Transcendent Read Online Free PDF Page B

your best interests, Mase—and you need to know that—but you also need to believe me when I tell you now that I am so, so sorry for that.”
    He reached up and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear, for all the good it did—the wind just tore it from his fingers again and sent it whirling around her head with the rest of her midnight locks. Roth’s fingers were ice-cold as they brushed the side of her face.
    â€œAnd I will tell you everything I know,” Roth continued. “I promise. But only once we’re on the move.”
    â€œMove?”
    â€œWe can’t stay here. Dad will have seen the lightning strikes. He’ll know. He’ll be coming.”
    The instant he said it, Mason knew he was right. She could almost picture her father’s face as he realized that he’d triumphed—succeeded in turning his only daughter into a Valkyrie. A chooser of the slain. The very thought was something that Mason was struggling to understand. Her father.
    Dad . . .
    Mason willed back more tears. In their stead, she felt the cold spatter of a raindrop on her cheek. She lifted her face to the sky as a rumble of thunder rolled overhead and the heavy black clouds began to weep for her. She glanced over at Cal’s mother where she stood with her white priestess robes flapping wetly like the sails of an abandoned boat. She lifted her chin and strove for defiance, but all Daria’s arrogant elegance—the superior attitude she wore like a suit of armor—had turned brittle and cracked at the seams. Mason could see the woman beneath the facade for the first time and she wondered fleetingly about the girl she might have once been. The one who had so fiercely befriended Mason’s own mother that, when Yelena Starling had died, Daria had begun to plot an unfathomable revenge against Gunnar Starling that had spanned decades.
    Roth followed Mason’s gaze. “That’s another reason wehave to get going,” he said. “The Miasma will begin to dissipate before too long. I can feel it. Gwen . . .” His face twisted again. “Gwen’s death was like a lance. The blood curse is emptying out of me. It’ll take a while, but when that happens—when the fog walls surrounding Manhattan fall—they’ll send the military in. Come on, everyone inside.” He walked over to the glass doors and opened them, glaring at Daria with the promise of revenge written in his eyes. “Even you. Much as I’d rather leave you to face whatever fresh hell is coming down, I think we might actually need you before this is all over.”
    As Cal moved toward the open door, he shook his head and spoke for the first time in what seemed like forever to Mason. “It’s going to be an unholy mess down on the streets when the city wakes up. There’ll be widespread panic. And they’ll probably quarantine the whole island and—”
    He was interrupted by the sound of another anguished, ragged howl coming from somewhere inside the Weather Room. Mason felt the small hairs on the back of her neck stand up as the bone-chilling sound—the cry of an animal caught in a trap—distorted only a moment later, twisting into a human wail of agony.
    Fennrys . . .
    The cries subsided into low, guttural groans, and Mason squeezed her eyes shut. But all she could see was Rafe—the way he had looked with Fenn’s blood staining his teeth. Heather came over and put a hand on Mason’s shoulder.
    â€œYou should go to him,” she said. “He sounds . . . notgood.”
    Mason hesitated. Honora had told her to stay away. The pack would take care of him, she said. And Toby and Maddox were there. And . . . she was afraid.
    â€œIt’s okay,” Heather said, misinterpreting Mason’s reluctance. She glanced at Cal and his mother, and then at Roth, who looked less likely to pitch forward onto his face than he