Page 93 of Feral Fates
“Thaddeus?” I demand.
The guard squirms. “I don’t?—”
Elias nicks his skin, a warning of what is to come.
“The northern complex.”
I nod once. “Elias?”
“I’m on it.”
He disposes of the guard and moves to leave just as I hear the faint sound of metal striking stone. I move to cover Kitara but I’m too late.
Kitara gasps, her hand flying to her neck. “Ryker!”
I crouch, frantically pulling her hands from her neck. A silver syringe is embedded in her throat, its contents already emptying into her bloodstream. I spin in time to see the dying woman’s arm fall limply to the stone floor, her final act of vengeance complete.
“No!” I roar, but it’s too late.
Kitara stares at me with growing horror, one hand clutching the injection site. “What did she—” Her eyes go wide with terror. “Ryker, I can’t?—”
She bucks, writhing in pain. A howl escapes her—terrible and devastating, unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Then her body goes limp in my arms.
“Kitara!” I press my hands to her face, but her eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling. No breath. No heartbeat. No response.
Our claiming bond falls silent.
She’s gone.
I throw my head back and release a sound of pure anguish.
My mate is gone.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Darkness.
Death isn’t the cold, empty void I expected. This darkness pulses with warmth. The silence is filled with memory, with the whisper of countless voices that came before.
I’m floating, weightless, in a space between spaces. And I’m not alone.
“Child.” The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, familiar yet strange. “You carry our gift well.”
I turn—or think I turn, movement means nothing here—and see her. An elderly woman with silver hair that seems to hold starlight. Her eyes shift between colors like an aurora. She wears robes that appear to be cut from the night sky itself.
“Cheyenne.” I know her name instantly.
“Welcome, Kitara.” She approaches with a smile both sad and proud. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”
“Am I dead?” The question comes without fear, only curiosity.
“Not dead. But not alive, either. You stand at thethreshold, dear one. The silver poison burns through your gift, severing the pathways that make you what you are.” Her expression grows grave. “Soon, there will be nothing left but silence.”
Pain flickers through me—physical, but deeper still. It is the agony of losing part of my soul.
“Why?”
