Atonement Sky – Psy-Changeling Trinity Read Online Nalini Singh

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Tags Authors:
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Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
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The smell of blood, thick and rich and fresh, hit his nose the instant he threw open the hatch, the scent contained in the small space bursting out into the desert. Rage bubbling inside him, and conscious that the noise of the winds when he’d opened the hatch had blown any chance of stealth, he called Eleri’s name as he jumped down into darkness now lit by the daylight from above, sand swirling inside with him as the winds continued to howl.

No reply from Eleri, but he didn’t need it.

His mate lay slumped against a beam that held up the roof of this place designed for confinement. The prison was otherwise empty of life.

Falling on his knees beside her, he took her into his arms.

Dark red stained the front of her shirt, and when her head tipped back over his arm, he saw that her tears were blood. Darker than when she’d worked with Jacques. And it wasn’t just her eyes.

Blood everywhere.

Eleri was bleeding out from her pores, as if her body was pumping the life-giving fluid outward as her brain misfired.

“No, you don’t get to do this,” he snarled and laid her flat on the straw-dusted dirt floor so he could better check her vitals.

Her skin was warm, but he could barely feel her breath even when he put his face only an inch away from her mouth. As for her pulse, to call it thready was an exaggeration. She was so close to death that she was standing on the precipice of the cliff into nothingness.

Then she stepped over.

Her heart stopped beating. Her chest fell and didn’t rise again.

“No.” Adam didn’t think about it; he semi-shifted to slice his palm with his talon, then did the same to her palm and clamped them together. “You fucking stay.” They weren’t done by a long shot.

He didn’t know if the attempt at a blood bond would work, but it was all he had. She wasn’t falcon, but she was his, and if he could blood-bond Psy children to keep them safe in the event of a PsyNet collapse, why not his J?

The girl who’d wanted to give him a bandage, her eyes soft and vibrant with life. The fellow adventurer who, hand in hand with him, had run out of a cave with annoyed bats winging around them. The determined J who’d fought for the life of his best friend. The mate with wonder in her who’d held out an arm so a tired fledgling could land on it.

“Don’t you do this to me.” It came out a harsh repudiation because Adam wasn’t going to feel grief, refused to feel grief. “You don’t get to just leave!”

He knew the lack of a heartbeat meant she’d have lost her connection to the PsyNet. He also knew Psy could be pulled into changeling networks. So he pulled, using all the strength that made him wing leader, all the power that made him her mate.

“We haven’t finished this fight,” he snarled, and pressed his lips to hers, giving her his breath before he used his hands to pump at her chest, try to get her heart going.

Their blood mingled again, her shirt drenched with it.

He breathed for her again. “I won’t let you do this,” he said, so angry with her that it wasn’t anything rational. “You fucking breathe.”

Another hard pump of her heart.

A kick…inside him. A jolt as another mind appeared in the network his wing leader heart knew without ever seeing it. She was there, with WindHaven, but barely. A flickering light about to go out all over again.

The sandstorm halted at the same instant, as if wary of snuffing her out.

The sounds of wings closing outside, the silence of the shift, then two clanmates jumping inside.

Naia was the second.

“Malia wouldn’t let me stay with her,” the healer said. “She was panicked, says the man who held her gave Eleri narcotics—he managed to give her a second shot right before she helped Malia escape. From what I know of Psy physiology and drug reactions, her blood is now toxic and will be affecting her mind.”

Adam’s eyes fell on Eleri’s bare hands. If the murderer had touched her, she might be in even worse trouble—but he would not go down that path. She could call him deluded and too hopeful for it when she woke, could even laugh at him. He didn’t care.

“She died. For less than a minute.” It was hard to speak, hard to not just hold her tight. “I’ve got her, but barely.”

His eye caught on blood on the ground. Shapes. Letters.

Hen—

Movement, a bag being dropped inside. Naia’s gear. Adam reached to pull it closer with his free hand while locking his sliced-open palm to Eleri’s once more. You stay. Don’t you dare leave me. Not again, Eleri. Please, my wild bird. Stay.


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