Tristan
I could feel my life slipping away.
It wasn’t slow or gentle like I had always imagined death might be.
It was a burning, tearing pain that sank into my bones and dragged every ounce of strength out of me with ruthless efficiency.
My chest felt hollow and my head was so light I thought I might be floating somewhere between life and death.
The sensation was unlike anything I had ever experienced as an Alpha.
All my life I had been the strong one, the one who protected others, the one who never showed weakness.
But here I was, crumpled on a cave floor, feeling more helpless than I had ever felt in my entire existence.
I wanted to scream but my throat wouldn’t work properly and all that left my mouth was a broken whisper.
“Athena…”
It was weak and shattered but it was all I had left to give. The sound of her name on my lips felt like a wish, like maybe if I said it enough times she
would remember who she used to be.
Her hands were still on me, still drinking me dry like I was nothing more than a vessel to be emptied, but when Orion’s voice rang out through the chamber it was like the entire world shifted around us.
“Athena, stop!”
His Alpha command cracked through the air like thunder and I felt it his.
both of us with the force.
The power in his voice was something I had heard countless times before in training and in battle, but never directed at someone we both loved.
She paused and her grip loosened before she let go of me completely. My body crumpled to the ground like a broken doll, empty and cold and shaking so badly I could barely draw breath into my lungs.
The sudden absence of her touch left me feeling even more drained than when she had been actively pulling the life from me.
It was like losing a connection to something vital and necessary, even though that connection had been killing me.
I had never felt anything like this before in my entire life. It wasn’t just my own pain that was teating through me, I could feel hers too.
I could feel her fear clawing at my chest and her rage roaring in my veins and/her desperation cutting into me like a knife in my lungs.
The bond between us was so raw and exposed that I thought it might actually rip me apart from the inside out. Every emotion she was experiencing crashed into me like waves against a rocky shore, and I was drowning in the intensity of it all.
Through the bond I could sense her confusion and her terror at what she was becoming. She was trapped inside her own body, watching herself do things she would never choose to do, and the horror of that realization was almost worse than the physical pain.
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Chapter 189
The thing that was inside her.
It’s a power so deep and consuming and ancient that even my own Alpha strength felt like nothing in comparison.
The power I had been born with, trained with, fought with my entire life suddenly seemed as weak as a child’s toy compared to whatever force had taken
control of my mate.
I’d tried to push my own command toward her through our bond, tried to reach whatever part of her was still fighting in there, but it was like throwing
a stone into a raging storm. It didn’t even cause a ripple in whatever darkness had consumed her.
I and Orion’s Alpha voices, which had never failed us before, which had commanded respect from every wolf we’ve ever encountered, was completely
useless against this thing.
It was a humbling and terrifying realization that made me question everything I thought I knew about power and strength.
I couldn’t fight it.
I couldn’t even touch it.
And that terrified me more than the physical pain did.
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Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
