Cheyenne extends her hand and I take it, gasping as power flows between us, racing up my arm like lightning.
“You follow in my footsteps, walking the path between what is and what could be.” She drops my hand. “That is my final gift to you.”
She turns but I catch her cloak, halting her. “I don’t understand. Why am I broken? Why can’t I shift? Why am I here?”
She glances over her shoulder, her gaze locking with mine. “You were never broken, child. You were crafted. Shaped by forces older than the packs themselves. And when the moment comes—when all seems lost—remember this, love is the strongest magic of all.”
“I don’t?—”
“You will.” She begins to fade, her form dissolving like mist through my fingers. “Soon.”
The vision fractures, reality bleeding through the cracks.
“Until we meet again, dear one.”
And then?—
Silence.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
RYKER
My howl echoes off the stone walls until my throat goes raw, the sound of absolute devastation.
Elias crashes into the chamber, takes one look at Kitara’s lifeless form in my arms, and leaps into action.
“Get a healer here, NOW!” he roars to someone behind him. “And bring the emergency kit!”
I can’t speak. Can’t think. Can only hold her cooling body and feel the gaping void in my head, my heart, my soul. The silence in my mind is more devastating than any physical wound.
“Alpha.” Elias kneels beside me, his voice gentle but urgent. “Let me check her pulse.”
I snarl, pulling her closer. No one touches her. No one?—
“Ryker.” His use of my name rather than my title cuts through the haze of grief. “If there’s any chance to save her, we need to act now.”
Reluctantly, I allow him to press fingers to her throat. He’s still for a long moment, then his eyes widen.
“There’s something. Faint, but...” He looks up at me with desperate hope. “She’s not gone. Not completely.”
Elena, our lead healer, bursts into the chamber with her medical kit, taking in the scene. She drops beside us, opening her bag to pull items free.
“Silver poisoning?” she asks, examining the injection site.
“Yes,” I rasp, my voice barely human.
Her expression darkens, but she immediately begins working—checking Kitara’s vitals.
“Her voice,” I whisper. “It’s gone silent.”
My wolf claws at my chest, frantic, howling for the mate we can no longer feel.
“That doesn’t mean she’s dead,” Elena says firmly, though I catch the worry in her eyes. She pulls her stethoscope from her ears. “Her pulse is weak, but she’s fighting.”
Fighting.The word gives me hope to cling onto.
