“I just need to push a little further.” But it wasn’t me saying it—it was the thing inside me, using me. It twisted my thoughts until I could barely recognize which were controlled by it and which came from the soft voice yelling from a deep chasm within me, desperate to be heard.
Ice pelted us and bloodied our faces. Ronen crouched beside me and grabbed my chin. I closed my fucking eyes.
“You don’t have enough power left. Let me help you!”
Yes, let him,the soft voice urged beneath the puppeteering force that said,No.
I needed to do this.
Alexei and MJ shouted from their corner, fighting a battle we couldn’t see.
You’ll kill us.
I would do this.
Rune hunched to the ground, pressing against Ronen’s body for protection.
I don’t want to die.
I have to protect him.
I flung out my hand, feeling a stinging in my eyes. I couldn’t stop. It wouldn’t let me stop.
Aspen shoved Ronen away from me and dropped to his knees. Hequickly erected a flaming dome around us just as Ronen’s shadows attacked. They slammed against Aspen’s fiery barrier, shaking the earth.
I focused on pushing my flames toward the trees. They just wouldn’t move?—
“I give to her freely and irrevocably,” Aspen murmured as he clasped my hand.
A scream wrenched free of my throat, and my spine bowed as searing energy burned through my system—painful and reviving. My powers drank it in while also seething at the invasion. Perverse. Unnatural. Impossible. This, whatever it was, wasn’t supposed to happen.
The energy he gave me fueled me enough to push my flames the last distance. They struck. They burned. An ear-piercing shriek split the air, and every piece of ice dropped to the ground. The wind speared back into the black forest, rattling the bare branches.
We did it.
The guardian bond unhooked itself from my mind, easing back into its cave. My emotions flooded back. My thoughts were mine to control. My actions. A gasp shuddered from my lips, and I jerked my hand out of Aspen’s. The connection between us snapped. His burning heat fled from my body, leaving me aching as if he’d scorched my insides.
“What in the Seven Hells did you do to her?” Ronen asked. No threats. No bellows. His voice was even—unnerving.
I shook my head at Aspen, silently conveying the importance of his silence. As much as I wanted to know what he’d done to me too, I wasn’t in any position to keep Ronen from killing him, and I was pretty sure my pleas wouldn’t work.
“There was someone in Veil Forest watching us,” I rasped, trying to divert Ronen’s attention.
“Did you catch any physical details?” he inquired, never removing his stare from Aspen.
“No.”
Alexei and MJ hobbled up behind Ronen.
A horrified sound escaped me at the sight of them. Ronen finally tore his gaze away.
Alexei’s wings were pierced through with multiple icicles. Hisbandages were soaked with blood, smearing across MJ’s shoulder as she half-supported him while Rune pressed against his side.
His face scrunched into a grimacing, fake smile. “Don’t worry, it no longer hurts. I think the ice has numbed my wing muscles now. That’s good, right?” His eyes bounced between us, and whatever he saw had his false positivity giving way to gut-punching grief. “Yeah. Figured.”
Chapter
Nineteen
