He was going to lose her. After everything, after finding his mate, after finally letting himself hope for a future, he was going to watch her die because he wasn't strong enough to stop it.
His bear howled in despair.
And on the frozen ground, Chloe's eyes snapped open.
32
CHLOE
FIGHT.
The voice cut through the fire in her blood like cool water. Familiar. Urgent. Wendy.
You're not his conduit, Chloe. You're a druid. The land doesn't belong to him. It belongs to itself. And you can help it fight.
Her eyes snapped open.
The world came back in fragments. Gray sky. Bare branches. Freya standing over her, small body shaking, copper hair wild, positioned between Chloe and something terrible. The smell of burned fur and blood.
Corin.
She turned her head, agony lancing through her skull, and saw him. He was sprawled on the frozen ground twenty feet away, half-shifted, his massive form too still. Blood matted his fur. His chest barely moved.
He'd fought for her. Nearly died for her. And he was still trying to reach her, one clawed hand stretched in her direction, his silver-gray eyes locked on hers with desperate love.
"Chloe." His voice was barely a rasp. "Run."
She couldn't run. Could barely move. The dark veins still crawled beneath her skin, Jasper's corruption still flowing through her blood, and every breath felt like drowning.
But something else was there too. Something she'd been afraid of her whole life, something she'd never let herself fully touch.
Her druid blood. Awake. Angry. Ready.
Feel it,Wendy's voice whispered.Feel what you really are.
"Step aside, witch." Jasper's voice, cold and triumphant. "This doesn't concern you."
"She's my friend." Freya's voice shook, but she didn't move. "You'll have to go through me."
"If you insist."
Dark energy crackled. Chloe felt it building, felt Jasper gathering power for a strike that would cut Freya down like wheat.
No.
The word rose from somewhere deep, somewhere primal, somewhere connected to every root and stone and drop of water in the soil beneath her.
She pushed herself up.
Her arms screamed. Her vision swam. But she got to her knees, then her feet, swaying like a tree in a storm.
Jasper paused, surprise flickering across his stolen-youth face. "Still moving? Impressive. But pointless."
"You don't understand what you took." Her voice came out strange, layered, like the earth itself was speaking through her. "You don't understand what this magic is for."
"It's for power. That's all any magic is for."
"No." She stepped forward, and the ground trembled beneath her feet. "This magic was bound to protect. To nurture. To heal. The druids who sealed it didn't hoard it. They gave itback to the land, to keep it safe until someone worthy could use it."
