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I projected the thought to my pack mates.

We’ve got your back, alpha.

That was Asher, the rest agreeing.

There was no point arguing, they wouldn’t let me go in there alone. So I rushed ahead and into the cavern. It was dark, but I ran on, easily following the sound of fifty rats scurrying and squeaking. They ran deeper and deeper, leading us blindly into the depths of the caves.

Until, finally, they stopped, throwing us into a deafening silence.

I waited, listening.

Was this some kind of trap? Panic started to build inside me. What the fuck had I done—

A scratch came from beside me. One of the rats. Was Iris behind the wall?

I shifted and ran my hands around the cavern wall, searching for some kind of opening.

“There’s a lip,” Asher said beside me. “An opening. This stone is blocking the way.”

Iris was behind it. “I can smell her blood.”

My warriors shifted as well, moving up beside me and pressing their hands to the massive stone.

“Now,” I said and planted my shoulder against it. We pushed, but it barely moved. Witchcraft. It had to be. Iris wouldn’t have been able to move this on her own. “Again,” I growled as growing panic rocked through me. Iris was behind this fucking slab of rock. She was being kept from me, and she was bleeding.

She could be dying. I could lose her.

A surge of strength filled me, adrenaline pumping hard and fast through my veins. I snarled and pushed with everything I had.

The stone shifted.

Muted light spilled through the crack, and my shoulder popped, but I ignored it and, with another growl, shoved again, my warriors along with me.

It slid open a little more, enough for me to force my way through sideways.

Then I saw her.

“Fuck.” My heart stopped at the sight of her.

She was lying on her side, naked and covered in blood. I dropped to the ground beside her. She was alive, I didn’t need to touch her to know that, the bond between us was just as strong as ever. I carefully rolled her to her back, searching for the source of all that blood. She didn’t move, didn’t speak. Her hair was matted with blood, and I brushed it away from her face and groaned in agony.

Oh fuck. Her eyes and her mouth were sewn shut. “Asher!”

She was at my side a moment later, her cry of alarm echoing around the room.

“I need something to cut these threads.” I searched the rest of Iris’s blood-covered body. Jesus. Her inner forearms had been sliced, then hastily sewed back up. How had she survived this? My wolf cried in agony because she still might not.

“Here.” Asher held out a small blade.

It was Iris’s. I’d seen her with it before. “My shoulder,” I said to Ash.

She grabbed my forearm, gripped my dislocated shoulder, planted her foot against the wall, and jerked it back into the socket. I grunted and took the blade from her. My hands shook as I carefully sliced through the stitches along her lips, but there was no way I was attempting her eyes, not with the way I shook.

I needed light and something smaller than this knife. I scooped Iris up. Asher rushed ahead, back out through the gap in the stone, and I passed Iris through, then reclaimed her once I squeezed out after Ash. I held Iris close, taking comfort from the warmth of her skin, the sound of each one of her shallow breaths.

She was alive. And I had to make sure she stayed that way.

We started back the way we had come through the darkness—the sound of the falls growing louder as we neared the cave opening.