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When I was a kid, I always used to have dreams that I was falling. They’d take different forms—sometimes, my family’s car would go off the side of a bridge. Sometimes I’d just wake up in the sky, and my body would start to plummet immediately.

But never did I dream of this —my body flying through the air, Dorian crouched down below, favoring one of his paws, ready to catch me. For the first time in a long time, I wish I was lighter. I wish I was a smaller woman, who wouldn’t land quite so hard on him.

The moment we make contact, he tumbles to the ground, rolling and absorbing the impact of the fall. The sound that comes out of him is harrowing, like all the air has left his lungs, and a moment later, he’s crying out.

“What?” I push up off of him, watching as he breathes. I’ve seen him in his wolf form—seen many of them shifted from a distance—but never up close like this before. He’s massive , easily four times my size, maybe more. If we stood, my head might only come up to his shoulder. It makes a shiver run through my body to feel the soft scrape of his fur against my knees.

Dorian lets out a huff of air from his nose, and it blows hot against my skin. I scoot closer to him, and he settles his head in my lap, panting.

“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not sure exactly what it is that I’m sorry for. Leaning forward, I bury my face in his fur and breathe deeply. “I love you, Dorian. I want you to be in my life. This was—I should have trusted you.”

I’m crying in earnest now, and he lets out another low, animistic sound, rolling his head off of me and moving to his other side in the dirt. I place my hands on his side, feeling the ribs shifting under the skin. Did I kill him? By landing on him, did I murder him?

“His Amanzite,” someone breathes, and I look over my shoulder to see Emin there, crouching down. When he turns to look at me, his eyes are serious, but not panicked.

“Fuck Kira, you look like shit, are you—”

“I’m fine.” The hand I have settled on Dorian is shaking. “What about him, can you help him? What’s wrong?”

“He looks okay to me, but in order to wrap his wounds, we need him back in his human form.”

A beat passes as Dorian lets out another low whine, writhing in the dirt. “He’s going to shift now.”

“Okay,” I nod, wanting nothing more than to see his face again. But Emin shakes his head.

“It’s—without the Amanzite, it’s going to be—you shouldn’t watch, Kira.”

I’m about to protest, to insist that I stay for it, when a hand lands on my shoulder, and I look up to see Beth gazing down at us resolutely. To our left, smoke is still billowing out of the building, white now. Several men hold massive hoses, spraying out water and dousing what’s left of the flames.

“Beth,” I breathe, standing, and that’s when Ash reaches us, falling to her knees beside her brother, next to me.

“His Amanzite,” she rasps. “Oh, fuck—”

Her hands shake as she slides a bracelet from her wrist, saying, “He can take mine—”

“It’s too late,” Emin says, as Dorian twists, letting out a howl.

“Come with me,” Beth says, taking me by the shoulders and drawing me to my feet. “I know you want to stay, but I can’t imagine he wants you to see him like that.”

I want to protest, but she’s right. Dorian would not want me to see him like that. The moment I get to my feet, I realize the bottoms of my feet are aching, searing with pain. In fact, that pain is present in all parts of my body, from my hands, which are blistering, the my lungs, which feel like I breathed in all the dirt in the valley.

“Here,” Beth says, sitting me on the back of the fire engine and handing me a bottle of water. “Drink it slowly. The paramedics should be here shortly.”

“How did you know?” I ask, wincing when I hear another howl of pain coming from Dorian’s direction. Beth sets a hand on my shoulder, smiling.

“You’re not the only one who has premonitions, you know.”

“Kira!” I turn to see Emin walking toward me, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up to the elbows. His hair is a mess, and his face is streaked with dirt. A deep gash on his right arm is actively bleeding, but he acts like he doesn’t even notice it. “Dorian shifted back, but he said Jerrod was here? Where—”

“He got away.”

I watched as he tucked his tail and ran the moment Dorian let go of him. It was a pathetic, limping sort of run, but he’s surely long gone now, back into Grayhide territory.

“Fuck.” Emin puts a hand over his chin, then raises his eyes to me. “I saw two dead Grayhides near the building. How did you…?”

“Long story,” I rasp, laughing a bit and taking another sip of water.

“Kira,” Emin says, and when I meet his eyes, there’s no mirth in them. He swallows, looks to the ground. “Dorian said—Mom—”

I open my mouth to respond, but the thought of it makes my throat swell with tears, and I close my mouth again, nodding instead. He curses and turns away, running his hands over his face, kicking at the dirt.

“ Fuck .”

“Emin,” I say quietly, and he turns back to me. My brother. The brother who tormented me as a kid, and is now looking over my wounds like he’ll fight the fire that caused them.

The only other person on this Earth who understands what it’s like to be betrayed by our mother like this. “Tomorrow, I can tell you more about what happened. But right now … I think I know where you can find the stolen Amanzite.”