Chapter 26 · Echoes from the Deep

"Do not touch it, Jace!" Vera slammed her palm against my chest and shoved me back from the twitching beast.

My claws scraped across the metal floor. Sparks jumped under my weight.

The thing crouched in the center of the lab, tied down by chains thick enough to hold a truck. It had too many limbs, too many seams, too many mouths opening and closing along its shoulders. Black fluid leaked from the stitches and spread beneath it in thin, smoking lines.

It had Vera's knife buried in its side.

It had my scent all over it.

And it was wearing pieces of the same graft pattern carved into my own body.

"Move," I growled.

Vera kept her hand on my chest. Her glove pressed against the cracked plates of my hide. Heat soaked through the leather. Her fingers trembled once, then tightened.

"You are not ripping it apart."

"It is alive."

"So are you. Barely." Her eyes flashed toward the split along my ribs. "You keep feeding the damage, you will fall apart before that thing does."

"Then stop standing in front of me."

"No."

The answer came too fast.