I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn’t get the words out, through my lips or my mind. I could not even get the solabear into focus. It blurred with the landscape, at once white and then brownish gray as it melded into the tree line behind it.
No, that wasn’t my mind playing tricks. Its fur reflected the area around it.
That’s how it had gotten so close. It had blended right into the snowy mountainside.
It did not matter how it had gotten here. It was close, too close. Arran was bracing himself, muscles tensing. I forced my legs underneath me, forced my body to obey.
Arran leapt for the solabear, going straight for its throat. But the huge ursine was not afraid of Arran’s wolf. One massive swipe of its paw and—
“Arran!” The scream tore from my throat.
My mate hit the snow hard, his huge form nearly disappearing into the drift. I was on my feet now, dagger in hand. I’d kill the thing myself.
It was too fast. I was unsteady on my feet. I tried to duck out of the way of that massive paw, but I couldn’t make my body move fast enough. I hit the snow a few feet from Arran. He was on his feet, struggling to get out of deep drift.
But the solabear was made for this terrain. Its massive paws did not sink into the drifts like we did. I braced myself, dagger ready. Arran and I were all that stood between the succubus and Annwyn. I would not leave my subjects to suffer. I would not die without a fight.
The pain in my head was nothing as its jaw closed around my leg.
I heard Arran’s scream—felt it through the bond, reverberating through my body. He was not in his beast form anymore. Those were his hands, grabbing for me. But I was slipping away through the snow and ice… not slipping… dragging…
The solabear wasn’t ripping me limb from limb. It was dragging me away.
I tried to rise up. I could drive my dagger into its face, that would make it release me. Then I could go into the void. The world spun around me… not the void… I would not be able to control it…
My arms flailed around me, trying to find purchase. But there was nothing—just barren snow that slipped through my frozen fingers. I clenched the muscles in my abdomen, determined to pull myself up.
I screamed as I did it—the pain in my leg, in my head, the will to live—
Something heavy hit my side, knocking me back down. The edge of the forest, we were nearly there. Where was it taking me… what was that… animals. Eyes. Creatures… monsters… something was waiting, lurking.
Suddenly all the air was knocked from my lungs. Arran was on top of me. The solabear roared, the air filled with the scent of blood.
Not mine.
Not Arran’s.
I tried to suck in a breath of relief, but then the world fell away. No more snow at my back, no more blue sky overhead. A whisper of spice and earth, and then nothing at all.
69
ARRAN
I held her tight against my body, shielding her as we fell. Shards of ice scraped over my skin, but none of them touched her. I refused. Not mine. Not Veyka.
We landed hard, the impact reverberating through us. Veyka did not moan or show any sign of life.
She had to be alive.She had to. If she was mortally wounded, if she was dying, I would know. I would feel it. I would have to. She was fae. She could not die. She was wearing the scabbard.
I expected the ground to shift beneath us, the snow to give way. But everything stilled. The only movement was the irregular up and down of my chest as I dragged in ragged breath after ragged breath. Veyka was still—too still.
Very slowly, I eased my hand up her back. She’d hit her head when I threw her out of the way of the solabear. That was before the solabear had dragged her a dozen yards and we’d tumbled down into the ice cave. But there was no blood on her. Thank the Ancestors.
I reached her throat. Her hair was matted with sweat and grime and cold snow. I slid my fingers beneath it, searching along her throat. Her skin was so impossibly smooth and soft. Sofragile. A flick of my fingernail, and I could have punctured the delicate layer of skin that protected her lifeblood.
There.
Something inside of me released as my fingertips found the steady, resolute thump of her pulse. My eyes were burning. I must have gotten a shard of ice in them as we fell.
