Page 105 of When Death Whispers

He’shunger.He’sdesire.He’sdeath made flesh.

And he’s finally come to collect.

Hudson shouts my name—but I already know it’s too late.

Something slams into me—fast andunrelenting. Like a storm. Like a fist. Likehim.

My breath leaves me in a rush. The world tilts.

And then?—

The bakery disappears.

The light vanishes.

And I fall into the dark.

39

The bond goes quiet.Not frayed. Not distant. Just… quiet. I feel the wrongness sliding beneath my skin like poison the instant it happens.

The thread between us—between Parker and me—has always pulsed with something. Even when she’s trying to ignore me. Even when she’s scared, or angry, or tangled up in the human.

She’s always there. A familiar thrum in my blood, a fire licking at the edges of my senses, as constant as the pull of gravity…

Until she’s not.

At first, I think it’s her. A panic. A push. Some instinctive recoil from the intensity of last night. I wouldn’t blame her. She’s teetering on the edge of surrender, and it terrifies her.

But then I reach for her… and slam into something cold. Something solid. It’s not distance. Not fear. But a block.

Something’s severed the bond.

And not just hidden her from my senses.

They cut meoff.Completely. She’s gone. Like a light snuffed out. Like she never existed.

A violent, unnatural absence rips through me, hollow and sharp, like my insides have been ripped open and left to bleed.

My vision narrows. My chest heaves. My claws unsheathe, aching for blood.

I reach again, harder this time. Stretching, pulling, demanding?—

And I feel it.

A presence. Writhing at the edge of the severed thread. Shadowy. Oily. Reeking of rot and old, starving hunger.

Steorfan.

A snarl rips from my throat, deep and feral. The sound makes the air crack.

That pathetic little worm.

He took her.

Hedared.

The rage that erupts in my chest is an inferno not of this realm. It is not measured. It is not controlled. It is a beast breaking free of its fucking chains.

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