Lucien.
Then green. Strong, growing, winding around the others to form a braid.
We have you. Don't let go. Root down.
Kai.
The darkness swirled, angry now. The "stomach" was reacting to the foreign object. It tried to crush me, to smother the light I was generating. The cold intensified, biting, stinging.
But it was too late. I had found the signal.
I wasn't floating anymore. I was heavy. I was solid.
I was an anchor. And three very powerful ships were pulling on the chain.
The void groaned. It sounded like tearing metal.
"Wait," I whispered, an idea forming in the chaos.
If I was an anchor... and they were pulling with the strength of a frantic Triad...
And Marrowwasthe void...
"They're not just pulling me out," I realized with a terrifying thrill.
The geometry of the spell shifted in my mind. Marrow was connected to this space. Hewasthis space.
"They're pulling himin."
I grinned in the dark. It was the same smile Rhett gave before a fight. The same smile Lucien gave before a checkmate.
"Hey, Dean!" I shouted, spreading my arms wide, becoming a lightning rod for the bond. "Company's coming!"
I grabbed the braid of gold, silver, and green. I didn't just hold it; I yanked it.
PULL!I screamed to my mates.
And they pulled.
The void cracked. A hairline fracture of blinding white light appeared in the nothingness.
Then another. Then another. Spiderwebbing cracks of reality shattering the illusion.
And then, with the sound of a thousand windows breaking at once, the world broke open.
Light—real, messy, beautiful light—flooded in. The smell of ozone. The smell of sweat. The smell ofwolf.
And the scream of a Null realizing he had bitten off more than he could chew.
20
The void wasn't dark. Dark implied the absence of light. This was the absence ofeverything.
It was cold, but not in a way that made you shiver. It was a cold that stopped your atoms from vibrating. A cold that convinced you that you had never been warm, never been held, never been loved.
I was falling. Or floating. It was impossible to tell.
Rhett?I screamed into the silence.Kai? Lucien?
