Somewhere nearby, a creature that was charging our way pauses in mid-snarl, its anger simmering down. The darker eddies that trickled this far waver and dissipate in the wake of the glow.
As I nudge the bright energies farther, the light thins. Can I spread it all the way to the thickest currents spilling from the rift before our glow vanishes completely?
I summon even more compassion from my body and channel it into my light.
No, we haven’t been able to orchestrate a merging of worlds in a matter of days, but that doesn’t mean we’ve turned our backs on the shadows. We’re right here, doing our best. Patience is a virtue and all that.
The rift should be patient with us, just like we’re being patient about the whole rampaging-creatures-and-warping-city thing.
I can’t tell how much the murk has thinned, but I have the sense that the new deluge of darkness is ebbing. The shadowy haze is chilling out. I’d offer to buy it a drink if bar-hopping was a thing huge masses of shadows did.
A smile crosses my lips. I exude another wash of light?—
And a body slams into me from the side.
I tumble to the ground, my hand breaking from Jonah’s grasp. Yells careen all around us, cut through with a roar I know is Raze’s.
“Where’s the— Didn’t you have the thing?”
“Here!”
Tendrils of fabric smack into my body with a searing burn. My essence seizes with recognition.
I’m caught in one of the hunters’ nets, woven with silver and iron. Someone’s thrown it around me.
“Just take this one! The power was coming out of her.”
“Come on!”
The humans who’ve barged into our midst swarm around me. At least a few pairs of hands wrench me off the ground and shove me into the back of a van I hadn’t heard approaching.
The pain dizzies me so much my vision blurs.
“Wait!” I cry out. “What are you?—”
I’m not sure if my words were even clear in my muddled state. The van’s doors clang shut, and the engine revs. The vehicle lurches forward.
Panic and anguish rush through my chest from my connection with my men. They feel… stuck, as if the people who nabbed me harmed them as well.
No! I have to get back to them—I have to make sure my mates are all right.
Another roar fades into the distance. My pulse starts to stutter. If these people drag me too far from my marked men, we’ll all be in another kind of agony. I doubt my attackers even realize that.
They also might not realize that my mates should be able to track me down by following their impressions of my emotions. They’ll come after me as soon as they can. It’ll be okay.
As long as wherever I’m being taken isn’t even worse than what’s already happened.
Are they going to throw us in cages? Bend our minds to sorcerous commands?
Why did they come after me right now? I was trying to fix the rift—I don’t even know if they ruined whatever progress the five of us managed to make together.
The fraught uncertainty overwhelms me, and my thoughts scatter again with the throbbing of pain all through my body. The net burns everywhere it touches my skin, but I can’t shed that skin and slip into the shadows while the noxious metals are grounding my essence so forcefully.
The van bumps over uneven ground. I roll from one side of the cargo area to the other, smacking against the wall. Apparently my captors are trying to turn me into tenderized shadowkind.
I grit my teeth against the pain and try to think of what to do. It’s pretty tricky when I don’t seem to be capable of doinganythingat the moment.
Abruptly, the van screeches to a halt. More voices holler back and forth outside.
