A wave of dizziness washed over Edge, threatening to send him back to the floor. Once again, sweat coated his skin, and he could feel the legs of insects crawling across his body. Nausea churned in his stomach.

He kept his head up and focused on the other side of the narrow cell. It was three steps. He could make three steps. His lips parted and he licked them.

Step, he commanded his body. Move your leg.

His body refused to follow his mental command. The sweat began to form rivulets trickling down from his temple and between his shoulders. The metal from the wrist cuffs cut into the palm of his clenched left fist.

Step, he commanded again.

This time, his leg moved with a jerky, uncoordinated movement. He kept one hand braced against the wall. Swallowing, he sent the command again. His steps were jerky and unsure, as if he were an infant learning to walk. He made it two steps before he started to tilt. He quickly stretched out his arms and braced his hands on the wall across from him.

His jaw ached from clamping his teeth together. He desperately wanted to pull his hands away from the wall. The insects were coming back out of the metal. A small part of his brain knew that they weren’t really there, but his eyes saw them, and his skin felt their touch. The sweat was pouring off his body now as he began to shake.

Expect company…

Someone was coming. The thought sent another wave of panic and rage through him. Had the woman been real? Was she part of the Waxian’s plan to get information from him?

“Walk,” he desperately mumbled. “I have to be able to walk. She doesn’t want to carry my ass out of here.”

Turning, he continued to force his body to listen to him even as the number of insects doubled and then doubled again. Soon, he felt like he was wading through a sea of them. They were crawling up his legs. Their numbers continued to increase until they were up to his knees. His breathing became more erratic. He could feel his heart pounding until he was sure it would explode.

He turned his head when he heard a muffled sound outside the door, followed by a thump. Shaking, he continued to grip the metal handcuff in his hand as he fell back against the wall away from the door. Blinking his eyes to clear them, he gritted his teeth and waited.

The rattle of metal on metal and the turn of a key reverberated through his brain. Even the sound of his own breathing brought him a large amount of discomfort.

Edge braced himself for what was about to enter. He refused to fall without a fight. Nothing would stop him this time—not the insects, not the explosions going off in his mind, not the trembling and weakness of his body, not even the sudden presence of his imaginary Goddess giving him false hope. The time had come to end this nightmare once and for all.

The door slowly opened, and a shaft of light from the corridor cast a shadow on the figure pushing against it. Edge waited, sweat rolling down his trembling body, gripping his only weapon so tightly that he could feel the warmth of his blood sliding down from his cut palm to his wrist.

“Bloody hell! Can they make these damn doors any heavier?” a woman’s voice muttered.

“Just hurry, Lina. I know you said they don’t have any cameras, but I’d sure feel a lot better if we were already out of here,” another feminine voice replied.

“Almost… there,” Lina grunted.

Edge watched in disbelief as the door opened enough that the shadow could step inside. His pupils tried to contract because of the light. He pushed off the wall, his arm rising toward the person silhouetted in the doorway.

“Watch out!” the woman behind his goddess warned.

“Son-of-a-bitch! Don’t make me have to knock out your ass,” his goddess threatened, stepping forward and wrapping her hand around his uplifted wrist. “Drop it or I will.”

Edge’s breath caught in his throat. He swallowed several times before he could speak. His gaze remained locked in disbelief on the defiant face looking up at him.

“You… You are real,” he finally said in a hoarse voice.

The woman grinned at him with a wry expression on her face. “It’s good to see you standing. Now, let’s see if we can get out of here alive,” she replied, standing to the side. “Andy, take the lead.”

Edge watched as the other woman nodded and started to turn away. He took a step toward the door. His vision blurred and he shook his head to clear it. In the distance, he could hear a voice utter a low string of very colorful curses. Warm hands wrapped around his waist to steady him.

He caught snippets of words. It took a moment for his brain to translate them.

“Hold him,” one voice said.

“Shit! This isn’t going to be good,” another responded.

“We’ll have to drag him,” the first said.

Edge shook his head again. “No, I… can walk,” he muttered.

The arms around him tightened. The voice of his goddess sounded harsh but determined. Her refusal to allow him to give up was like a living thing in his mind.

“Prove it, warrior. Move your feet. We’ve got to get out of here now or we’re all going to die,” she stated. “Walk.”

“I can walk,” Edge muttered, lifting his foot and stepping forward.

“Andy, you lead. Shoot anything that gets in our way,” his goddess ordered before she turned her attention back to him. “Move your damn feet faster, soldier.”

“You are a very… bossy Goddess… with colorful language,” he informed her, his voice breaking as he tried to focus on not falling.

The other woman ahead of them snorted. The periphery of Edge’s vision grew dark and he blinked to clear it. The arm around his waist squeezed his side. His arm was draped over her shoulder.

“I’m too heavy,” he said, unable to do anything about it.

His goddess made a very unladylike noise. “No kidding. What did they do to you?” she asked.

Edge felt their pace slow, and the woman ahead of them murmured it was clear. Turning the corner, he braced his free hand on the wall to keep himself upright and steady. His hand slid across the smooth surface.

“Next left,” his goddess said.

“Drugs. My brain… skin… hurt,” he finally admitted.

“Damn!” the woman in front muttered.

Edge gripped the frame of the door when it opened. This room was darker than the corridor. He breathed a sigh of relief. The light hurt his eyes. The woman tugged him forward into the room.

“There’s a service lift in the back of the room, thank God. I forgot how big you aliens are,” his goddess groaned.

The other woman hurried forward and pressed the control button. The doors parted to show a lift. Edge stumbled forward into the small box. He closed his eyes and leaned against the lift wall. When the lift suddenly moved, he breathed deeply through his nose, trying to keep his stomach from expelling the churning acid inside.

“How in the hell are we going to get him across to the other building?” the other woman asked.

His goddess had guided him to the corner and was pressed up against him in an effort to keep him upright. He wanted to answer, but the effort to keep the nausea under control kept his mouth firmly closed.

“He’ll make it,” his goddess replied. “He has to.”

“He doesn’t look so good, Lina,” the woman remarked as the lift began to slow.

His goddess didn’t answer. Edge cracked his eyelids open when the lift drew to a stop. The woman with them stood to the side with a laser pistol leveled at the door. His goddess had stepped in front of him. She was standing protectively with her back pressed against his chest and her hands gripping another gun. The doors silently slid open to another dark room.

The woman by the door peered through the opening before she cautiously stepped out of the lift. A second later, she motioned for them to follow her. Edge automatically lifted his arm when his goddess turned and wrapped her arm around his waist again. Leaning heavily on her shoulder, he stumbled forward.

They were halfway across the room before he spoke. His throat was dry from dehydration and his voice rough from lack of use. Still, he could feel the danger surrounding them and knew he was a liability. His mind and body were shutting down.

“You… need to… leave me,” he croaked in a raspy voice.

“Shut up,” his goddess hissed in response.

A frown creased Edge’s brow. Anger began to build inside him. No one told him to shut up.

Licking his lips, he tried again. “I said… you need… to leave me… here. It is…. It is too dangerous… for you,” he insisted.

The woman glanced up at him with a scowl. “And I said shut the fuck up,” she replied, scanning the empty room.

Edge could feel the muscle in his jaw twitch at her response. A low growl of disapproval rumbled in his chest. Goddess or not, she needed to understand that he would not risk her life for his own.

Focusing inward, he commanded his body to listen to him. He felt the woman’s body stiffen in surprise when he straightened and tried to pull away from her. Her arm tightened around his waist while her fingers curled into the vest he was wearing.

“I will not endanger you,” he growled.

Her fingers curled against his side. “Don’t go getting all huffy and noble on me now. You can do that after we save your ass. Trust me, Trivator, we aren’t doing this for any other reason than that we need you, otherwise I would have left your ass to the Waxians,” she snapped.

“Roof is clear,” the other woman said.

Edge was surprised when he felt his body being turned and shoved up against the wall. The woman pressed her free hand against his chest. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he noted that she was surprisingly strong for someone so small. Her eyes flashed with a warning that made him want to smile. That astonishing fact registered in his tortured brain. He wanted to smile!

“I need you to keep your shit together for this next phase. We have to get across to the other building. We doubled the planks, but it is still too narrow for Andy or me to support you. You have a choice. You can either walk or we can try to carry you. If you screw up, it is a fifty-foot drop to the ground. It is only a matter of time before they discover you’re gone. Can you do this or not?” his goddess bit out in a soft, cold voice.

Edge gazed down at the face staring up at him. In the dim light, he saw her features better than he could before. Shoulder-length, dark-brown hair framed a face with a long nose, full lips, and fierce dark-brown eyes. Her black shirt and jacket highlighted the creamy column of her neck and the slight curve of her breasts, while her form-fitting black pants and boots showed an undeniably feminine figure.

“Why are you doing this?” he quietly asked.

The woman’s expression hardened. She slowly dropped her hand and stepped away from him. Lifting her chin, she stared at him with a look of challenge in her eyes.

“We need you. You are bigger than I remembered and there is no way Andy and I can carry your ass out of here. So, here’s the deal, if you want to get out of this dump, you need to prove it. It’s your call,” she stated in a voice laced with steel before she turned toward the door.

Edge watched the woman walk through the door. He took two steps and paused to grip the doorframe to steady himself. His gaze remained focused on her as he pushed away from the door and began to follow his Goddess.

He ignored his body’s demand that he stop and give up. Instead, he focused on the woman’s back as she walked away from him. He needed to stay with her. She was important. He needed… to help her… to protect her.

Once again, the instinctive knowledge of who she was flashed through the haze threatening to overtake his mind. The one thing a warrior craved above all. She belonged to him, his Amate. Adrenaline surged through him when the distance between them increased and he picked up speed to close the gap.