His vision grayed as he tilted to the side.
No, it couldn't end like this.He couldn't reach her…
He was dying.He couldn't save her.
She was somewhere ahead of him.Terrified… and he couldn't save her.
Agony lanced through the center of his chest.Not from the wound welling his lifeblood, but inside… in his very soul.
No, this wasn't happening.Thiscouldn'thappen.He had to get to her.Had to save her.
The snarl ripped from his lips as he tried to sit up.
He looked down.The blood welling from the chest wound didn't fall.His eyes widened as it hardened, darkening and thickening to seal over the wound in the center of his chest.
And then the rest of him followed.
His body jerked as bones cracked.Shoulders broadened, spine grinding as it reshaped.Skin darkened; plates formed along forearms and chest as he became something else.
The pain vanished as he pushed to his feet, head down as he looked through the fall of his hair at his opponents.
Then he grinned, power surging through him as claws punched through the skin of his fingertips.
They didn't have time to react before he was on them.The first died with Raaevik's claws in his throat.He took down two more with brutal swipes.
The last two bolted.
He let them.
Instinct drove him now.Not words, just blood and violence and the hot copper smell of things that needed todie.The corridors blurred.More guards.More bodies.
He didn't count.
Nothing existed except the need to find her, protect her, and kill anything between them.
A blast door loomed ahead, sealed tight.
He didn't slow.
Slamming into it, his claws bit into the seam, found purchase, andpulled.Metal screamed and bolts sheared.He tore the door free of its housing and threw it aside.It hit the wall with a crash that echoed through the facility like thunder.
The room beyond was circular and domed.Sterile white walls that caught the light and threw it back.
And in the center?—
Emily.
She was strapped to a table, her wrists and ankles locked in restraints, and a wide strap across her chest pinning her flat.Her face was pale, her dark hair matted with sweat, and her veins were visible beneath her skin in dark lines that branched like lightning.
A male stood beside the table.Tall, orange eyes, dark robes.He was already moving, one hand reaching for her, trying to put her between them.
The fury that punched through his chest was absolute.They had hurt her.The knowledge of it burned through him, intoxicating and terrifying andright.
He launched across the room, intercepting the male before he reached the restraints.Snarling, he drove claws into thedraanthic’s forearm.Meat and bone parted.He felt a claw scrape bone, a joint pop, hot spray across his knuckles.
The limb hit the floor.
The male's mouth opened, but the scream hadn't started yet, his brain still catching up to what his body already knew.
