[Torture. Pure and simple, that's what it was. They'd tortured her, all because of an ability she didn't have any control over. And now there's a rage rising in him as she says this, her words almost getting lost in the roaring in his ears born from pure fury and a desire to hunt each and every person responsible for that down and kill them brutally.

He isn't proud of that side of him. But right now, he doesn't give a damn.

It isn't until she's moving his hand that he snaps back to reality and turns his head to look at her. And oh, does he understand that feeling.]

My stepfather deliberately injected me with an artificially-strengthened version of this virus in an attempt to make me a suitable mate for Eve. I was lucky; I survived. Most of the others didn't. They died right in front of me, and I lived in fear that I was going to be next.

[Torture is something he understands far too well.]