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Time loses shape. The stars above shift, moonlight climbing higher. My voice grows hoarse until the roars become pathetic, broken howls. Eventually the tether between us stops pulling altogether, and I freeze.

The stretched, slicing agony goes slack, leaving a void so black that terror floods every part of me when it snaps completely.

“Benjamin?”

Silence.

I reach for him through our bond, though I do not entirely know how. Nothing answers in return. No warmth, not even pain. Only emptiness.

My mate is gone.

A wounded, agonized sound rips from my throat as I press my face into the dirt where he lay. For several breaths, I cannot move, torn asunder by the sudden absence of life inside of me. Gone, he is gone. He has rejected me.

Then… something returns. A faint pulse. Not from the direction he traveled, but somewhere else farther across the mountain…

Our tether trembles through the emptiness inside me, so weak I nearly mistake it for memory.

Benjamin. He is still here.

Relief strikes first, violent enough to buckle my knees, but it dies just as quickly when another presence presses against the bond. A scent clings to my mate, old and bitter, one I followed through the forest until dawn.

My fingers automatically rise to the scar above my brow as a flash moves through my mind.

Golden eyes looming over me. A hand larger than my mother’s swiping at my skull. Her screams.

No.

The memory disappears before I can grasp it, leaving only the scent and terror buried inside my being. The creature that attacked Benjamin's machine, the one that stalked him through these trees. It did not merely resemble me.

It carries my blood.

A word rises from the depths of my soul, one I have kept sealed for longer than I can remember.

“Father?”

The mountain does not answer, but my chest tightens as the truth settles over every tree and rock.

My father lives.

And he has taken what belongs to me.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Benji

The sound of someone sobbing draws me from sleep.

My eyes remain closed, awareness slowly seeping back into my senses. Cold stone rests beneath my cheek, and damp air brushes my skin. There’s a faint, familiar crackling nearby. Fire.

Momentarily, relief floods my system.

Orion. He found me. The tether linking us together must have led him to my whereabouts, and he took me away from that other creature. He brought me home. I'm sorry, I was wrong, I'll never leave you again. Please forgive me.

The moment I inhale, though, all my hopes come crashing down.

Rot, and blood. Stagnant water. Decay.