Page 64 of Collar Me Crazy
His first leap carried him thirty feet, claws extended like silver lightning. Where he struck, shadow creatures didn't just dissolve—they ceased, ripped from existence by power that refused to accept their reality.
"Free them," he commanded the remaining shadows, his voice carrying harmonics that made the air itself obey. "All of them. Now."
But the Void's manifestation above laughed, its alien amusement echoing across dimensions. "You cannot reach her, little wolf. She exists now in the space between heartbeats, where your flesh cannot follow."
"Watch me."
Ryker bounded toward the massive tear, but shadow creatures swarmed to block his path. Hundreds of them, pouring through smaller rifts to protect their master's prize. For a moment, even his enhanced power seemed insufficient against their numbers.
Then he heard it—voices, weak but determined, cutting through the chaos.
"Ryker!" Callum's lion roar, muffled by the stasis field but audible. "The bonds! Use our bonds!"
The realization hit like lightning. He wasn't fighting alone. Seven mated pairs, their connections proven and strong, trapped but not broken. All he had to do was reach them, free them, and let their combined power amplify his own.
His next howl was different, deeper, calling not to his pack but to his family. The sound carried frequencies that resonated with mate bonds, with love itself, until the magical signatures of the seven couples began to pulse in response.
Cora's silver fire blazed through her stasis field, the fae magic too strong for shadows to contain. Her power broke Callum free, and his lion's roar shattered the bonds holding three more couples. Like dominoes falling, each freed pair broke the bonds of the next, until all seven stood ready to fight.
"Formation!" Emmett barked, his tactical instincts taking over. "Defensive circle, but inverted—protect Ryker while he goes after Sonya!"
They moved with perfect coordination, seven couples creating a corridor of combined magical energy that led straight to the tear in reality. Silver fire, wolf song, panther grace, bear strength, tiger fury, dream walking, and scholarly precision—all focused on one goal.
Getting their eighth member back.
Ryker bounded through their protection, shadow creatures dissolving as they touched the concentrated love energy. But as he reached the tear itself, the Void's true power pressed against him.
"You cannot enter," the entity said with cosmic certainty. "This realm exists beyond flesh, beyond the physical laws that bind your kind."
"Then I'll change the laws."
Ryker planted his massive paws at the edge of the dimensional rift and did something that should have been impossible. He reached across realms, not with claws or teeth,but with the bond that connected him to Sonya. The damaged connection they'd fought to repair, now blazing with renewed purpose.
"Sonya," he called, not with his voice but with his soul. "Follow my voice home."
Through the tear, he could sense her—trapped in a space of pure consciousness, the Void's alien presence pressing against her mind like acid. She was fighting, resisting, but her strength was failing under the entity's relentless assault.
"I can't," her mental voice reached him, weak with exhaustion. "It's too strong. It's inside my head, taking everything."
"Then let me in too."
"Ryker, no. If you come here, if you leave your body?—"
"I'm not leaving it. I'm bringing it with me."
The bloodmoon heritage that had marked him as either savior or destroyer finally revealed its true purpose. He wasn't bound by the same rules as other shifters. His power existed in the spaces between normal and impossible, between flesh and spirit, between what was and what could be.
Ryker stepped into the tear.
The sensation was like being turned inside out, every molecule of his being stretched across dimensions that had no names. But he held tight to two anchors—his love for Sonya, and the combined strength of his pack behind him.
The Void's realm materialized around him, a space of hungry darkness shot through with veins of stolen light. And there, suspended in the entity's consciousness, was Sonya.
She hung motionless in tendrils of pure shadow, her eyes closed as the Void rifled through her mind like pages in a book. But when Ryker's presence blazed across the realm, her eyes snapped open.
"You came," she whispered, wonder cutting through despair.
"Always," he replied, padding toward her on paws that left trails of silver fire. "Now let's go home."
