Page 56 of Something Worth Keeping
Through the bond, Cillian suddenly went rigid. His shadows lashed out violently against the containment, and Julian felt the responding drain of essence - pure agony transmitted directly into Julian’s nervous system.
Stop it,Julian sent desperately.Stop fighting it. I’m here.
Cillian’s head turned fractionally. Their eyes met across the warehouse.
The expression on Cillian’s face was devastating - relief, terror, fury, andsomething that looked dangerously close to pride.
Get out,Cillian’s response came through in fragments.Vane will…
“Gentlemen, I have good news,” Vane said, pocketing his phone. “My associate has confirmed the transport vehicle will arrive within the hour. Once you’re relocated, we can begin our...interviews properly.”
One of the guards shifted nervously. “Sir, are you sure about this? These things…”
“Are contained. As long as the apparatus remains powered and the sigil intact, they’re completely helpless.”
Julian’s phone vibrated silently. It was Rook’s confirmation:Ready.
Positioning himself behind a support column roughly ten meters from the apparatus, Julian took one last look at the situation, working out where heneeded to go. The sigil would be on the southwestern quadrant based on the body’s position on the catwalk above. The body itself was barely visible, but the blood droplets were easy to see.
I can get there in approximately eight seconds if I run…the guards will need at least three seconds to react, another two to aim…odds of survival - barely any, but worth the risk.
The fire alarm shrieked to life.
Both guards jumped. Vane spun toward the sound, already reaching for his weapon.
Julian ran.
He crossed the open floor in a dead sprint, ignoring the shouts behind him. The apparatus loomed up, pulsing with stolen essence. The sigil was exactly where he’d predicted - a complex spiral of fresh and dried blood inscribed into the metal.
“Stop him!” Vane’s voice cracked with sudden panic.
Julian dropped to his knees and scraped his hand across the sigil, disrupting the careful pattern with pure physical force. The blood flaked away under his fingers.
Gunfire cracked through the warehouse.
Pain exploded in Julian’s shoulder, spinning him sideways. He hit the concrete hard but kept moving, kept scraping, breaking the sigil’s continuous line.
The apparatus screamed - a sound like reality tearing - and the containment field shattered. Three shadows erupted outward with the fury of caged hurricanes finally unleashed.
Still breathing.Julian lay panting on the concrete.That’s a plus. Although getting shot is decidedly annoying, and…yep. That hurts.
Chapter Twenty
The containment shattered, and Cillian’s essence exploded outward with thousands of years of accumulated fury behind it.
Julian was bleeding. On the ground. Shot.
Mine. Hurt. Mine.
The words weren’t language anymore. They were the absolute truth carved into the fabric of reality itself.
Cillian’s human form dissolved. The shadows that had been straining against the apparatus burst free, no longer restrained by flesh or the pretense of civilization. His true nature unfurled across the warehouse like a starless sky devouring everything in its path.
The guard who’d fired stood frozen, his weapon still raised. Cillian could see the terror blooming in the man’spupils as his mind tried and failed to process what he was witnessing. The guard’s perception fractured. Blood vessels burst in his eyes from the cognitive strain alone.
Cillian didn’t care.
A tendril of pure void lashed out, wrapping around the guard’s torso. The man’s scream cut off as Cillian lifted him off the ground and squeezed. Ribs cracked like kindling. The gun clattered to the ground. Cillian tightened his grip, feeling organs rupture and compress, feeling the corruption in this creature’s soul - a wife he’d beaten, children he’d terrorized, victims who’d paid him for protection he never provided.
