Juliet reached for my hand. I didn’t let her touch me, but she understood.
It took ten more minutes. Each one was a year. When the door finally opened, the scent hit me before anything else—roses and honey, but also fear and sweat and the metallic note of dried blood. I stood unable to help myself, fists clenched so tight the knuckles went bone white.
They brought Savannah in.
But she was still a room away.
I could see her through the glass, hear her voice through the intercom, but the wall might as well have been a thousand miles thick.
Verna gestured to the spheres. “Now,” she said, and Savannah reached for hers.
The world went white.
The sphere in my hand lit up, a blinding gold that swallowed the entire room. I heard Bronc swear, heard Juliet gasp, but all I saw was Savannah—her eyes wide and wet, a bruise blooming on her jaw, a smile trying to push through the pain. The spheres pulsed together, faster and faster, until it hurt to look.
Verna nodded, satisfied. “You may put it down.”
I did, and in that instant the light vanished. I was cold and empty without it.
Savannah’s voice came through the intercom. “Menace?”
I tried to answer, but my throat locked up.
Verna spoke into the mic. “He is here. The bond is strong.”
Savannah smiled, small but real. “I know.”
The glass wall stayed up. No one moved.
“Can I see her?” I asked, my voice shattering on the last word.
“Not yet,” Verna said, soft. “There is still the final test.”
And then she left, and I was alone again, pacing the edges of the room while my mate’s shadow waited just out of reach.
Chapter 18
Menace
Iwore a path in the marble. The room felt smaller every minute, air thickening, gravity pushing down harder than any cell I’d ever known. My wolf pressed at the seams of my skin. My hands shook. My teeth ached.
Verna returned with a tray that contained two vials of blood and a stack of paperwork an inch thick. She set them down without a word, then motioned to the guard in the corner. The witch approached, face blank. I felt the way Savannah’s blood, in its own glass tube, waited next to mine, like a reunion in miniature. I kept my eyes on it, hypnotized by the swirl of her cells against the glass.
Verna poured a few drops from each vial into a porcelain dish, then added a single drop of the blue potion. Nothing happened for a heartbeat.
Then everything did.
The mixture flashed gold, so bright it threw shadows on the far wall. The witches stepped back, shielding their faces from the glare. The light built, pulsing, until I thought it might explode.
Then, just as quickly, it faded, leaving only the residue of gold at the bottom of the dish. Verna smiled for real this time.
“That’s confirmation one,” she said. “You may relax.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” I said, forcing a laugh.
She gestured to the next chair. “Please sit. This is the resonance test. It can be…unpleasant.”
I obeyed, planting my feet wide, gripping the armrests like they might sprout fangs. The rune witch painted sigils onto my forearms and neck with a brush dipped in what smelled like paint thinner and cloves. The marks sizzled against my skin, cold at first, then so hot I thought they’d peel me alive.
