Eros stood alone among the wreckage he had wrought—three federal agents reduced to grotesque murals of crimson sprayed across concrete, black roses blooming from cracks where their blood had fallen. The air reeked of copper, ozone, and something older, something wrong. Heat still shimmered in waves that bent light around his body, but already that radiance was flickering, unsteady, like a dying bulb straining to stay lit.
Victory felt like drowning.
The first wave of exhaustion slammed into him, his body convulsing with the backlash of what he'd unleashed. His chest heaved, each breath jagged and uneven. The predator who had torn through trained killers with surgical cruelty now staggered, his legs buckling, muscles trembling like brittle wire.
He reached inward, tried to collapse the form, to retreat into something human again—Eros, even Peter. Nothing. The transformation held him prisoner, locked in a state that demanded more energy than his body could ever provide.
