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He moves to turn away, but I catch his hand, lacing my fingers through his before he can get too far.

With wide eyes, he looks at me before looking down at our hands that are now locked together and back up again.

He looks like he wants to say something, but whatever it is never sees the light of day as a grotesque roar sounds behind us, reminding us that now isn’t the time.

Ryker’s eyes fall closed and his brows knit together, his eyes pinched tight as he concentrates. His hand remains in mine, and I feel his fingers flex as his breathing becomes harsher and I hear his heart rate pick up.

He’s struggling.

My chest feels tight as I watch him. I asked him to do this. Draven is attacking to weed me out.

This is all my fault.

‘Help him.’ Garrett’s voice in my head startles me, and I whip around to look for him.

He’s with the others, helping an older lady climb up on Pike’s back. There are only a few people left, and I can’t help but sigh in relief knowing we’ve saved those we could and that this is almost over.

Did I imagine Garrett talking to me?

As if he can hear my thoughts, his head snaps up, our eyes meeting even halfway across the village.

‘Help him. Boost his powers,’ he says as if it’s the most obvious answer, and it would be, if it worked like that.

‘That’s not how it works, it only works with you guys…’ I’d tried to boost Rosalynn’s powers to test what I can do, but it hadn’t worked. She’d never heard of anything like that before, and when Blair and I showed her, she was just as shocked as we had been.

‘Help him,’ he says again, and I’m not sure if I’m just not sending my thoughts right or he’s ignoring me, but I groan in annoyance either way.

Fine! I’ll just try, and then he’ll see.

Letting my eyes fall closed, the last thing I see is the bead of sweat that rolls down the side of Ryker’s face as he continues to struggle.

Please let this work.

Breathing out, I focus on Ryker. Not the destruction around us, not my mates, or my best friend who's still looking at me like he wants to kill me.

It’s easier said than done, but eventually I manage.

I feel the power inside of me, my shadows, as they move from me to him, but unlike with the guys, this feels darker.

Maybe it’s because we both have the power of darkness.

Everything goes quiet, but it’s not the normal kind of quiet.

It’s silent, as if I’d stepped into a vacuum where sound can’t exist.

Cracking an eye open, I’m not sure what I expect, but it’s not this. All the chimeras have turned to us, eyes wide as they look up at me and Ryker where we stand on the roof, their once white eyes now glowing purple.

The same color as Ryker’s, the same color as his electric shadow things.

“Holy shit.” I breathe, and Ryker’s eyes fly open. Full of concern, he turns to look at me, his eyes glowing the same way, but he doesn’t seem to be aware of what's going on.

Squeezing his hand, I nod out toward the village and the chimeras, standing like statues, a lot like they were under Draven’s command the last time we fought them.

Ryker turns to look, his eyes going wide as he sees what made me react like that.

“Did I…” he trails off, but I don’t need him to finish.

“We did.”

His fingers squeeze around mine, and it’s as if he’s gripping my heart with his bare hand the way it squeezes, too.

“Tell them to leave,” I urge him, unsure how long this will last.

This needs to end. We have injured people to tend to, dead to bury, and a village to rebuild.

Ryker nods, his head bobbing a few times as if in disbelief, and I can’t say I blame him; a lot has happened today.

His eyes fall closed, and this time I watch the chimera’s, my shadows already flowing into him, around him.

A moment later, the chimeras turn and head right back the same way they just came, and I could almost cry.

Almost, but not quite.

One chimera remains, his eyes boring into the side of my face with so much heat I feel as though he’s looking through me.

Ryker is panting as the chimeras finally disappear into the trees. His shoulders slump, but he doesn’t drop my hand, instead holding tighter. Thank the gods shifters are built stronger, or he very well might have broken my hand by now.

“I can’t…” He shakes his head. “He won’t leave.” Ryker nods toward Lyle, but it’s unnecessary.

Who else would he be talking about?

I turn to Lyle finally, and I can’t help but shiver under the weight of his purple-eyed gaze.

It’s an improvement from the white, but still not as nice as the beautiful hazel color.

I’m not sure how long we stay like that, trapped in each other’s gazes, but it feels like a lifetime, and somehow not long enough.

I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. The only thing keeping me in place is Ryker’s fingers wrapped around mine. Everything in my body begs me to go to him, even knowing he could and very well might rip me apart.

Having him this close physically but so far away mentally is torture, and I just want it to end. I want him back, and as his eyes bore into mine, I know I would let him tear me apart if it meant getting him back.

I would trade myself for him if I had to because the alternative, living without him for even a mortal lifetime, will be worse.

A growl that sounds more like Lyle’s beast than any sound I’ve heard from him since Draven turned him echoes around the village. Anger burns in his eyes, almost as if he heard my thoughts.

Too bad.

He opens his mouth, fully displaying his razor-sharp teeth as if he might scare me, but my Lyle would know better than that.

Almost as if annoyed with me, he whips away, dropping down on all fours, and takes off into the forest, once again leaving me behind to grieve him, but this time is different.

Lyle’s always told me I’m stubborn as a rock, and he’s about to see just how true that is.

With a groan, I fall back on the roof. My tailbone yells in protest, but I ignore it, using every bit of energy I have left to stay conscious this time.