The room is heavy with pressure, the kind that vibrates through bone. Howno onesensed this earlier is beyond me, but it ends now.
“When you siphon that energy out of her, what do you do with it?” Cade asks, giving me a slight pause.
ThatI don’t know, but I guess we’re about to find out. Though I don’t tell him that.
“I, uh.” Shit, what do I say?
He’s already reaching for me again when Wolf pipes up.
Maybe you can expel it into something else?
Genius.
“I need an object nobody cares about,” I tell him ashe places a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll put the energy there, and then we can figure out what to do with it later.”
He glares at me like he’s fully aware that I just pulled that theory straight out of my ass, but he doesn’t try to stop me again, a miracle I’m sure.
Which means I probably have less than a minute before he tosses me over his shoulder and hauls me out of this room for good.
This time, I move quicker, knowing that at any moment, my very protective mate might change his mind about all of this. My palm covers Taren’s heart, which is going nearly a thousand beats per minute and should have already given out on her if she were human.
Thankfully, wolves are built a little stronger.
All right, Taren, I think.This might hurt, but I promise, I’m only trying to help.
The moment I pull on the first dark tether of magic, the world tilts.
Not physically, but in the way realitybendswhen two opposing forces collide.
Taren jerks beneath my hand, her breath catching on a choked sound that’s half snarl, half plea. Her eyes flutter, the whites flashing as the corruption inside her surges in protest.
Cade swears behind me. “Rowan.”
“I’ve got her,” I grit out, though I have no idea if that’s true. “Just give me a minute.”
Because stopping now might actually kill her. Or both of us.
Malrik’s energy slams into me like a tidal wave—cold,sharp, and acidic. It carries an intention so intense, I swear I can hear the words.
Control. Dominate. Destroy.
A sick echo of his will.
It hits my chest like a fist, and for a moment I’m certain my ribcage caves inward. Darkness crawls across my skin, up my arms, and into my veins like ink spreading through clear water.
I choke on a breath as the energy forces itself into me, but then my power finally reacts.
My siphon ability roars awake with a soundless crack, opening inside me like a second spine—something ancient and vast, something that recognizes the foreign signature and bares its teeth.
The two forces clash.
A violent collision.
My back bows violently, and I think I hear Cade yell my name, but he doesn’t touch me. At least, I don’tfeelhim. I barely feel anything, in fact. My body is a distant memory, a shell suspended in a storm that’s trying to hollow me out.
Focus,I command myself.Direct the magic. Move it.
I grab hold of the power inside me—my own energy and identity—and shove Malrik’s corruption away from my core, but that doesn’t work.
