Chapter 34 · The Bloodline Answers

The voice in my head isn't mine.

It's Derek's. Deep and cold and wearing my baby's presence like a stolen coat.

*Mother.*

I roll onto my side and vomit river water. Cole's hand is on my back but I can't hear him. Can't hear anything except that word looping in my skull.

Derek's voice. My kid.

I drag myself up. My legs shake. Cole's shoulder is still bleeding, torn open in three jagged lines, but he's on his feet too. His mouth moves. I see my name shape his lips but there's no sound.

Derek took it all.

The explosion should've killed him. The bridge is gone. Half the north bank is rubble and smoke. But I can feel him. The pull in my blood that's been there since the alliance locked me in that breeding room.

He's still alive.

And he's inside my kid's head.

Cole grabs my arm. Points upriver. I follow his hand and my stomach drops.

Derek's standing on a pile of bridge wreckage fifty yards out. The creature's coiled around him like a sick pet. Its body is smoke and meat and wet bone. No face. Just a mouth that goes all the way down.