Page 130 of Hunted to Be Mine

We dove. He reached it first, and slashed. I jerked back. The blade opened my sleeve and found skin. Warmth spread through the fabric.

We separated, both dragging for breath. The knife flashed in his grip as he paced on the span. Behind him, a stairwell dropped to a lower platform.

“I have to… have to… say the words,” he said, voice sliding between flat and human. “Director’s orders.”

Cold slid down my spine. The sequence that had almost erased me.

I gave ground toward the stairs, pulling him from the booth, from Selina. His movements grew more erratic. He was trying to stop his own mouth from tearing me apart.

“Mangrove,” he began, then clamped his left hand over his lips, fighting himself. “Amar—”

I didn’t wait. I drove into him, and we tumbled down the metal steps in a brutal tangle. His knife carved a line across my ribs. Pain sparked and burned, but I kept going.

We hit a control bank at the bottom. Red lights flared. Gauges spun. An alarm wailed like something wounded.

The noise seemed to hurt him. He clutched his head, thrown off his attack.

“Xavier!” Selina’s voice blasted from above. “Your sister Maeve is still looking for you!”

The change came fast and violent. He convulsed. The knife dropped, clattering away into the channel.

“M… Maeve?” A ragged sound. “Who is… my sister…”

I kicked the knife off the platform. He staggered up, coordination shot. His gaze drifted in and out, clearing and clouding while programming fought the memory Selina had yanked to the surface.

We circled on the lower deck beneath the booth. Spray hissed from torn lines, turning the floor into a trap. The alarm keened, underscored by leaking steam.

I struck first, aiming for his throat. He blocked, but the movement lacked the earlier snap. A knee to his midsection drove the breath out of him.

He recovered at a speed no normal man could touch, grabbed my neck, and slammed me into a steel column. White sparks burst. I blinked them away.

“You will… be terminated,” he said, but it sounded recited, dead.

He reached for another knife at his ankle. Cold steel kissed my skin.

He stared into me. Something moved behind his eyes, a fight I couldn’t see. The blade wavered. His hand trembled.

“Incan… descent…” His mouth formed the first syllables of the sequence that would break me.

Then his left hand shot to his own throat. He squeezed, choking himself. His face twisted with effort.

“I won’t… won’t… let you use me to hurt them,” he forced out through his own grip.

I shattered the hold, slamming an elbow into his forearm. The blade nicked me and fell. He staggered, one hand clutching his throat, the other reaching for me in blind reflex.

His flailing arm clipped a pressure valve and tore it. Steam hissed out in a punishing jet.

He straightened. For a heartbeat something cleared in his eyes. Recognition—not of me, but of what I was. Another weapon turned against itself.

“Please,” he said, voice clean for once, “make it stop.”

Those two words hit like a punch. Knife still in my hand, I froze. I’d been there—mind turned inside out until nothing felt real.

“How?” I asked, blade up but slowing. “How are you holding it off?”

His face buckled. Xavier surfaced. “Maeve,” he said, and the name sounded ripped from bone. “Always Maeve.”

I understood. Selina had been my anchor. His was a sister they hadn’t managed to cut away.