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“Orion. Run.”

Before I understand what's happening, she spins and bolts into the forest, dragging me behind her.

Rain splashes against my face as branches whip at my arms. The mountainside is slick beneath our feet, and every step nearly sends us tumbling. But Mother never slows. She only squeezes my hand tighter and pulls me onward.

Behind us, Father roars loud enough to shake the trees. He launches into pursuit, each stride closing the distance between us faster than we can hope to outrun. His horns brush the low-hanging branches as his claws carve into the earth, and when I glance over my shoulder in terror, I find his eyes fixed completely on Mother.

She looks back only long enough to see how close he's become, then veers sharply toward a narrow trail that juts from the edge of the mountain. The path is barely wide enough for the two of us to fit.

“Mother…” I cry, tugging on her hand, but she pulls me ahead.

“We have to cross. We're almost⁠—”

Father's claws close around the back of her arm, jerking her to a violent stop. The force tears her away from me so suddenly that I scream.

“No!”

She twists wildly, striking at the alpha's chest with both fists. “Let me go!”

“You are finished running.”

“I will never go back!”

When she drives her knee into his side, he loosens his grip for only a heartbeat, enough for Mother to tear free. She dives toward me, and Father reaches out again, but her foot lands on rain-slick stone. The earth beneath it gives way.

For one suspended moment, she hangs over the gorge as her fingers grasp at empty air.

Father and I lunge forward. Their hands meet, his claws catching on her knuckles as the rain drops around us seem to freeze in place entirely. Hope surges through my chest.

Then the downpour continues.

Her fingers slip through his grasp.

Father roars her name when she disappears into the mist below, and all I can do is watch the rocks swallow her whole.

Throwing my body over my mate, I curl around him just as stone begins raining down from every direction.

“Orion!” Benjamin shouts, struggling against my arms.

A boulder slams across my back hard enough to drive me onto my knees. Pain lances through my spine, but it is the sound that shakes something loose inside my mind.

Memories begin forcing their way through the barriers I have spent countless winters building around them. Until now, they have only ever returned in pieces, brief flashes of blood and claws that disappeared whenever I reached for them.

Father's ruined face twisted with rage, the injuries caused by killing his own former alpha. Mother's frightened scent. The white-hot pain that carved the scar across my brow.

Now, as the mine collapses around me, those fragments refuse to scatter. I glance toward the tunnel in one last desperate attempt to save my mate, to do what Father could not, but it is gone. Buried beneath a wall of stone. No escape.

My muscles tremble beneath the mounting weight on my shoulders. Dust clogs every breath I draw, the air thick enough to choke on. Tightening my hold around Benjamin, I lower my head until our foreheads rest together. “I am sorry.”

“No.” He shakes his head furiously. “We can make it.”

“I cannot⁠—”

Another crack splits the ground beneath us. Shale shifts forcefully, throwing us both sideways against the onslaught of stone.

I wrap myself around my human, pressing him into me so that I can take the brunt of the collapse. Slabs of granite pile above, their pressure on my back forcing the air from my lungs. Darkness begins to encroach on my vision.

If I cannot save him… Perhaps I can at least make his end gentle.