Page 57 of Beautiful Madness

Exactly what the hell was he?

There’d been a time after I’drescued him that he had been different. Ill, weak, depressed. He’d slept a lot,had barely eaten, had been in physical as well as mental pain. But all that wasto be expected. The vampires had fucked him up. They hadn’t been gentle intheir gleeful torment, but they hadn’t wanted to kill him.

His mind had belonged to thevampires. He had abducted Lucy. God only knew what else he’d done that hehadn’t been able to remember.

But he was remembering now, andnow…he was different. Stronger. Faster. Better.

And even as I thought it, twodaywalkers, faster almost than the eye could follow, came up behind him. Hewhirled on them the very second they reached him, their fangs dripping blood,and drove both his stakes into their chests, turning them to dust.

I could feel his joy.

“I don’t know what’shappening,” he said, smiling when he turned back to face me. “Maybe it’s justthe magic in this cave. Whatever it is, I like it.Damn, Kait. Is thishow you feel all the time?”

Relief whooshed through me so violentlythat I stumbled, barely noticing when Joe righted me. Rick hadn’t been turnedinto a magical monster by Axton.

It was the magic in the cave.The magic of the charger not only affected the daywalkers, but the humans. Thewolves.

That was why they’d put Jaredbehind a wall. Not just to protect him from the daywalkers, but to deprive himof the magic. That power would have helped him escape the spikes and the ballof magic that had encased him.

But it wasn’t just a healingmagic. I could see something dark scurrying through Rick’s eyes, and when Iturned my head to peer up at Joe, I saw the same darkness in his stare. It wasalmost an odd sort of blankness.

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

I turned in a circle, my gazegoing from the alpha to Remy to Zach and the wolves. They were slaughtering thedaywalkers. New ones came in, and they died. Why then was the charger of magicnot making the daywalkers better, faster, stronger?

“My God,” I muttered. “Itis.”But their opponents were just as strong, and they had a little something extra.Will, desperation to protect the good and kill the evil, and sheer joy. They neededto win. The daywalkers had mostly bloodlust and a desire to make more ofthemselves.

The power was astounding.

And then, my attention was caughtby someone else.

Lucy.

Sweet, tiny Lucy. She driftedhigh against the wall, her eyes open and pure white. Her hair blew as thoughcaught in an invisible wind, and below her stood a man I knew to be Sam, eventhough he wore a stranger’s face.

The charger was fucking with myfriends.

I would kill it.

I’d planned to destroy it onceeveryone left the caves, because I was afraid it’d explode and kill anyone nearit when I challenged it. That it was dangerous was indisputable.

The number of daywalkers had dwindledto only a dozen or so stragglers, but the glow of the charger had brightened.It was feeding on the energy of those fighting, even as it fed them.

When it left them, how wouldthey be then?

What would it leave insidethem?

I left the daywalkers to mypeople and Lucy to Sam, and I raced toward the ball of power. It had expanded,large and pulsating and hungry. Alive. As though it were sentient andunderstood my intent, it swelled suddenly, the part facing me bulging like anenormous, squeezed balloon.

I did not want to die, and fearwhispered suddenly through me as the hope of making it out of there alive grewdimmer by the second. I felt Joe behind me and turned on him, hardening myheart and stiffening my spine.

“Get away from me, Joe. You can’tprotect me now and I won’t let this bastard take you.”

He’d somehow managed to ridhimself of his cast, and held stakes in both his hands, as though he believedhe could stake the ball of power to death. “I go where you go,” he said. “Nomatter what.”

“If you die,” I told him,desperate to make him understand as urgency clutched at my heart, “you won’t beable to protect anybody.”

“It will destroy all thehumans,” Jared said, suddenly at my side. “That’s why it exists.”