The hide curtains have been torn down. The guard I left stationed at the entrance is on the ground. Broken. Bleeding out.
I step past him, my chest heaving, the starfield flaring against my skin, illuminating the terrified cluster of humans huddled in the deepest corner of the alcove. They are pressing against the rock wall, shaking, clutching each other.
I drag my eyes over them. Filtering the frantic, overlapping scents. Searching for one specific signature.
Mee-ra is here. Loo-see is here.
But I do not see her.
Mydra-kirstutters. Absolute terror bleeds into my chest.
Theytookher.
The thought floods my entire system like venom.
I turn from the huddled women. The scent of Lucek’s warriors is still fresh in the passage, a trail of foreign lifeblood and dust leading deeper into the tunnels behind the chambers. I follow it. My legs are failing. The wound across my ribs is leaking badly now and the starfield is consuming so much of my internal heat that my muscles are starting to seize.
I make it eight steps into the dark passage before my left knee hits the stone.
I drive my claws into the rock and try to push myself upright. My arms shake. The walls of the tunnel tilt sideways. I get one foot under me. Rise halfway. My left leg gives out and I hit the stone again, harder this time, both knees.
The scent trail is already going cold. Lucek’s warriors are fast, even carrying a captive. Every second I spend on this floor is another second they put between us.
I drag myself forward. One hand, then the other. The claws leave deep grooves in the rock. The starfield is flickering now, pulsing in uneven, stuttering waves across my skin, casting the narrow tunnel in a sick strobe of light and black. I can taste lifeblood in the back of my throat.
Three body lengths. Four.
My right arm gives out. I go down on my chest. The impact drives the air from my lungs. I lie there, face pressed into the cold stone, and for the first time in my entire existence, I cannot make my body obey me.
I try to get up.
I cannot get up.
The tunnel is silent. The scent trail is fading. They have her. They have my mate and I am too broken to follow.
The roar that rips through the mindspace is not controlled.
It is a shockwave. It explodes outward with a force that strips the shields of every Drakav in the mountain.
Ally and enemy alike drop to their knees. Hands fly to their heads as the shockwave strips away everything, leaving only the evidence of my failure.
The cavern walls shake. Fine stone dust rains steadily from the high ceilings, coating the bloody stone in a shroud.
The transformation within me surges, feeding on the raw grief, the heat in my veins spiking.
My vision blacks out.
I surrender to the gravity, letting the cold stone take my full weight. The starfield gutters. The tunnel goes dark.
I am lost when a small hand touches my shoulder.
Every nerve in my body fires at once. I spin, claws out, my vision a strobing mess of starfield light and black. My hand closes around a wrist so small my digits overlap.
Eh-ree-kah?
She is covered in dust and dark, shimmering lifeblood that is not hers. Her small hands are shaking, but her eyes are steady. She is unharmed. She is alive.
She is here. She is safe.
