The air in the wastes had always been cold, but the chill radiating from Leo’s skin was different it was the clinical, absolute zero of a vacuum. Nala scrambled backward, her palms scraping against the jagged obsidian pebbles. The man standing before her moved with a terrifying, liquid grace, his joints popping like static electricity as he straightened his spine.
"Leo, stop it!" Nala’s voice cracked, her hand instinctively reaching for the pulse blade at her hip. But her fingers met empty air. The weapon was back in the tower, a casualty of the leap.
Leo or the thing wearing his skin tilted his head. The scarlet pulse in his pupils intensified, mapping out her heat signature in a grid of jagged light. When he spoke again, the voice was a sickening duet: Leo’s rough, earthy baritone laye
