Perhaps therewasconsolation in death. Because Will’s laugh was in her ear, soft and low and deep, and he had kept his promise; he’d found her in the Beyond after all.
“I’ve got you, Aya love,” Will murmured, and she felt the words rumble through his chest and seep into her own skin. They tugged at her consciousness, pulling her more into waking with every syllable.
I promise I’ve got you.
Aya’s eyes flew open as a gasp ripped from her throat.
The citadel. Kakos. Evie.
Evie.
Evie.
She jerked up, her hands shoving at the figure beneath her as she stumbled to her feet. Her eyes seared as she blinked against the light pouring into the room.
Light meant pain, light meant chains and an iron table and—
Aya tried to catch her bearings, her hands thrusting in front of her to keep the threat away.
They’d caught her, they’d caught her, they’d—
“Breathe, Aya,” a voice was saying. There was a hand on her wrist, herbarewrist, and, oh gods, they were going to shackle her again.
“No!” she screamed, the word cracking from her chest as she ripped her hand out of their grip. She stumbled backward with the force of it, her hip slamming hard into the corner of a table. She tried to summon her power, but she was so, so tired, and she couldn’t breathe, why couldn’t shebreathe—
She flinched at the first touch of Sensainos affinity, her power curling in on itself, protecting instead of attacking. Aya hated the way a brokenpleasefell from her lips as her shoulders hunched in a brace for pain.
She had let her guard slip just for a moment, and now she was unraveling, that stoic, cold, brokenness crumbling into something far more raw and real. She had shown them too much, had waited and sufferedtoo muchonly to ruin it all by showing her hand in that godsforsaken citadel, and now Evie would know, and—
She stumbled back another step, her hand flailing as she tried to grab something to steady her. It landed in something soft and coarse, the texture so jarring that it momentarily broke through her panic.
Fur.
Aya sucked in a breath, her chest stuttering with themovement as she looked down to see her fingers intertwined in a coat of gray. She blinked, her attention jerking back toward the guard, but…
Gray, again. Gray with flecks of green, like the river stones that sat in the shallow paths of the Loraine.
“You’re safe.”
Something wet pressed against her palm. Aya glanced down to see a wolf’s snout nudging gently against her skin. She tried for another breath, and then another, forcing air through the tightness of her lungs.
Slowly, the room came into focus.
List what you can see,mi couera.
Her bare wrists.
Her bonded.
And…
“Will,” Aya breathed.
He stood a few paces from her, his hands outstretched, as if he were soothing a wild animal. But his face was calm, and steady, and beautiful, andreal—
Was he real?
Aya tried to suck in more air, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. That vise grip of panic refused to loosen its grip, her chest rising and falling in rapid succession.
