The bond—my golden, sturdy, beautiful lifeline—was dead. Not broken. Silent. Like a radio tuned to a station that had gone off the air.
Panic, hot and frantic, tried to claw its way up my throat. Marrow had won. He had eaten me. I was being digested in the stomach of the universe.
No.
The thought was small, but it was sharp.
I am not food.
I closed my eyes and reached for the magic. Not the magic in the air—there was none here. I reached for the magicinside. Thespark that the Brotherhood had tried to crush. The spark that the Triad had fanned into a flame.
It was tiny. A single ember in a blizzard.
But it was mine.
I am Lina.I focused on the ember.I am the Anchor. I am the Storm.
I pushed.
I didn't push outwardly. I inverted the pull. Marrow wanted to eat magic? Fine. I would give him magic.
I thought of Rhett’s fury—the burning, red-hot rage of a wolf protecting his mate.
I thought of Kai’s growth—the relentless, cracking force of roots shattering stone.
I thought of Lucien’s shadows—the deep, oceanic pressure of the dark.
I pulled those memories into the ember. I fed the fire with the only thing I had left: my bond. Even if it was silent, the memory of it was powerful enough to burn.
The void shuddered.
A crack appeared in the nothingness. A jagged line of white light.
There.
I grabbed the crack with my mind. I didn't treat it like a wall. I treated it like a wound. And I tore it open.
The transition from "Nothing" to "Everything" was violent.
One second I was floating in silence. The next, I was exploding upward on a geyser of raw power.
I hit the floor—or rather, I burstthroughthe floor—with enough force to shatter bone. But I didn't break. I felt weightless. Charged.
I opened my eyes.
The ballroom. Or... what was left of it.
For a second, my brain couldn't process the image. It looked like a bomb had gone off. The floor was a cratered ruin. The windows were blown out, letting in swirls of gray snow. The chandeliers were shattered piles of glass on the ground.
And the noise. The silence of the void was replaced by a cacophony of screams, growls, and explosions.
"Lina!"
The voice was a roar. I looked up.
A massive black wolf—easily the size of a pony—was tearing through a line of men in suits.
Rhett.
