A deep growl rumbles in my chest. “No, this has never happened.”
Chapter Seven
Bayzon
Lights cut out and there’s now a total eclipse. We’re covered in deep darkness, filled with a sinister white fog which glows in the pitch black.
Chaos ensues.
The mist is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It curls around my legs like a living thing, cold and damp against my skin. The scent is strange, metallic and sharp, like Illibrium fresh from the mine but amplified a hundredfold. It coats the back of my throat and makes my eyes water.
All around me, the sounds of the ball transform from celebration to panic. The music cuts out with a discordant screech. Glasses shatter. Beings scream and stumble in the sudden darkness. I hear the heavy thud of bodies hitting the floor, one after another.
My Bride lets go of my hand and suddenly she’s gone.
I can’t see her. My night vision doesn’t penetrate the mist. “Naomi,” I shout. “What the hells is happening? Where are you?”
Xylan begin to heavily drop to the ground next to me, some snoring loudly. Others scream with fear as half the assembled try to run for the doors. Beings collide into me in their haste.
The top of Naomi’s dark head emerges from the white mist. “I’m okay,” she shouts. “I tripped over someone.”
But then she’s gone again.
Terror claws at my chest. I’ve only just found her. I cannot lose her now. Not like this. Not in this godsforsaken mist that swallows everything. “Naomi!” My voice is raw, desperate. I sound nothing like the composed crew leader my brothers know. I sound like a male on the verge of madness.
No response.
The mist seems to muffle sound, absorbing my shouts before they can travel. Muted cries come from others nearby, but they sound distant, as if coming from underwater. The glowing white fog plays tricks with my senses. Shapes appear and vanish, and I keep reaching for shadows that turn out to be nothing.
A huge male plows into me and I hit the floor. I toss and tumble and can’t see a godsdamn thing as I move forward on my hands and knees, trying to find my Bride. I must protect my mate.
Claws dig onto my gloves but slip away.
Soon the area quiets and I can’t see her through the thick mist, but I can still scent my Bride. I inhale deeply and follow her pheromones, across the floor, over many still bodies. Each one I check. No one is dead. They are all deeply asleep. I have a feeling none of them made it out and everyone in attendance at this ball is flat on the floor, snoring.
What the hells?
And why am I not asleep too? Instead, I’m fully awake and alert, on a mission to find my female. “Naomi,” I bellow.
“Bayzon,” a familiar human voice cries out.
I follow the sound and feel with my hands and find her pinned underneath two large males who passed out on top of her.
“Help,” she squeaks. “They’re so heavy.”
Relief floods through me so intensely my arms shake. She’s alive. I found her. “I’ve got you,” I growl. “Hold on.”
The males are dead weight, their bodies limp and heavy with sleep. I grab the first one by his costume — some ridiculous feathered thing — and heave him aside. He rolls away and continues snoring, utterly oblivious. The second male is larger, but desperation gives me strength. I shove him off her with more force than necessary, and he lands with a thud several feet away.
“Are you hurt?” I demand, running my hands over her arms, her shoulders, checking for injury. “Did they crush you? Can you breathe?”
“I’m okay,” she gasps. “Just... couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe for a second there.”
I reach out and take her hand in mine and pull her up to a sitting position. And that’s when I realize not only is my glove gone, but hers has also fallen off in the melee. And now we are sitting together on the floor, with our bare hands clasped, as if we are performing a testing.
“Oh no,” she breathes.
We both stare down at our joined hands. Her small, delicate human fingers intertwined with my large, clawed ones. Skin against skin. No barrier between us.
