Chapter 12
CADE
Snow claws at my legs as I push forward, breath burning like frost in my lungs. I’m not sure what’s real anymore. The world keeps folding in on itself—trees where cliffs should be, cliffs where sky should be. This place wants me lost. Broken. Gone.
I failed. Not only to protect my mate, but even staying alive long enough to do so again. I deserve this gruesome death…alone and tortured and slow.
Sounds come and go, but never make sense long enough to grasp onto. Sometimes it’s footsteps. Sometimes it’s whispers. Sometimes it’s the screams of those I’ve let down.
Rowan. Elias. Liz.
I should stop fighting, but I can’t. Not even when my fingertips turn black. I keep crawling into the storm because I have no other choice.
She needs to know we did our best, my wolf says, his way of encouraging me to go just another inch.
Though who knows if we’re even pointed in the right direction any longer.
Mate. His growl echoes stronger than it has in days.
I question his sanity but decide not to say anything. Her memory is all we have left to cling to.
But then it hits me.
Warm. Sharp. Impossible.
Rowan’s scent.
Wild jasmine and summer rain, the sweet pulse of her. It spears through the freezing wind with such clarity that my heart nearly stops. My knees buckle, but I catch myself before I hit the ground, a snarl ripping free of my chest.
She’s here.
She’s alive.
We didn’t fail.
The storm stops mattering. The cold stops mattering. The mountain’s illusions stop mattering.
There’s only Rowan’s scent. One that I can track. No magic can break that connection.
The fates made sure of that.
“I’m coming for you, mate.”