Page 49 of Night Fae

The wolves had delayed them too much.

Now they were out of time, out of options.

They had to dive into the shadow path, but Zev hadn't completed the protective symbols. Without them, the journey would be dangerous.

Nothing he could do about it.

If they didn't go, they would become his father's prisoners again.

"Hold onto me," he told Malik, pulling him close. "Don't let go, no matter what."

Malik's arms wrapped around Zev's waist, his face pressed against Zev's chest. "I won't."

Darius realized what they intended. "Stop them!" he shouted, striding forward with shadows gathered around his hands.

In one fluid motion, Zev tightened his hold on Malik and leapt backward into the pool of darkness.

The last thing he saw was his father's face, contorted with rage and something else—fear.

Then the darkness swallowed them whole.

The shadow path welcomed them like a starving predator, eager to feed. Cold beyond any natural chill enveloped them, sinking into their bones. Malik gasped against Zev's neck as the darkness pressed in from all sides.

Without the protective symbols, the path's hunger was unchecked. It reached for them, tried to pry into their minds, to feed on their emotions and memories.

Zev wrapped his power around them both like a cloak, creating a barrier—not impenetrable, but enough to filter the path's hunger. He let it taste certain memories, inconsequential ones he could spare, offering them as sacrifice, the way Rhys had taught him.

No, don't think of Rhys, he chided himself.

That was a memory too precious to offer to the shadows.

He had to focus.

But the power he'd taken from Malik's nightmares was already beginning to strain under the pressure.

There wasso muchpressure.

Malik whimpered.

Zev tried to pour more magic into the barrier that was supposed to protect them.

Around them, images flickered—fragments of other times, other places, other worlds. Memories not their own played out like distorted reflections: a silver bridge arching over dark water; a throne room where discordant music played; a battlefield littered with bodies beneath a three-mooned sky.

"Don't look," Zev warned as Malik's head began to turn toward one particularly vivid scene. "Focus on me. Just me."

Malik nodded against his chest, his eyes squeezed shut. But even with his eyes closed, the path found ways to reach him. Zev could feel him trembling as the darkness whispered temptations to them both, promises of relief from pain, from guilt, from the weight of everything.

Worse, it was drawing Zev's magic out of him.

And it was doing so quickly.

In a minute or so, Zev wouldn't have enough to offer them any protection at all, and then they would be lost.

Forever adrift in the darkness.

"Zev." Malik's fingers dug into his clothes.

Something strange happened as Zev focused on the human.