Zen
Quinn wasn't the Euodia he knew.
And that filled him with a sickly growing hope, all love dusted joy and a swelling warbling warmth. His mind had worked on overdrive, jumping hoops, skipping steps. If Euodia had the power to summon relics from the past, she'd done so in a heartbeat.
Quinn's ability was new, and that was good news, exciting news. A news that changed things, shifted the scales in his favour. It was more points he could make, more arguments that he'd use with the ever so logical Klaus. It'd buy him time to save her life when it came to it.
But paranoia still flavoured his tongue, roiled in his guts, warning signs and alarm bells blaring. His trust had been broken a thousand times today. And the betterment of their worsening condition, just seemed too damn good to be true. God, Hyon, he didn't want to think about Hyon.
"Explain," Zen had snarled out, more bark than bite.
Quinn drove with a surety that quickened his heart. A single heavy hand on the wheel, long, slender fingers drumming on the arm rest. Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, lush bottom lip trapped under teeth, tongue to cheek. She was always the most gorgeous of creatures; hair now a shorn off pixie that carved out the femininity of her features. Elysian's bite was a light glistening gold on her skin. A colour that would only grow darker and prettier with Zen's mark.
Her eyes shifted to his, and violent need strangled the air from his chest. He was longing not just for her blood, for her sustenance, but for her. She was nothing like Euodia. Her expressions changed her features, her smiles buried that monster who was merely like a parasitic twin. And it delighted the sickness in him to know that she was different.
Quinn seemed to test the words on her tongue, rolling them out once and twice in her head. Her gaze moved to the rearview mirror. And Zen noted that she was calculating the risks,looking at Helios, Rowan, and then himself. She must know that they had no cards, that there was a high chance they'd die from the perils of their new environment.
And her Alpha's command had his Omega weakening so greatly for her that his knees had buckled, hot with the anticipation for more. Zen squeezed his legs together not wanting to think about the sweetness of perfection in the air. The cinnamon tinge of her scent, heavy and echoing. He was so greedy for the wealth of it, that his eyes had stung with tears.
She had their lives in her hands.
"There's a limit," she offered first, a carrot dangled before them. Zen tried to ignore the heady sound that stirred up his insides, his eagerness growing, breaking slightly with the desperation for more.
"What kind?" Helios's voice had rattled out softly, still stroking the leather like it was God. His mate was laid over Rowan's lap, looking too good for a fairy that had broken his wings. "I dreamt of a refrigerator in the wastelands." He pointed an accusatory finger at her, hands reached out as if desperate to touch the stars. Their star. "You had a refrigerator."
"I did," Quinn agreed. "But that wasn't new."
"It was newer than what we have by decades. Just like this vehicle." Helios raised a hand. "And what is this? Where is this all coming from? No," he choked out, shaking his head violently. "W-who are you?"
That had a laugh erupting from her lips, a bark of incredulity. "I'm not an alien," Quinn retorted, a snort laced in her throat. There was a long pause and then she sighed, resolve crumbling. The sounds she made were criminal, like something dizzying grazing his mind. But his heart pounded, not from adoration but from a sudden rising fear. Fear of her secrets, of what she'd say, of the truth. His muscles were taut, suddenly aware of the danger. "I don't know if you'll believe me."
"Just say it," Zen interrupted, voice so sharp it was almost razor thin. His fingers dug into his suit, nails in his flesh. Tell them. Tell them who you are. Tell me who you are. He prepared himself for the answer, ready to protect her from his own mates. He'd protect her with his life.
"I died," she said, nonchalant as if it were just a passing remark. And Zen flinched at her words, trying to snuff out the shaking in his hands. His blood roared. The anticipation of the answer grew. "I was killed."
Rowan was gawking, mouth still open and hanging. He'd yet to close it ever since she'd unleashed her powers. "The fuck?"
"Do you want the truth as I understand it?" She turned the wheel easily, seemed oddly undisturbed by the topic. She must have practiced it a million times, or perhaps Zen just couldn't see through her mask. "Or the truth that you'll understand?"
Zen snapped, anxiety running too damn fucking high. "The real one."
She looked at him then. "Even if it's the most fucked up answer you'll ever hear?"
He swallowed. "Just say it."
"I was from another world," Quinn said with a shrug and that answer had him freezing, confusion blossoming. "And my world was far better than what you have now. No extreme climate change, no catastrophe, no war, no Alpha, Beta, Omega bullshit. Just monopolies and capitalism. Females and males on a somewhat equal standing. I had a job inventing things, making tech. Maybe it was your history, far into the past, who knows?"
What the fuck?
"I read a book, and then I died. I woke up here in this body, conveniently in the same goddamn universe of the book I'd just read. So, I knew the basics, I knew what to do. It was enough to push it all on amnesia and yet provide me with the basic skills to survive."
She choked out a laugh, a single hand raised as if in surrender. Zen's brain seemed to slow to a halt.
"Look, I could be out of my mind, a psycho. Maybe my brain's the one that is broken, and I was truly born here, and I lost my mind here. You'll think of those reasons. And I did too. What if my world was just a dream? What if I'm just a lunatic? But what I do have that proves that I'm not batshit crazy, is the tech I worked on in my other life. The tech that no one has. The tech that summons things that shouldn't exist."
Zen's mind was blank, coiling over her reason, so bizarre that it was beyond his wildest dreams. He'd anticipated another answer, something a tad more realistic. What the fuck was this? It had Zen quivering, unable to process, almost enraged, torn between two parts of himself. And yet, it explained a lot of things about Quinn.
He levelled his gaze on his Alpha, the fear transforming steadily into curiosity. The talk about equality. The anger. The inability to accept their customs. The way she trembled as if wronged. The thing about soulmates.
Euodia would never say that.
Someone with amnesia could never make this all up on the go. And the part in him that was fey, that gut instinct that could read traces of the truth. That ability that was usually marred by his blood, muddy and useless from the glowing orb of his godly strength. Gods, it knew. It knew with shocking clarity that Quinn wasn't lying. Instead, it fuelled that joy; the joy that told him Quinn was not her. The joy that had him suddenly fantasising of burning touches, of gentle kisses of the velvety skin.
The joy that told him he was free from the guilt of their past.
And suddenly it felt like his sensibilities were melting like goo, switching from a sharpened liquor to a heady chocolate. He believed her, and that seemed to melt the last of his restraints, pulverise the walls that he'd stack up for his pack. Suddenly all he could fucking think about was the curve of her jaw, the swell of her lips. The dance of his name on her tongue.
She was not Euodia in spirit.
He was allowed to love her.
Quinn was just Quinn.
Zen resisted the urge to pant, suddenly feeling better and lighter than ever before. And yet also so much worse.
Rowan was first to speak. "So, the blue light?"
"The blue light is technology I designed," she explained, a free hand through her dark hair. "It allows me to obtain items from your history. Aside from that, I can detect movement, signs of life. It can tell me where the Lonely are, and where people are to a certain degree. It works in a big enough radius to keep us safe. And it gives me the ability to wield its energy like a weapon temporarily if I'm in danger."
Helios's voice was small, whispered out like an echo. He'd risen from Rowan's lap, surprise invigorating him. He was still drinking in her thoughts, head lightly pressed against the back of her seat. "You're telling the truth." His eyes were wide, feasting on her emotions. He confirmed the last of Zen's shattering walls with an echoed sound of horror. "You truly believe you were dead."
"I was," she agreed. "I woke up in this body in the wastelands."
Rowan gawked. "Body? Then—"
"I used to look like someone else. Someone I couldn't recognise," Quinn shrugged. "Believe it or not. Now it looks like me, or at least what I can remember." She smiled.
Someone else.
Zen stared.
But if Quinn wasn't Euodia then what would that make him? What would that mean for them? What had they fucking done to the most innocent person in the world? What the fuck were they doing? The coldness suddenly seemed to explode with the confusion, flooding through him along with a numbness that threatened to destroy everything he believed to be true.
They were going to kill her.
They still planned to kill her.
Amnesia didn't mean a thing. Blood was still on her hands.
The person Zen had been willing to kill had been Euodia, had been a Beta that might have forgotten but was still a part of this filthy world. He did not sign up to murder an outsider. Someone that could be completely and utterly, innocent.
Someone like the Zen from before.
Someone who played no part in this shitty game.
But her body was Euodia, right?
But her soul…Her soul.
His tongue was numb, cotton-like and too thick for speech. There were so many more questions Zen wanted to ask, and they bounced in his head, tingled on his tongue with an awfulness that jumped like snakes in his belly. He opened his mouth, shaking as he tried to formulate his sentences. But she seemed to clamp up then, a frown bunched between her brows.
"We're almost here. I've got to cut the engine when we get too close." She dropped the speed of the vehicle, and the engine's rattle slowed. Zen felt like he was dying. "We'll have to walk the rest of the way."