Page 20

Sierra

I sank into darkness, my body heavy with exhaustion after the claiming ritual. The last sensation I registered was Callum's arms around me, his knot still connecting us as he whispered something in my ear that I couldn't quite catch before sleep claimed me.

Then...

Cold.

Cold so brutal it burned.

My eyes snapped open to a world leached of color. The sky above me wasn't black or blue or even gray, it was the absence of color, a void that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. I shivered, my breath escaping in visible plumes that dissipated into the lifeless air.

"Hello?" I called out, my voice falling flat, as if the very atmosphere swallowed sound.

I was standing in what appeared to be a field, though the grass beneath my bare feet was brittle and dead, crumbling like ash with each step I took. Dead leaves scattered across my path, so desiccated they shattered at my touch.

"Rowen? Archer? Callum?" I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware that I was naked. Yet it wasn't embarrassment I felt.

It was vulnerability. The chill seeped into my skin, bypassing muscle and bone to settle directly in my soul.

Where was I? I didn't remember walking here. The last thing I recalled was falling asleep in the sanctuary, surrounded by my mates, sated and marked.

Complete. Finally complete.

A path formed before me, winding through the dead field toward a distant shape that seemed vaguely familiar. With nowhere else to go, I followed it, wincing as the brittle grass cut at my feet. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if gravity itself was strengthening its pull on me.

As I drew closer, I realized the distant shape was a structure.

Or what remained of one. Wooden beams jutted from the ground at odd angles, like the ribs of some long-dead creature.

A tattered canopy hung limply from the tallest beam, and scattered across the ground were the remnants of what might have been bedding.

My heart stuttered in my chest as recognition dawned.

"This is Callum's bed," I whispered, the words leaving my lips like shards of ice. "His chambers."

The bed where I'd spent that first night with him, where he'd shown me glimpses of the pleasure to come. But this wasn't right. It looked like it had been abandoned for centuries, left to rot and decay in this colorless wasteland.

A chill ran down my spine, different from the ambient coldness of this place. This was the icy finger of premonition, of warning. Something was very wrong here.

I approached the ruined bed, reaching out to touch one of the broken posts. The wood crumbled beneath my fingertips, disintegrating like everything else in this godsforsaken place.

"What happened here?" I murmured, trying to make sense of it all. "Where am I?"

The sound came without warning. A low, inhuman keening that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at once. I spun around, searching for the source, but saw only the endless field of dead grass stretching toward the horizon.

Another sound joined the first. It was a wet, slithering noise that raised the fine hairs on my arms and neck. Then another, a bone-deep groaning that reminded me of ice cracking on a frozen lake.

I rubbed my arms vigorously, trying to ward off the soul-deep chill that was seeping into every fiber of my being. This wasn't just cold; it was an absence of warmth, of life, of hope.

"Gran?" I called out, instinctively seeking the spirit who had always protected me. "Gran, are you here?"

No response. No spirits answered my call. For the first time since my powers had awakened, I was truly alone.

Another sound, this one like brittle fingernails scraping across glass. I turned again, desperately searching for something, anything familiar in this desolate landscape.

"Hello?" I called again, hating the tremor in my voice. "Is anyone there?"

The only answer was a faint chittering, like thousands of tiny teeth clicking together. The sound grew louder, surrounding me, a whispering cacophony that seemed to carry meaning just beyond my comprehension.

I pressed my palms against my ears, but the noise persisted, worming its way into my consciousness. Louder now, the chittering formed patterns, almost like words.

"...ours..."

"...soon..."

"...waiting..."

"Stop it!" I shouted, spinning in a circle, searching for the source. "Who's there? What do you want?"

A movement caught my eye. A shadow, darker than the colorless void around it, slithering along the ground toward the ruined bed. Then another, and another, converging like streams into a river, pooling at the base of the destroyed structure.

I took a step back, my heart hammering against my ribs. The shadows began to rise, not like smoke or mist, but like something viscous and alive, molding itself into a vaguely humanoid shape.

That is if humans had too many limbs and heads that bent at impossible angles.

The chittering grew louder, resolving into a single voice that spoke with the sound of a thousand whispers.

"Sierra..."

My name in that voice was an obscenity, a violation. I took another step back.

"What are you?" I demanded, summoning every ounce of courage I possessed. "What is this place?"

The shadow creature undulated, expanding and contracting like a grotesque lung taking its first breath. More shadows flowed into it from all directions, increasing its mass until it towered over me, a monolith of darkness against the colorless sky.

"This is the between," it whispered, its voice somehow both distant and intimately close, as if speaking directly into my mind. "The place where all things end."

"I don't understand," I said, continuing to back away. "Why am I here?"

The creature extended what might have been an arm, or a wing, or a tentacle, I couldn't tell, toward me. "Because you will be ours."

"No," I shook my head, finding my spine. "I belong to my mates. Our bond is sealed."

A sound like broken glass grinding together emanated from the creature—laughter, I realized with horror.

"Your mates cannot protect you from what comes," it said. "The claiming means nothing. The bond is weak. And when darkness falls…" The voice trailed off, leaving a ominous pit in my stomach.

More shadows peeled away from the ground, rising up around me like a grotesque forest of writhing tendrils. They reached for me, brushing against my skin with touches so cold they burned, leaving trails of numbness in their wake.

"Soon you will be ours," the shadows chittered in unison, their voices a discordant symphony of promises and threats. "All of you will be ours."

The mass of shadows surged toward me, a tidal wave of darkness threatening to engulf me. I tried to run, but my feet were rooted to the spot, the dead grass somehow wound around my ankles like manacles.

"No!" I screamed, reaching desperately inside myself for my power, for any connection to the spirits who had always protected me. "Get away from me!"

But there was nothing. No familiar surge of energy. No ghostly allies coming to my aid. In this place, my powers were as dead as the landscape around me.

The shadow mass was almost upon me now, its many appendages reaching out to claim me. I could feel its hunger, its ancient malevolence washing over me in waves of nauseating cold.

"Soon," it whispered again, a single word loaded with terrible promise. "Soon. Soon. Soon."

The darkness engulfed me, a thousand icy touches against my skin, invading my nose, my mouth, my ears, trying to penetrate to my very core. I couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't fight as the shadows violated every barrier, seeking something deep within me.

With one last desperate effort, I reached for the bonds I'd formed with my three mates, clinging to the warmth of those connections like a lifeline in a frozen sea.

"CALLUM!" I screamed in my mind, pouring every ounce of terror and need into that silent cry. "ROWEN! ARCHER! HELP ME!"

The shadows pressed closer, a suffocating weight of ancient evil.

"Soon," it whispered again, and this time I felt the truth of its words down to my marrow.

I wrenched myself awake with a silent scream, my body jerking so violently that I nearly fell from the bed.