“Severin?”Cassandrawhispered from somewhere in the dark.Hervoice sounded frightened but controlled, which was more than he could say for the state of his own thoughts at the moment.
“I’m here,” he said at once, reaching toward the sound of her voice.Hisfingers found her arm, warm and bare beneath his touch, and he felt her tense for half a heartbeat before she gripped his hand.
A second later,Ravikmoved too.Severinheard the rustle of fabric, the scrape of bare feet on the metal floor, and then theBeastKindred’smassive body was suddenly close enough thatSeverincould feel the heat rolling off him.Evenhalf-confused, half-angry, and stubborn as a wall of reinforced alloy,Ravikstill positioned himself betweenCassandraand the unseen threat.
That wasRavik, he thought with reluctant admiration—infuriating, impossible, courageousRavik.
“Emergency lights should have come on,” he said, keeping his voice low.Hismind was already moving through the bunker schematics, mapping which systems would fail first if the main power went down and which doors would automatically seal.
“They didn’t,”Cassandrasaid, which was obvious, butSeverindidn’t blame her for saying it.Sometimesnaming the awful thing helped make it a little less awful, though in this case it really didn’t help much at all.
“No, they didn’t.”Hereleased her hand to feel along the wall for the emergency panel.Hefound it by memory, tapped the manual activation sequence, and got nothing but a dead click under his fingers.
Ravik growled again, deeper this time.
“What the fuck does that clicking sound mean?”he demanded, and though his voice was clear, there was still a rough edge to it that madeSeverin’sstomach knot.
“It means the backup cells are either drained or disconnected,” he said.Hetapped the panel again, harder this time, even though he knew perfectly well that anger wouldn’t restore power to a dead system.
“Disconnected?”Cassandra’shand brushed his arm in the dark.“Asin, something broke?Oras in, something is breaking it right now?”
BeforeSeverincould answer, a distant metallic boom echoed through the bunker.
Cassandra gasped, andRaviksnarled so loudly that the sound vibrated through the metal walls.
Severin reached for the small light clipped to his belt, clicked it on, and narrow blue-white illumination spilled across the corridor.Heused it to look at his companions.
Cassandra was pale, her eyes wide, with one hand pressed to the bite wound on her arm.Ravikstood beside her, shirtless and tense, his golden eyes beginning to haze at the edges, damn it.
“Ravik,”Severinsnapped.“Lookat me.”
TheBeastKindred’sgaze jerked to his face.
“Stay with us,”Severinsaid, sharper than he intended.“Iknow you’re angry andIknow you don’t want to listen to me, but we need you.Ifyou slip back into theHungerhaze now, we could all die.Doyou understand?”
Ravik’s jaw tightened.Fora moment,Severinsaw the anger there—the offended pride…the stubborn refusal…the male who had been told his best friend needed to bite him in order to heal him and had reacted exactly asSeverinhad feared he would.
ThenCassandratouchedRavik’sarm.
“Hey, big guy,” she said softly.“It’sokay—just focus on me.”
The shift in theBeastKindredwas immediate.Hisshoulders lowered slightly, and the haze in his eyes thinned as he breathed in her scent.
“I understand,” he said at last.Hisgaze flicked back toSeverin, still wary but clearer.“ButI’mstill not letting you bite me.”
Severin almost laughed, though there was nothing funny about the situation.
“Do you honestly think this is the moment to keep arguing about that?”he demanded.“Thepower is out, the backup systems are down, and something just hit the bunker hard enough to shake the walls.”
“Then we deal with that first,”Ravikgrowled.“Afterward, you can go back to trying to get your fangs in me.”
Severin clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached.
He wanted to shout at his best friend—wanted to tell him he was being an irrational, stubborn, over-muscled fool who would rather risk losing his mind than admit thatSeverinmight know what he was talking about.Hewanted to shakeRavikuntil the male understood that this was not about sex, not about pride, and most certainly not about the old rules that said aBloodKindredshould only bite his mate.
But underneath the frustration was fear…so much fear that it felt like a hand around his throat.
BecauseRavikdidn’t remember.Hedidn’t remember the worst of the fog…the vacant eyes…the broken words…the nights whenSeverinhad locked himself in the lab and listened to his best friend growling through the door like an wild animal.Ravikdidn’t know what it had done toSeverinto watch him vanish piece by piece into the fog.
