The soldiers attacked simultaneously, a wave of coordinated violence that should have overwhelmed me.
I moved.
The first bullet passed through empty air where my head had been. I dropped low, my body operating on reflexes that weren't entirely mine, feeling the black substance surge beneath my skin like adrenaline made liquid. A soldier swung his rifle at my skull. I blocked it with my forearm, the impact sending a shockwave up to my shoulder.
My glove tore. The leather split along the seam, and black liquid crawled across my fingers, eager, hungry, angry .
I immediately pulled my hand away. Pain shot through my arm—not from the blow, but from the substance itself, from the transformation trying to force its way out. I gritted my teeth. Not here. Not yet. Not in front of Voss. Not where she could see exactly what she'd created.
The soldier attacked again, a brutal overhead strike.
I caught his wrist. The black substance spread farther, responding to the contact, to the violence, to the proximity of a living body. My forearm spasmed.
A bone cracked—not his, mine —reforming, compressing, preparing for a transformation I was fighting to suppress.
My eyes widened. The change was accelerating.
The more I fought, the more the Beast wanted out.
I released the soldier and staggered backward, clutching my arm. The bone snapped back into place with a wet click, the pain blinding for a second, then gone.
Mara shouted: "Kael!"
Another soldier aimed at her. I saw the barrel track, saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
I moved.
I crossed the distance almost instantly, the black substance lending me speed I didn't ask for, and struck the soldier's chest with an open palm. The impact lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing into a dead tree. The trunk cracked. He didn't get up.
I looked at my hand. Black substance covered my fingers. My nails had lengthened, curving into black crescents. The pain intensified, a deep ache in my marrow, and I could feel my bones shifting beneath my skin, trying to rearrange themselves into a more efficient configuration.
I ripped the glove off. The substance spread across my wrist, beautiful and terrible, alive and hungry. I clenched my teeth, forcing my will against it, commanding it to stop.
The transformation halted. Barely. A faint black pattern remained beneath my skin, a tattoo of veins filled with ink, then disappeared.
Commander Voss watched carefully, her tablet forgotten at her side. "Interesting."
I looked at her, my chest heaving, my hand still trembling. "You knew."
"Of course."
That answer frightened me more than the soldiers.
More than the guns. She knew. She'd always known. She'd sent men to die just to see what I'd do.
Voss smiled, and this time there was genuine warmth in it. "You're not the first."
My expression changed. The world seemed to tilt.
"Then what am I?"
"Something Rainbow has been looking for." She took a step closer, unafraid, her eyes tracking the way my hand still twitched. "Something we lost."
I charged.
Voss raised her weapon—a pistol, small and precise—and fired.
The fight resumed.