Ouroboros 4: End Read Free

changed her.
    She felt . . . cold.
    As realization took her, it slithered up and down her spine with a chilling, creeping touch. Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself.
    She couldn’t keep them there though—all too soon, she found herself untucking her left hand and staring down at it.
    She had never enjoyed power. Though she had always tried at the Academy, her best efforts had been next to useless.
    So she wasn’t used to the . . . fire that came along with power. The knowledge that you could change your environment if only you tried hard enough, if only you stoked up the fire within until it burnt through all obstacles.
    All of a sudden, she closed her eyes and pressed her right hand over her face.
    ‘No,’ she said aloud.
    This wasn’t her.
    Who cared if she had the power of the entity? Who cared if she could push past it in order to use its energy as her own? Who cared if she could lift a Barbarian into the air with little more than a thought and a wish?
    She wasn’t going to turn into it.
    She would not become the entity.
    She would not sacrifice the lives of others for her goal.
    . . . .
    Or would she?
    She had to save the Coalition, and she had promised Carson she would be prepared to do whatever it would take. And surely that meant sacrificing others.
    . . . .
    Wasn’t that what the entity had done? Albeit on a grander scale?
    She shook her head, trying to push the thoughts from her mind.
    She couldn’t.
    They kept creeping up on her. The more she tried to concentrate on the dark, ominous tunnel around her, the more the immediate situation slipped from her consciousness to be replaced by thoughts of what everything now meant.
    Clutching her hands into fists, she waited for Carson to return. She needed him to come marching back to her side, to pull her forward as they plunged back into the fray. For while she fought, she did not think.
    And maybe that’s the real reason she wanted to keep pushing forward, despite the odds—perhaps that was the only way to hide from the consequences of her newfound power and responsibility.
    As she thought, she swore the shadows deepened around her, she swore the chill of the room ate further and faster into her bones until she shivered and shook.
    It felt like the world was pulling in on her, as if the universe was somehow condensing into a point.
    ‘Come on,’ she told herself through gritted teeth.
    Though there were no Barbarians in this section of the tunnels—as Carson would never have left her otherwise—she still had to keep her wits about her.
    The thoughts . . . could wait.
    Wait until the situation died down far enough for Nida to truly pause to think about what she was doing, what she had become, and what she’d have to transform into next if she truly wanted to see this through.
     

Chapter 2
    Carson Blake
    He hated to leave her, but he couldn’t keep pushing her forward, not when she looked as though she was ready to break.
    Though she had awesome power now, he could tell it cost her every time she used the entity.
    Her face was pallid and drawn from fatigue.
    So he’d made a quick decision—leave her there while he scouted out the immediate tunnels, looking for a place to hide.
    . . . .
    But that was the problem—there was no place to hide down here. Of course there wasn’t. Though the tunnels seemed to go on indefinitely, so did the Barbarian’s desire to capture or kill both him and Nida.
    Carson wasn’t ready to give in though.
    Because there was one option he hadn’t explored yet.
    Contacting the cavalry.
    He knew there must be Coalition ships around—they would still be looking for Nida. Before this insane time-travel journey had begun, Admiral Forest and half the 5th Fleet had been out tracking Nida down after she’d trashed the Academy.
    They would still be out there.
    No time had passed for them.
    Which meant Carson had an option.
    If he could get a message to them, and ride out the Barbarian storm, he could