The Brightest Night

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  “What?” I laughed again. “How do you figure?”

  “I was a good, conscientious boy for years, Evie. Years.”

  I snorted.

  “You doubt me?”

  “You were not entirely a good boy just because you hadn’t had…”

  “Because I hadn’t had … what? You can say it. It’s just three pearl-clutching letters pieced together.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sex.”

  “Are you blushing?”

  “Are you?” I shot back.

  “Yes. Because I am still a pure—”

  “Ass?”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  “Oh my God.” I laughed even harder now. “Yeah, you sound like such a good boy.”

  “Like I said, I was.” He moved again, this time stretching above so that his lips brushed my cheek when he spoke next. “But now? With you?” He moved his mouth to my ear. The words he whispered in my ear scorched my skin and sent a tingle down my spine. “That’s who I am now.”

  Biting down on my lip, I closed my eyes as my toes curled into the messy blankets.

  “What do you think?” he asked, his teeth catching the skin there.

  I opened my eyes. I love who you are.

  A dark rumble of approval skated over my skin. Evie?

  Somehow I knew what he was asking. Maybe it was in the way he said my name. It could’ve just been the ever-present bond there, forged over years I couldn’t remember and strengthened from the moment we came back into each other’s lives.

  I lifted my head, turning it toward him. His mouth found mine, and it was the kind of kiss that made me believe spontaneous combustion was possible. The kiss was a match striking, and I was on fire. We both were.

  26

  It was sometime later when Luc shifted onto his side, facing me with one foot tucked between my calves.

  He toyed with the strands of my hair while I lay there, eyes closed and enjoying the gentle tug and release of his fingers. “It’s time,” he said with a sigh. “For us to be mature and responsible. We need to talk.”

  We did. “I wish we could stay like this, like right now, forever.”

  “You have no idea how much I agree with that statement,” he said, and I was thinking I kind of did, but I opened my eyes. “How much do you remember?”

  “Everything,” I answered. “Well, everything up until you were healing me. Things got fuzzy then.”

  “How convenient,” he murmured.

  “I remember attaching myself to you—”

  “Like we were made of Velcro?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Focus,” he teased. “Tell me what you remember.”

  “I remember everything from the moment the Source slid into the driver’s seat.” I told him about the Cassio Wave and what Sarah had claimed, what I’d felt during the whole time. “It was different. I didn’t have control, but I wasn’t psychotic.”

  “You think you didn’t have control?” He arched a brow.

  “I had no idea how I did what I did. The Source did it. Not me.”

  “You didn’t hurt a single person. Not when you forced us out of the house—which, by the way, you ever do that again, I will straight up lose my mind.”

  I opened my mouth.

  “I get why you did it. You recognized what she was, what she was capable of, and you wanted to protect us. That’s admirable. Hell, more than that.” He let go of my hair. “But I don’t need you to protect me. I don’t need you to worry about protecting me. That will distract you and could’ve made you vulnerable.”

  I stared at him as I rose onto my elbows. “Are you done with your rant yet?”

  “Actually, no. Sarah could’ve kicked my ass from here to kingdom come and back. She might’ve even hurt me. Doubtful, but hey, stranger things have happened,” he went on, and my eyes narrowed. “You may be a badass Trojan, but I’m yours. You’re mine. That means when you go toe to toe with anyone or anything, you go to battle with me beside you, and if I go down fighting to back you up, there won’t be a single part of me that regrets that. It’s my choice, and you took that.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you done now?”

  He smiled. “Yes. I am.”

  “You would’ve done the same thing, right? And don’t you dare lie. You would’ve dragged my butt out of that room if you could’ve. It wouldn’t have mattered how many other people get hurt, as long as I’m okay?”

  “Right.”

  “Wrong.”

  His smile faded.

  “First off, I know you want to protect me, and yeah, it’s one of the reasons why I love you,” I said, and his little frown turned upside down. That didn’t last long. “But I’m not about letting everyone crash and burn around us. I can protect you while I’m protecting others, so I know damn well you can do it. Secondly, the whole ‘it’s your choice, and I took it’? That’s a two-way street, buddy. I cannot even count the number of times you whisked me away to safety while everyone else, including you, took huge risks. Remember your little rant next time the crap hits the fan and you stand in front of me instead of beside me.”

  Luc stared at me, and then he said, “Shit.”

  “Yep.”

  “You got me.”

  “I know.” I smiled then, big and bright.

  He didn’t look quite so thrilled.

  Whatever.

  “Anyway, glad we got that out of the way so we can get back on topic,” I said. “You think I had control just because I didn’t hurt anyone?”

  His eyes narrowed, and then he leaned over, kissing me. “It’s a good thing I think you’re adorable.” He pulled back. “You blew a house and a Trojan to teeny-tiny little glittering bits and only shattered a couple of nearby windows. So, yeah, I think you had some level of control, whether you realized that or not.”

  “You think I had control on a subconscious level?”

  “I think you weren’t afraid of what you are. I think you trusted yourself,” he said, and I didn’t know if that was true or not. I’d been scared of the risk I was taking, but—“But you were more afraid of Sarah hurting someone and you were more afraid of her turning you into something else.”

  “Yeah.” Disappointment rose. “I wish I hadn’t destroyed that Cassio Wave. We could’ve studied that, even used it to see what it would do. She made it sound like the Daedalus wasn’t sure.”

  “It would’ve been good to have that, but it’s best that it wasn’t used on you.”

  That wasn’t the only thing I wished I had possibly handled differently, and maybe that was why I was reluctant to accept that on some level I did have control, because that meant …

  That meant it was me who’d killed Sarah.

  “Evie?” His voice was soft.

  “Sarah hadn’t been trained like I have. She admitted that when I cornered her in that house. She knew it was over. That she’d failed. I could’ve backed off, let her live. That would’ve been the smarter thing. We could’ve questioned her, could’ve compared her to me to see just how different I am—”

  “But that’s not what happened.”

  “No,” I whispered. “She stopped fighting me, Luc. Closed her eyes and stopped, and I was disgusted by the fact she had failed, and if I had control, that was me. That wasn’t the Source, not completely.”

  “It’s not entirely unheard of for the Source to make hybrids more aggressive. The key is to recognize when it is having that kind of effect on you. It’s not something you can’t change.” His finger touched my upper arm. “I have a question for you.”

  “Okay.”

  “If you were cornered by a Trojan who you believed could beat you, what would you do if it backed off once you stopped fighting?”

  “I would—” I stopped myself before I answered in the way I would’ve a year ago. “Honest?”

  He drew his finger down to my elbow. “Honest.”

  “I would attack,” I admitted, feeling cruddy. “I mean, that’
s what would make sense.”

  “It would.” He dragged his finger back up my arm, making little circles. “Showing mercy can be a weakness that can be exploited.”

  “You think that’s what Sarah would’ve done?”

  “Possibly.”

  I wanted so badly to latch onto that, so I could tell myself I’d done the right thing.

  You did the only thing you were trained to do.

  “That doesn’t make it okay.”

  “Doesn’t make it wrong, either.” Luc curled his hand around my bent elbow. “Having Sarah here to question would’ve been great, but it would’ve been a hell of a risk. We have no idea what she would’ve done or if we could’ve even contained her. You did what I would’ve done, and I know that’s not saying much. I am a bit more trigger-happy than you will ever be, but she was here to see if she could turn you into something like her. What if you let that heart of yours, that beautiful but soft heart, make that call and she hurt you? Hurt someone else? You would never forgive yourself for that.”

  He was making all kinds of sense, but what if Sarah wouldn’t have attacked? She’d known she’d been defeated, that she had failed and it was over. She was ready to die—

  “Do you think the Daedalus would’ve trained any of you to lie down and die? You don’t remember your time there, but I do. So do Zoe and Kat. Dawson and Daemon and Beth. Ask Archer.” His thumb smoothed over the skin above my elbow. “She may have only spent a short time there, but you can be damn sure that fighting to the death was drilled into her. Not a part of me believes for one second she wasn’t playing possum. To the Daedalus, failure—”

  “—is the option for those who court death,” I finished.

  His jaw flexed. “You had another memory? You didn’t tell me that.”

  “It was just a brief one. It wasn’t important.”

  “Anything you remember is important.” He tugged on my arm and wiggled a few inches closer.

  I told him what I remembered. “That was all. Nothing big.”

  “You saw someone dead, bleeding out on the floor, and that’s not a big deal? Jesus.” He scooted the rest of the distance, folding his arm around my shoulder. I snuggled in under his chin. His hand curled around my hair. “I’m right about Sarah.”

  “You’re saying that because you think you’re right about everything.”

  “I am.”

  My laugh was muffled against his chest.

  “And I’m definitely right about this.”

  “Okay.” I let it go. For now. “I can’t believe I destroyed a house.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Fine?” I drew back enough that I could see his face. “How is blowing up a house fine?”

  “It was unlivable and basically being scrapped for parts.” He paused. “What you did was really badass.”

  A small smile tugged at my lips. “It was.”

  Dipping his chin, he brushed his lips along my forehead. “There’s something else we need to talk about.”

  “What Sarah was doing with them in the first place?”

  “Yeah, that, too, but something else.”

  “Oh, goodie.”

  His arm tightened. “When the Source took over, you went quiet. I couldn’t pick up any of your thoughts. Not until the whole house thing. Then I could hear your thoughts again.”

  I tossed an arm over his waist. “What do you think it means that you couldn’t hear me at first?”

  “I don’t know,” he said as I rubbed my nose against his chest, and he sucked in a breath. “Why is your nose so cold?”

  I giggled. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  That was true. I thought about what he said. “Maybe Viv is completely right, and I was rebooting, and when I got close to coming online”—man, that sounded weirder than I’d ever thought possible—“you could hear me again. Doesn’t explain why you couldn’t hear me in the beginning.”

  “Could be because that was when you started to reboot, and I couldn’t—”

  “Oh my God!” I jerked, wincing as it pulled at my back.

  Concern flashed across his face. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. I just remembered something I figured out before everything went down,” I exclaimed. “It’s Nadia!”

  He jolted. “What?”

  It wasn’t often that I saw Luc so caught off guard, and it was sort of amazing. I wanted to revel in it, but now wasn’t the time for that. “Kat said something the other day that has been driving me crazy. She said you might’ve done something in the woods that snapped me out of it. And you did. It was the same thing you said when I was doing the deep-sleep thing. I heard you, and that’s what woke me up. You called me Nadia. Both times.”

  Luc swallowed hard, and then his expression smoothed out. “Yeah.” He cleared his voice. “I did both times. I know you hate that—”

  “I don’t.”

  A brow raised.

  “Okay. I did at first, because it was confusing, and it’s still weird. I mean, I don’t know her—I mean, I don’t know me.” Groaning, I tried again. “It’s just weird. All I know is that it doesn’t upset me anymore because I am her, and that part of me responded to you. I was mutated and trained as Nadia, not Evie, so that has to mean something, right? There has to be a connection there.”

  He smoothed my hair back. “I think it means exactly what you said a few moments ago. That you are her, and I’m thinking that because you went through the mutation as her, there’s a level of consciousness there that I can reach.” He exhaled slowly. “That’s good to know. It’s another avenue if things escalate. Something I can try before shutting you down.”

  “Did you try to shut me down today?”

  “No.” He tucked the hair back behind my ear. “You went quiet so fast, but—”

  “But you could’ve done it the moment I told you I was losing control.”

  “I could’ve, but I wanted to see what you’d do first.”

  “Oh my God, Luc.” I stared at him. “What if I did go banana-pants crazy and you couldn’t reach me?”

  “I was willing to hedge my bets that you wouldn’t.” He dropped his hand back to my arm. “I told you this before, Peaches. I believe in you; I believe that you won’t ever let yourself get to the point you did in the woods, and you haven’t. Not since you had that nightmare, and the big difference there? You started to use the Source. You stopped being afraid of it. You started to trust yourself, and it’s far past time you start believing in yourself.”

  My heart flipped over. God, he was right.

  “I know.”

  I ignored that comment.

  “Why is it so hard for you to do so?” he asked quietly.

  Man, that was a hard question to answer, to explain. I shifted onto my back, relieved to discover it didn’t hurt. There was a dip in my stomach when I thought again that I’d actually, literally been shot earlier. My brain couldn’t process that as I slipped a hand under the sheet and found the small, ultrasmooth patch of healing skin. “Will it scar?”

  “The one on your back? The entrance wound? It’s already a faint mark. By tomorrow, it will probably be gone. The chest will probably scar, but it won’t be too noticeable in a couple of days. It will look like a scar from a wound that occurred years ago.”

  “That’s weird. Like, I can’t even fathom that.” I prodded at the skin, wincing. “It’s tender.”

  “Yeah.” He reached over, pulling my hand out from under the sheet. “So try not poking it.”

  “Good call.”

  He was quiet while I resisted the urge to poke around more. “Peaches?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why won’t you believe in yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” I sighed, staring at the dark ceiling. But was that really true? I didn’t think so. “I think Eaton was right. I keep allowing myself to think like I’m the Evie from before and that things are out of my control, because…”

  Luc rose onto his elb
ow. “Why do you think that’s easier?”

  I closed my eyes, the truth hard to speak, to acknowledge. Because that’s how I’ve always felt. Like I’ve never had control in anything.

  “That’s not entirely true.”

  Opening my eyes, I turned my head toward him. “How so?”

  “Before, even when you faced things that were out of your control, like your father and getting sick? You did everything to gain back as much control as you could. You faced things head-on, no matter what cards you were being dealt,” he said. “And that fierce strength is still inside you. That couldn’t be stomped out by any serum, not completely.”

  Nadia was a badass, but she was me, and I wondered just how much of her still existed in me. If who I used to be was why, as Evie, I always felt so stifled and aimless, as if I’d been shoved into a skin that didn’t fit.

  “Your life as Nadia was mostly erased, but even the night you walked into the club, I saw so many of Nadia’s qualities in you. It wasn’t just the certain foods or drinks you liked or didn’t. It was more than your love of photography. It was in the way you wouldn’t let me intimidate you, how you pushed back even before you knew if you were safe with me or not. That was all Nadia. So is your inherent strength. Most people would’ve cracked under the pressure and everything you’ve been through. You haven’t. Just like you didn’t when you did what you needed to do to get away from your father. The same as you did when you were diagnosed with cancer. You kept going.”

  His gaze searched mine. “They may have taken your memories and put you in skin that didn’t fit, but you have always been in there, and I have to think having that strength and that willpower leashed for so long made you feel like there was no control. Maybe it was even your subconscious trying to tell you something wasn’t right.”

  I thought about what Eaton had said. “Time to take back the power of my real name—my real identity.”

  Luc didn’t respond to that, but I knew that was right. It was far past that time, and realizing that wasn’t a life-altering moment, not in any way that I could feel. It wasn’t like all of a sudden I had no fear and believed that I was capable of everything and anything. Nor did it mean that I would suddenly start answering to Nadia, but it was a long-overdue step in the right direction and then some.