“Remove the cuffs,” I demand with a growl worthy of Ryder. “Then gladly.”
Protect him.
Save him.
Ineedto. More than anything.
More than air and life and breath.
More than magick.
He falls forward, weak from fighting for breath. His hands keep working pointlessly at the vines, the movements getting sluggish as the seconds continue ticking down like a cruel countdown in my mind. The fact that he’s choking and I’m powerless to help scratches at my brain, like every overstimulation stimuli possible.
My gums ache—pressure from clenching?
My hands itch—trying to call on magick?
My breathing quickens; I’m trying to send some of it to Ryder, to keep him alive. To make this supposed bond useful for something, because if it won’t save his life, what’s the point?
“Sloane!”
Her name comes out wrong to my ears. It’s not spoken but growled…around four brand new fangs that burst through my gums.
Instead of at, I push away from the bars, clawing at my mouth to make them go away. I’m clearly imagining thefangsinside my mouth. But as I do so, my nails hook on my cheek…
Not my nails.
Claws.
Like Ryder’s.
Someone whispers, “What the fuck?” and I’m right there with them, asking myself the same as my mind rolls over any and all possibility to answer how.
What did Ryder’s bitedo?
Between my fingers, my eyes meet Ryder’s, whose attention isn’t on the vine any longer—the vine lies loose around his body. He’s panting, staring at me like I’m the moon and his every rotation around the planet. His eyes flash silver, and his mouth forms a word.
Mate.
Deep inside my core, behind shock, is the whisper of another’s surprise. A hint, a slight twisting ofhim.
Sloane’s sharp laugh breaks through the silence. “Itistrue! All those rumours… You wanted to know why your birth mother was running from her coven. It had nothing to do with us, but all about you. In fact, believing they abandoned her is a failure of Morgan’s training. Covens stand with their own, something you should be well-versed in. They never kicked your mother out, but they weren’t sure whether to consider you coven or pack. They feared you taking after your father.”
“M-my father?”
Fangs. Claws. The growls.
Oh my Goddess.
“It was rumoured she got impregnated by a certain wolf shifter.” She twists until the pack, still chained to the wall, is in view. “The Hightooth Pack beside Vancouver, or so the stories go. By all accounts, Carina, you’re half-shifter.”
Ryder’s eyes glow, his wolf responding to me.
And…Ifeltthat. Deep in my gut, like a brush of fur I don’t have, a paw against the claws embedded from my fingertips. The slightest touch that makes me ache for his hold more than anything.
“But I…I never—I…I didn’t know…I didn’t…”
“If I had to guess, she likely bound your shifter side. That’s what I would do in her place.” There’s no hint of disdain in her tone, only pity. “Bonding with him presumably unlocked that side of you and having him in danger brought it to life.”
