I couldn’t be the reason he failed.
Stepping into him, I pulled the dagger from his shaking fingers.
Our eyes locked.
I drowned in his breaking and didn’t stand a chance.
My soul latched onto his.
And something happened.
A rush of ice.
A blast of cold.
Refreshing and healing and powerful.
So,sopowerful.
Powerful enough to keep me awake, to numb my pain, to do this one last thing for him.
Rain pelted us harder.
Whisper snapped his jaws.
And I committed to him, not just for this lifetime but for all of them.
Lucien’s gaze dove into mine as I drew back the knife...and killed him.
Chapter Five
I’D BEEN POISONED, BLED, AND REGULARLY knocked unconscious but nothing prepared me for the sensation of icy steel sinking into my chest.
Hitting bone.
Reverberating through both of us.
I couldn’t look away as our eyes locked and life as I knew it ended.
I died on that very spot—drenched by the storm and so fucking close to losing it—all because she’dhelpedme.
But then agony etched her beautiful black eyes as she whimpered and glanced down—to her delicate hand wrapped around the hilt. To the dagger embedded deep in my body, directly opposite my heart.
A sob escaped her as my blood started to seep...
“Huh.” I shuddered as the surrealism of the moment made everything dreamlike. My fingers strayed to where the weapon punctured me, my fingertips coming away bright red. “Sothat’swhat it feels like.”
She wrenched backward, almost falling over Whisper as the panther circled me, hissing, growling, losing his ever-loving mind.
She glanced at her hands speckled with my blood.
The guards went berserk, bellowing into their walkie-talkies for help, but they weren’t important.
The only thing that was important washer.
She’d set me free.
She’d helped me when no one else ever had and...fuck.
