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Screeching and crashing echoed in my ear before the line went dead. “Ash?ASH?”
Pain and fear flared in the piece of myself that only belonged to him. Horror dropped over my gaze like a film.
“Firefly?”
“Something’s wrong,” I managed to get out, running out of the room and down the stairs, not even bothering with the elevator. My voice was at the top of my lungs, that pain and fear echoing through me like acid. “We need to go. We need to gonow.”
“Little one? What’s going—”
I crashed into Gabriel in the kitchen, pushing past him to get to my shoes. “I was talking to Ash and I think he crashed. He was on the big hill outside the city. Can’t you feel it? He hurts, hehurts. We need to go right the fuck now.”
There was no other hesitation except for Roman picking me up on the way out the door. Jace joined us, tense silence raining as we piled into the car and broke every traffic law in existence.
Panic and pain clawed at my insides and I couldn’t breathe. It was like inhaling razor blades that cut me open on the way down.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until Jace took my face in his hands and brushed them away with his thumbs. He pressed our foreheads together. “It’s going to be okay, Sloane.”
But none of them knew that, and none of them felt like they believed it. Jace’s bond was as bleak as all of ours, laced with bitter fear. The scents in the car were hard. Burnt butterscotch, scorched forest, and tobacco that smelled more like ash than the sweetness I was used to.
Ash didn’t feel in pain anymore. It didn’t feel like anything but dread. Was that what this felt like if—
My mind shut down even the possibility ofthinkingit.
“Please,” I said, curling in on myself. “Please.”
“Almost there,” Gabriel said tightly.
Every minute felt like a century until one low word. “Firefly.”
I forced myself to look and see the flashing lights. Red and blue. So fucking vibrant in the dark they scarred my eyes. Please, please, please—
Gabriel pulled over on the side of the road next to the low stone wall that ran alongside it, just behind the ambulance and cop cars and nothing in the fucking world was stopping me. I shoved out of the car and ran.
“Ash.”
I stopped short, the world crashing down on me. A body lay on the side of the road, a sheet covering it. My own body went cold. “No.”
This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t bereal. This couldn’t—
Grief speared through me, shredding every piece of my soul, just as arms came around me from behind and turned me. Pointing me straight to where Ash sat against the wall, still in his helmet, still in the clothes I’d seen him in the morning. Alive.
I sprinted, crashing to my knees beside him. Now that we were here, I knew why he felt like dread and nothingness. Because if he was alive, then that meant Will wasn’t.
“Ash.” I managed his name before it turned into a sob. His visor was open, but all he did was stare straight ahead. No words. No movement other than to pull me tight when I hugged him. So hard I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t care. If it meant he was here, I would never fucking breathe again.
Every gulp of air was ragged with pain. With his, with mine, with all of us and what almost happened and whatdidhappen.
I pulled Asher’s helmet off, noting the scrapes on it. One glance told me his bike was on the ground. He’d fallen and skidded.
Holding his face in my hands, I made him look at me. And there was nothing there. Just a terrifying blankness. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my face and chest crumpling again. “I’m so sorry.”
How did you do this? Tell someone you were so fucking sorry for what happened while at the same time being selfishly grateful it wasn’t them. Through the depths of that blankness in our bond, I found the pain, buried so deep it felt like a dark echo. Waiting for its moment.
“I thought I lost you,” I told him.
Ash didn’t speak when I buried my face in his neck, but he held me. Clung to me just as desperately. It was the only sign my Alpha was still in there.
Gravel crunched, and a hand touched my shoulder. “Little one, we need to get Ash checked out.”
