“You don’t look special to me,” I panted, seeing Pierce horrified and afraid to do anything. He was next to Vivian, and Ivy was at their feet. I have to get back to them.

“But I am,” Ku’Sox snarled, sounding almost unhappy. “You know why Newt killed her sisters? I told her to. Newt I could control, but the others? They were a danger and had to be killed. Females can hold more energy than males. They have to in order to hold a second independent field of energy inside them without absorbing it.”

That was interesting, and my thoughts went back to what Ku’Sox had said earlier about my holding Al’s energy, supplementing it. Had I been able to do it because I was female?

“Two souls in one body,” Ku’Sox said, shifting his hold on me and smacking my hand until it went numb. My grip slipped away, and he started forward again. “Two energy fields bound by one aura without the smaller being crushed or absorbed. That’s where babies come from, Rachel, not cabbage leaves. And once I got Newt to kill all her sisters, there was no one left to tell me no, especially when all I needed to do was slide into reality to escape. And then I find you. Natural born. Unknown possibilities. Stronger? Weaker? Let’s find out.”

Crap, we were almost to the door. “I’m all for finding out who’s stronger,” I said, and then I reached for the line I’d never fully released, demanding all that Vegas could give me.

Energy raced in, hot and electric, tasting of dust, sand, and lightning that beat on the desert floor, the power of the sun kept clean and unblemished, the sands storing it like a battery.

I pushed it out through my pores, teeth gritted. It didn’t hurt, but it burned like fire.

Howling, Ku’Sox flung me from him.

I arched through the air, grunting when I hit a table. I slid to the floor, hurting. Damn, it felt like my back was broken. “You’re right,” I slurred as I felt Ivy’s hands reach under my armpits and drag me back to Vivian and Pierce. “I can hold more than you.”

When I could focus again, I looked up to see Vivian, fear on her face for what she was about to do. Pierce took my hand, and I dampened the energy flowing through me so I wouldn’t fry them. Vivian took my other, and when Pierce grasped her free fingers, completing our circle, I took a deep breath, feeling the alien-ness of them with me.

“Fire in the hold,” I whispered, opening my mind and gathering both Pierce and Vivian into my thoughts, now realizing that I could, like a mother with twins. It was akin to sharing a spell, as we had done in my garden, but there would be no will but my own here. For an instant, their souls were mine—my strength was lent to them, and they didn’t know the difference, didn’t know that I directed them. Mine.