A stabbing pain, sharp and sudden, knifed right through my chest.
Not in my mark.
Not in my magic.
In the place that knew one particular wolf too well.
Keegan.
My knees buckled.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. The world blurred, mansion and path and gargoyles smearing together like a wet painting. The pain wasn’t physical, no hot blood, no snapped bone, but it wasreal.
A tearing sensation along the thread between us, raw and frantic.
I dropped to my knees on the brick, palms slapping down hard enough to sting. The shadows that had been twining along the edges of the path recoiled, hissing, as if offended by my sudden, graceless collapse.
“Keegan,” I gasped.
Images slammed into me, jagged and fragmentary.
There weren’t clear visions, just impressions through the bond. The flash of claws. The crack of impact. The taste ofshadow in lungs that weren’t mine. A snarl cut off too quickly. His heart hammering, then stuttering, then forcing itself steady again through sheer, bull-headed refusal to stop.
“Get up,” I whispered, lips numb. “Get up, please get up—”
Fear ripped through me so cleanly it left my hands shaking.
I should be there.
I should be in Stonewick, in the square, at his side. With my dad. With my mom. With everyone.
Instead, I was kneeling on the fancy murder driveway of my terrible grandmother’s goth castle while my broomstick sulked behind me.
I twisted around, scrambling to my feet, nearly slipping on the uneven brick.
The broom was still where I’d left it, hovering a few inches above the ground like a lazy dragonfly. Its bristles were ruffled from the ride; the handle had one new scuff.
“Take me back,” I snapped, stumbling toward it. “Right now.”
It bobbed in place. Slightly.
“No,” I said. “Not we’ll see. Not later. Now. Stonewick, square, wolf, circle, remember? The people I love are down there fightingherwhile you kidnapped me, and we are not leaving them—”
I grabbed the handle with both hands and swung one leg over, heart pounding.
“Up,” I commanded. “Turn around. Take me back.”
Nothing happened.
The broom sagged under my weight.
It didn’t even twitch.
I clenched my jaw, closed my eyes, and tried to find that slippery internal place I’d hit when the broom had first taken off, whatever strange alignment of panic and intention had made it obey.
I pictured the square. Keegan’s wolf form. Stella’s tea shop. My dad’s face. Shadow and light colliding. I poured every ounce of desperate wanting into the broom.
“Please,” I whispered. “They need me. I need them. I can’t just leave them. I won’t.”
