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I landed hard, wide paws spreading in the dirt to brace my massive body. I could feel the whispers on the wind echoing in my large, white tufted ears. But I didn’t care who’d seen my descent.

I had one thought—hunt.

Through the corridors.

Palace guards jumped out of the way. They all recognized my beast by now, elementals and terrestrials alike. They all fell away, their faces lined with fear.

All except one.

I knew where she was going.

I snarled a warning as I rounded the corner a second behind the whipping tail of her white braid.

But she only responded with a low, wicked laugh that I felt in my chest, deep within my wolf’s wildly beating heart.

She slipped into the secret passages.

I did more than snarl, a deep rumbling growl ripping from my chest.

I was going to seal these blasted passages. I would not let another assassin use them to get at her. I’d failed once.

Never again.

I would never fail my mate again.

She was mine to protect.

Mine to punish for this reckless flight.

Mine.

She was going to the forest. I wouldn’t allow it.

I dug in, my haunches screaming as I pushed the muscles, demanding—more strength, more speed. More, more, more.

But she was so fucking fast.

She knew the passages better. Used the sharp turns and her own momentum to propel herself faster and faster. I could bound down a flight of steps in a single leap, but my size slowed me down in the tight tunnels.

My breaths were coming sharper and sharper, my lungs burning.

Not mine—hers.

She was still recovering. Damn her. She’d been hiding it well, sparring every day. She should have been able to make this run easily. Had been able to, before she broke every single bone in her body.

Enough, I snarled, knowing she’d hear me.

Maybe not the word itself, but the feeling. The demand.

But she didn’t stop. And I found a new reserve of strength and power.

I blasted the wards apart with little more than thought. We’d finish this right where it had all started—in that clearing in the woods.

Then I was in the moonlight. She crashed through the brush ahead of me, finding a new depth of energy as well. Maybe she’d accessed mine.

I couldn’t begin to explain the mating bond.

All I could do was obey.