Page 174 of Bonds of Starfall

Love turned to obsession.

The dark forestbrought a cold ripple of air and an innumerable collection of scents. Kit breathed it in, emotionless. The scent of pine suffused his lungs.

The auditory enhancers the doctors had infused into his eardrums elevated his hearing to new heights. Every rustle in the wind or faint call of the Rogues scraped against his skin and made the hair on his nape stand on end.

The other guards talked lowly.

Kit left their midst, staring intently into the darkness between the trees.

A few of the guards closest to him stilled, watching him warily. They knew he was a predator trapped in a man’s flesh.

Kit sensed things others could not.

A roar filled the night air. Weapons were at the ready.

"I thought you said the area was secure?" one of the guards asked, training the barrel of a rifle on the darkness.

"No Nova Zone is truly secure," answered General Tabitha Felwich, a stern woman who’d grown strangely preoccupied with the idea of Kit.

Tabitha often watched Kit when she thought he was unaware; he was always aware.

She’d tried to touch him once, when they were training. She hadn’t tried again since—after he’d snapped one of her finger bones clean in half. That hadn’t dulled her interest in him. She still watched.

Thundering footsteps shook in the distance. Kit readied himself. Just as the Rogue tore free from the forest, he lunged, gripping the Rogue with his hands.

The fingers of his prosthetic tightened, and the Rogue howled in pain. Blood oozed from the mangled wreckage of the Rogue in his grip, popping and cracking as organs were crushed from his strength. He released his hold.

It fell to the ground. Dead.

The other guards watched silently.

Kit paused as the wind carried a strange scent to him.

Fallen leaves crunched under his boots as he stepped closer to the towering side of the cliff that bordered the hangar entrance to the lab.

He breathed deeply.

It smelled like?—

Cherries.

Something inside him perked up at the scent. A beast clawing at the bars of its cage.

The cold wash of apathy that held him in its icy grip let go, finger by finger, until he was left standing there, motionless. He was one second away from scouring the entirety of the vicinity until he found the source of that scent.

The feelings left as quickly as they came—replaced by nothing.

Kit shook his head softly, then returned to his spot by the others.

Below, in the underground lab in Nova Zone 21, a collection of men and women screamed and cried behind bars. Guards kept them back with poles infused with electricity, zapping any who got too close to the edge.

One man stood up, blue tendrils of light crackling at his fingertips.

An Aetherborn.

Kit tensed, seeing red.

He must eradicate Aetherborns. They were deadly.