Page 55 of Love At First Roar
“I couldn’t,” she whispered, voice shaking.
Elric’s smile widened into something feral. “There you are, dove.”
Callum stepped sideways, blocking her with his body. Power coiled under his skin; he felt his eyes flash amber. “You’re done talking to her.”
Elric lifted his hands. Blood dripped from his palms, feeding the crackling tear behind him. The ground shook, roots splitting the soil like snakes. “I barely started.”
Cora moved to Callum’s side, fingers brushing his arm. “It’s okay,” she lied for both of them. “I’m not his.”
Elric’s laugh turned sharp. “A claim doesn’t vanish because you wish it so. The stone altar waits. The Veil knows. And I will have what is mine.”
The wound in the barrier widened with a roar, a tidal wave of red light. Callum braced, pushing Cora behind him. The energy battered against his chest like a physical blow. He dug his boots into the earth, every instinct screaming to protect.
But his lion wasn’t enough to mend a broken Veil.
Cora’s magic flickered at his back, gold sparks dancing from her fingertips. She was ready to fight. Ready to burn through every last ounce of power if it meant stopping Elric.
He couldn’t let her.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw tears sliding down her cheeks, pain and fury and helpless love all twisted together.
Elric raised his hands higher. “Choose, fae. Come willingly, or I drag this whole town into the Cut.”
Callum snarled. “Over my dead body.”
“That can be arranged,” Elric purred.
The Veil split with a crack like shattering glass.
Callum lunged forward.
Cora screamed his name.
Red light swallowed the ridge.
And then darkness slammed into him.
29
CORA
Cora knelt beside Callum’s sprawled body on the ridge, her palms glowing with desperate gold as she checked the slow rise of his chest. The Veil tear had sealed the moment Elric vanished, leaving a slick red scar in the air that crackled before fading. Now only bent grass and scorched roots marked the fight, but she could feel the echo humming through the earth, a bruise beneath Hollow Oak’s skin.
“Come on, big cat,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Breathe deeper.”
He lay half shifted, claws dulled back into fingers, amber gone from his eyes. Blood trickled at his hairline where he’d slammed into a fallen branch. Her magic pulsed again, suturing the worst of the cut, but exhaustion tugged at every thread of her own power.
Callum groaned, lashes fluttering. His hand twitched and caught the hem of her dress like he needed to prove she was still there.
“Easy,” she soothed. “It’s just me.”
His eyes opened, dazed blue, pupils slow to focus. “You… safe?”
“For the moment, yes.” Relief flooded her voice though her heart still pounded. “Elric ran once the Veil closed.”
Callum tried to sit. Pain speared across his features. She pressed him back gently. “No heroics. We get to walk away today.”
“I can walk,” he muttered.
