Page 136 of Psycho Pack

And yet...

She held my hand.

Offered comfort when I deserved none.

Just like she did for Wraith.

For all of them.

My father would say that makes her weak. That compassion is a fatal flaw. A defect to be bred out. To be extinguished. His own flesh and blood meant nothing to him. If anything, he took extra pleasure in torturing those of us who came from his own sperm.

I remember hunting him through the smoke and flames. Remember the way he tried to reason with me, to appeal to our shared blood.

As if that meant anything.

As if he hadn't spent years teaching me exactly how meaningless blood ties were. And I made sure he lived long enough to appreciate the irony. Made sure he understood that he had succeeded in his goal of creating the perfect killer.

Just not in the way he intended.

So if bonds forged in blood itself have no meaning, why would bonds forged in precarious, capricious bullshit liketrustandaffectionandlovemean anything? Blood at least means something to most people in this fucked up world.

But they do mean something.

Not just something.

Everything.

And that terrifies me more than any torture ever could.

I'm not just attached to this pack and the omega at the center. It goes against everything I've ever believed, everything that I am, but I'm afraid I'm starting to love them.

It makes me shudder.

I find myself in what appears to be some kind of temple. More white marble, more gold filigree. Plush chairs arranged around low tables. Gauzy curtains drifting in a breeze I can't feel.Incense with a sweet scent smoking in ornate holders shaped like the bird herself.

She stands in the center of a colorful mosaic that spans the room from wall to wall, her impossible wings casting rainbow shadows across the marble floor and the white stones that form an identical image of her in the floor. She cocks her head at me, third eye gleaming with ancient wisdom.

Magic isn't real.

Neither are gods.

But in this moment, this strange feathered beast feels as real as I do.

"I see you made it off the train," I say dryly, swaying slightly on my feet.

"Yes,"she says softly, her voice echoing in my skull. "And this is the last time you will see me, Valek."

I grin at that. "You know my name?"

"Of course I do," she replies, her head arching back on that serpentine neck to preen a long white feather in her slender beak."I know every child of mine who is called to Surhiira."

"I wasn't called anywhere," I say. "I followed an omega and her pack of idiots onto a train. Not exactly a divine summons."

All the bird's eyes gleam with clear amusement."And yet here you are,"she says, her voice resonating like a bell."Following your heart rather than your head for the first time in your life."

I bare my teeth in what might be a smile or a snarl. "I don't have a heart. They carved that out of me long ago."

"You're not as broken as you think,"she says, her voice resonating."Just cracked in all the right places to let the light in."