Xin by Jade Kerrion

Author:Jade Kerrion [Kerrion, Jade]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-948642-15-6
Publisher: ATM Press

15

Xin’s accusation hung heavily in the gulf of silence between her and Danyael. In the darkness, the alpha empath’s eyes were stricken with horror and guilt, his feature etched with pain.

She cringed mentally. Her words had crushed him. But what else should she have said?

Nothing, she realized. Sometimes, shattering friendship could not be avoided.

It did not mean it did not hurt.

The breath she drew ached in her chest. It was a hell of a moment to realize that Danyael’s trust and friendship had meant a great deal to her and that she treasured it above any other.

The silence grew, expanding as if it were alive until Danyael pricked it with a bitter sound trapped between an ironic chuckle and a quiet sigh. “There is nothing you can say to me that doesn’t already play in an endless loop in my mind. I know my blood did this to them. I felt a…connection when I calmed the one who tried to attack me. I followed her back here. She wanted to show me the others. I think she was trying to get me to help them.”

“Can you?”

“My empathic powers can calm them, but I can’t heal them. Anything I do is temporal. The cure—if there is any—is medical.”

“Can you find it?”

“If there’s one, I will find it.”

Xin drew a deep, shuddering breath. Danyael’s responses, moving quickly past the personal and into the practical, gave her hope, not necessarily for their friendship, but for the solution to the immediate problem. She should have expected as much from Danyael. He had been too perfectly trained not to react to abuse—physical, mental, or emotional; an alpha empath with the power to kill everyone in his vicinity simply because he was having a bad day could not afford to take insults personally.

It did not make him fair game, though, Xin reminded herself. Danyael deserved gentleness, if only because he had received so little compassion from others his entire life. Be kind, she coached herself. It’s all he needs from others.

It’s all Zara would have wanted for him.

She glanced over her shoulder at Yu Long. “Any injured?”

“Six of my men were killed.” His voice was flat. “We killed ten jiangshi. Pathetic ratio, considering we had guns and they had…teeth and fingernails.”

“Is anyone wounded? Cuts? Gashes?”

The remaining soldiers patted themselves down. All shook their heads.

“Fine. Let’s get out of here,” Xin ordered.

The men hauled their dead buddies over their shoulders.

“The jiangshi too,” Xin said.

The men stared at her, their mute objection screaming through sullen gazes.

“They were human, and they have families. Take them back to the surface.”

Their jaws tensed, muscles clenching, but moments later, their shoulders sagged in compliance, and the slaughtered jiangshi were carried from the tunnels, their bodies bundled in plastic body bags.

Xin fell in beside Danyael as they followed the band of soldiers out. She shot him a sideway glance. “Did you get hurt in the fighting?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Not a scratch. I need to know how infectious they are. I want to do an autopsy.

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