Blood…so much blood.

I’m thrust out of the vision as I feel a large hand clamp my throat. I tighten my grip on the rope until my palms burn, and his roar rattles my eardrums. His hands throttle my neck, cutting off my supply of air. Pressure builds at my temples, my eye sockets ache.

Panic fists my lungs until I lose feeling of the rope in my hands—and I know I’m going to die.

I’ve never feared this moment. Even yearned for it when the heartache threatened to destroy me. So I don’t understand why I’m struggling so violently against it now, terrified of never taking my next breath…

Cast by the waning embers, Kallum’s shadow moves into my line of sight. Relief sails through me so fucking powerfully, tears spill over my eyes.

I search for him on the perimeter of my dwindling vision, and when our gazes connect through the strobing reel of my life, hope is strangled from my veins.

Kallum stands over the struggle with a calmness that chills my blood.

He’s going to let me die.

The longer the seconds stretch, the more my vision blacks, the more I accept the outcome and the totality of my life. Then the flickering reel flashes a terrifying scene in such startling clarity, a muted scream claws its way past my constricted throat.

Kallum moves. Looming over me with features carved in brutal fury, he raises his foot and brings it down on one of the beast’s antlers. The crack vibrates in my bones.

Dropping to his haunches, Kallum grabs the point of an antler and meets my eyes through the darkened haze. He thrusts the weapon into my hand.

One second where I register the weight of the bone in my palm, then the next I drive the point of the antler into the beast’s jugular.

His hands fall away, and arms band my waist. I’m pulled from the mountain of the overman.

Legs thrashing and air raking my lungs, I search for a stable place to land. Pain radiates in my head to split my brain in two.

Kallum’s arresting features materialize through the blinding pain. I cough and fall to my knees, where Kallum follows, his hands searching my naked body. He’s saying something, but I can’t hear past the pounding of my heart.

As the sounds of the hushed marsh drift to my ears and I slowly resurface, I draw in the crisp night, recognizing Kallum’s touch.

“Breathe,” he says. His bloody hands cup my face, and the feel of the cuts on his palms grounds me in the moment.

With concern slashed across his brow, he searches my eyes to make a connection, then he wraps his arms around me in a consoling embrace. I feel safe for a fleeting moment, until the memory shatters the illusion.

The memory of when Kallum first told me to breathe is so sharp, on reflex I push away.

In my mind’s eye, I see Kallum standing in the dark. The dim light from lampposts illuminate his profile. He’s holding my face between his palms, his clashing gaze trying to break through the fog.

There’s a body.

My throat raw, I strain to talk. “Oh, god.” My head whips around, the sudden fear of what I’ve done crashing over me.

Splayed on the muddy ground, the man’s giant body is racked with tremors as he holds the broken antler lodged in his neck. The antlers that terrified me as they rose amid a field of deer spear the earth as he sputters and coughs. A foamy white substance bubbles in his parted mouth.

“I strangled him. I stabbed him.” Acute terror punches my chest. “I killed him.”

“No, you didn’t.” Kallum’s sure voice draws me further out of my confused sate. “He was seizing before you attacked him.”

The vile substance that leaks from the man’s mouth matches Kallum’s claim. I drive my hands into my blood-matted, tangled hair. The circlet of bones lies on the muddy earth next to the convulsing man. I’m filthy and covered in dirt and wine.

And blood .

I still feel Kallum inside me. He’s still so deep beneath my skin.

The present slams against the images in my mind, shaping a macabre scene that pitches my stomach.

Thoughts racing as fast as my heart, I lower my hand and stare at my palm, dazed as the memory of my nightmare crests above the ensuing anxiety. The tire iron was in my hand.

“He was as good as dead before you impaled him,” Kallum says, ripping me out of my tunneling vision. He climbs to his feet and then hunkers near the suspect. “You’re fierce, sweetness. But this brute is next level.”

As I study the foamy substance coating the suspect’s mouth, only one logical explanation breaks through my spiraling thoughts. “Hemlock poisoning,” I say.

Kallum turns a guarded look on me. “That’d be my guess.”

I stare into his eyes. “You…” I swallow hard. The tightness in my neck feels like hands still throttle my airway. “You made me stab him.”

He hikes an eyebrow in amusement. “You’re welcome.”

He saved me. But first, he watched me nearly die.

Kallum stands and grasps the back of his neck. “Fuck, he shook me like I weighed nothing.”

As my body accepts I’m no longer in danger, the adrenaline coursing my bloodstream begins to ebb, leaving me painfully aware of every wound and bruise.

Converging memories still fight for control in the space of my head. The two timelines bleed together until I’m forced to ask: “What is wrong with me?”

Turning his full attention on me, Kallum absorbs my entire state of being before he walks away, saying nothing.

I look down at the man again. He’s no longer seizing. A ribbon of foamy saliva streams down his thick neck. His face is twisted in a horrific expression. He looks every bit a monster.

I recall when I told Detective Emmons that I’d seen a lot.

I’ve never seen or felt anything more terrifying than what I’m experiencing in this moment.

“He’s dead,” I say. Uttering a curse, I swipe a hand over my face. Every nerve ending in my body fires at once, eliciting a prickling sensation beneath my skin.

I can’t process the ramifications right now. This man is the potential suspect Alister’s team is searching for. And he’s dead. Possibly poisoned by his own crop of hemlock. The victims are still out there.

Panic runs its talons down my spine.

I’m here , I tell myself. I’m here in this moment.

I haven’t suffered a panic attack in months, and this one grips me in a vise, crushing my chest. My head is light and dizzy, and nothing feels real.

I touch my forearm. Feel the scar. Look at the script. Reciting the mantra over and over inside my head, I start to feel my heart rate calm.

Focus on the present. Tend to my garden. Do the work.

He could have a clue on his person.

I swallow the painful ache in my throat and try to examine the suspect, taking note of his missing ear where a leather strap has been stitched to secure the antlers. The stitching on his eyelids is sloppy. Something feels off.

No—everything feels off.

Coarse material touches my shoulders, and I flinch. Kallum drapes the bathrobe around me. I didn’t realize until just this moment how badly I’m shaking.

Because, even as I try to process being attacked by a terrifying beast-man, there is something far more sinister vying for my attention.

From the second Kallum sliced his palms and bathed me in his blood, flashes of another life—someone else’s memories—started assaulting my mind.

I cross my arms and turn to face him. “Why am I seeing your memories of the man you murdered?”

It’s Wellington’s bloody and mutilated face that keeps surfacing to drag me under.

“Not my memories.” Kallum stands before me, his expression grave. “You purged it from your mind.”

A cold weight bears down on me. “For once, Kallum, I need you to be clear. To tell me the fucking truth. What the fuck have you done to me?”

“I said I’d be an open book to you,” he says, his tone too calm. “I’ve never told you a lie.”