I went to move.

I opened my mouth to scream—

But pure agony tore across his face. The intricate web of veins beneath his skin ignited bright gold.

Too late.

I was too—

A supernova burst out of him—a roaring sphere of incandescent destruction.

It blasted toward me like a bomb.

Smacked into me harder than a devil’s fist.

It hurled me backward as if I was a flimsy butterfly caught in a flaming hurricane.

The cave shattered around me. Walls crumbled. Ceilings gave in.

And as his power fully unleashed, I was flung into the swirling water behind me.

I hit hard.

I sank quick.

My teeth punctured my tongue as burning water swallowed me deep, yanking me into its violent spiral.

I fought.

I fought so hard.

I kicked and flailed, clawing toward the blazing fire on the surface.

But it was no use.

My back smacked against rock; my knees whacked against stone.

I couldn’t tell which way was up.

Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t scream.

My hair wrapped around my neck like a noose.

I choked and tumbled, spinning and somersaulting.

The whirlpool sucked me down.

And down.

And down.

Darkness chewed me alive as the water forced me into a claustrophobic chute.

The tunnel tightened like the throat of an ancient beast, feasting on me as my lungs screamed. Something whacked against my spine and suddenly...I couldn’t feel anything below my waist.

No—

Horror made me inhale.

Hot water flooded in.

I slammed shoulder-first into stone.

Something cracked.

The stone or bone...I couldn’t tell.

Pain radiated down my arm, white-hot and dizzying.

But the water didn’t care.

It just kept breaking me into pieces, pulverising me as it sucked me around a narrow bend, tearing, shredding—

I hit another wall.

And another.

Something sharp scraped along my chest, splitting my skin open and snagging against my collarbone. It hooked onto the only keepsake I had of my mother.

The chain that’d been around my neck ever since I could remember fought to stay with me. It clung to me so tightly—stretching, shivering, refusing to leave.

But then...it broke.

My raindrop pendant vanished in a surge of bubbles.

No!

My necklace!

My mother’s necklace!

I reached for it blindly, fingers scraping against rushing rock.

My body hit yet another obstruction with a savage smack.

I convulsed—

And something answered.

Snow and sleet and ice, ice, ice ripped through me in a soul-rending flash.

Power flooded my veins—so cold it burned, so vast it erased pain, so wicked it ripped me from death’s embrace and roared.

My bones rang like struck crystal.

My blood frosted like red mercury.

Glacial fractals burst from my fingertips, turning the churning water stark white.

I was the cold between stars.

The silence after extinction—

But then, the mountain rejected me.

My head cracked against the rocky chute.

Something punctured my ribcage, stabbing straight into my lung.

Water poured in through the hole in my body.

And with a final bite, I plummeted into the mountain’s belly...

Chapter Forty

AGONY TORE ME APART.

Three kinds, all at once.

The first detonated in my chest—fissuring through my soul where Rook’s heartbeat lived inside my own.

The second came with fangs—teeth driving into my shoulder.

The third came with lightning-bright pain—my skin cracking as if I’d been roasted.

My body broke with a ruin of ruptured veins and torn flesh.

A loud growl echoed in my ear as the fangs in my shoulder drove deeper, wrenching my attention to the fact my protective, lovable panther was currently eating me alive.

“Whisper.” I choked on ash. “What...What are you—?”

He snarled like a monster and got a better grip with his jaws.

Agony exploded as he hauled me upward, my ruined body scraping over stone. Every inch he dragged me, my chargrilled skin tore even more, leaving my nerves exposed, my muscles uncovered, dragging me from the crater I’d chosen for my grave, all while doing his best to shove me into a different one.

I was dead weight—just a hunk of meat being pulled from a battlefield by something that refused to let me die.

But I wasn’t dead.

How wasn’t I dead?

I’d reached the crux.

I’d felt it.

After endless hours doing my best to cool down, I’d lost.

The fire had taken over.

I’d burned—

Grumbling under his breath, Whisper deposited me on the dry pool’s edge and kindly removed his fangs from my fissured flesh.

I lay there trembling.

My burnt skin stung so fucking much. My exposed nerves made everything torture. My insides slowly shut down, no longer functioning thanks to being boiled and barbecued.

Whisper chirped and headbutted me, nudging against open sores.

I winced.

He’d never hurt me so badly before. Never bitten so deeply.

Why now?

Was it because the scent of my smoking body was too much for his predatory senses to ignore? Was he biding his time to eat me?

Opening my hazy eyes, I went to find his—to give him permission to put me out of my misery—but I locked onto the cave instead.

Ice.

Everywhere.

The cavern had been entombed—flash-frozen so completely, every melted wall was sealed in a thick, glacial shell. Jagged arcs of frozen steam hung suspended in the air, caught mid-boil and crystallised. The ceiling glittered like a shattered sky, while cold seeped from every direction, pressing pause, holding my apocalypse in icy stasis.

I was ruined beyond repair, but the pain faded a little as frost crackled over me, acting like a soothing bandage on my unbearable burns. The rock hissed as droplets of my golden-tinted blood landed—reacting as if acid dissolved it.

I stared dumbly.

Why was my blood no longer fully red?

How was it cutting through rock?

How the fuck am I still alive?

Whisper nudged my hip, almost sending me into the empty basin again. My gaze landed on him and...my heart stopped.

No...

His beautiful pelt was scorched to his skin—large patches of black fur burned away, leaving angry welts that cracked as he moved. His whiskers were curled into brittle spirals and his paws...fuck, they were blistered and bleeding.

My chest seized.

“Whisper...” His name scraped up my raw throat.

Rage and guilt collided, white-hot and choking.

Frost settled thicker around my joints, acting like a living brace.

I couldn’t lie here.

Not while he was injured.

I couldn’t die yet.

Not until he was healed.

Clenching my jaw, I forced my ruined body to get the fuck up.

Every part screamed in protest, muscles threatened to shred, and blood poured faster, melting the rock beneath me with smoky curls.

The sight should have terrified me; instead, it forced me to move faster.

My friend was hurt.

And I was the reason.

With a broken snarl, I hauled myself upright and swayed drunkenly. My knees threatened to buckle, but Whisper pressed into me like usual, solid and unwavering.

I touched him where he wasn’t scorched, tears pricking my eyes. Even his nose was shiny with a burn. “I’m so sorry.” I tried to swallow, finding soot instead of saliva. “I’ll fix this, alright? I’ll get you help. I’ll summon the best vets and—”

A tearing sensation severed my heart from my body.

Folding over, my fingers clawed at my flayed chest as an invisible hand reached past my ribcage and fisted my very soul.