately. A lot of violent, Armageddon-style dreams. It's really wreaking havoc on her."
"At least Jenna has Brock," Renata said, glancing lovingly at her own mate. "He'll help her get through whatever's still ahead of her. And she has the rest of us too."
Nikolai's returned glance was as heated as it was tender. He reached over and took Renata's hand, lifted it to his mouth, and pressed a kiss into the center of her palm.
"How much do you know about the Breed?" This time, it was Tegan who spoke. He didn't look at Tavia, but his low snarl of a voice drifted from around the other side of Chase. "You mean, other than the fact that there's some kind of alien roots in your history?" "Your history too," the warrior remarked tonelessly.