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Something fierce and powerful rises within me—love, defiance, or perhaps simply the refusal to be separated from Griffin again. I reach for that connection, for the bond that still faintly pulses between us despite death’s intervention.

The wolf lunges forward, teeth bared against the darkness, and I lunge with it.

My eyes fly open.

I gasp, drawing air into lungs that had ceased to function. Griffin stares down at me, shock and disbelief battling with desperate hope across his tear-streaked face.

“Maya?” he whispers, voice broken and raw.

I try to speak but can only manage a weak sound. My hand lifts, trembling, to touch his face.

His eyes widen further as he feels the impossibility of what’s happening. “How—”

My fingers tangle in his hair, pulling his face down to mine with strength I shouldn’t possess. Our lips meet, and the bond between us flares brilliantly, newly awakened.

When we part, I find my voice. “I heard you calling,” I whisper. “I couldn’t leave you.”

My body feels strange, like there is something living and breathing inside of me, inside my mind. And I can feel Griffin. I can feel everything. His love for me, like a deep, bottomless ocean; the fear in his heart, his fear for me; and a relief so sharp and aching that I want to wrap my arms around him.

He looks closely at me, and then I see his jaw drop.

“Your eyes, Maya. Your eyes have changed.”

Shock fills me at his words. As my hands go to my face in an unconscious gesture, I feel the living thing inside me move.

My wolf roars in satisfaction at finally being awakened.

Chapter Eighteen

Griffin Wild

The steady beep of medical equipment is the only sound in the room as I stand at the foot of Maya’s bed, watching her chest rise and fall with each breath. Her auburn hair fans across the pillow, her skin pale but flushed with life. It seems impossible after what I witnessed—the blood pooling beneath her, her heart stopping, the light fading from her eyes.

Yet here she is. Alive. Changed.

The doors to the healing chamber open, and Jerry enters, his face drawn with exhaustion. “She’s stable,” he says, his voice low. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Neither have I,” I admit, unable to take my eyes off her sleeping form. “How is this possible?”

Jerry shakes his head. “I don’t know. The tests confirm it, though. She’s changing on a cellular level. Human tissue is transforming into shifter tissue. It’s inexplicable.”

I nod, remembering the moment her eyes opened—the blue irises now ringed with an amber glow so similar to my own. The scent of her has changed, too, the familiar lavender nowthreaded with something wild and untamed. Something that calls to my wolf in a way I can’t explain.

“I want her under constant protection.”

Jerry hesitates. “Your Majesty, we still don’t know what else they might have done to her. Mathew remains at large, and we don’t know the full extent of their experimentation.”

The mention of Mathew’s name sends a fresh swell of rage through me. How he managed to escape in the chaos, I don’t know, but I will track him down. I will make him pay for what he did to Maya.

“I’ll find him,” I murmur. “In the meantime, I want you to focus on Maya.”

“When she’s awake, she’s normal,” Jerry says. “But when she sleeps, it’s for hours and hours. In the two weeks since you brought her back, though, her sleep cycles have been decreasing. I’m confident she will be more active in another few days.”

As Jerry leaves the room for a moment, I move to Maya’s side, taking her hand in mine. The bond between us pulses strongly, newly formed and yet somehow familiar, as if it was always meant to be. I brush a strand of hair from her face, marveling at the miracle of her survival.

“I love you,” I whisper, knowing she can’t hear me. “I’m never letting you go again.”

We haven’t had a proper conversation yet. When she’s awake, she huddles in her laboratory, working, researching. Part of me feels like she’s avoiding me, and another part is worried about this fanatical energy she’s displaying. She won’t even let Jerry inside the lab.