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So why do my eyes burn?
Why is my heart shattered and tearing me apart from the inside?
Why does every breath hurt?
“Easy,” Vale says, and I cling to his voice like a ship in a storm, seeking out his bright eyes. He watches me carefully as I suck in desperate breaths. “That’s it, just breathe, Quinn.”
For some reason, his words give me power to breathe, and the lightheaded feeling dissipates. Panic and grief still claw at me, my wolf howls in mourning, and my head hurts, but I can’t figure out why . . .
Is Vale in a cage?
Yes. Lucien is next to him, and I turn my throbbing head to see Jai next to me, all peering at me worriedly.
We are in cages. Why are we in cages?
Why is my body sluggish and cold?
“Why does my heart hurt?” I whisper, and Lucien winces as he glances at Vale. I look at him, but he just swallows, watchingme. My eyes find Jai then. “Why does it feel like something is missing inside me?”
“Quinn . . .” He licks his lips nervously. “Do you remember what happened?”
“You came to warn us.” I work through my sluggish, jumbled thoughts. “There was an attack,” I say. “It was raining really badly, and we were winning, but fire . . . There was a fire? Was I hurt in it?”
“Anything else?” Jai prompts.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I rack my brain. My thoughts escape my like wisps, and there’s a small voice telling me not to look, but I delve deeper, and my eyes open with a cry.
“No, no, no, no.” I don’t even realise I’m chanting it at first, my ears popping. My body vibrates as my wolf howls louder, and I understand now.
How can I still be breathing? How can I still be alive when everything inside me is gone?
I choke on my grief, screaming inside my head as I bow from the agony inside my body.
Jang is gone.
My father is gone.
Maybe my mother too.
Maybe my entire pack.
“Babe, focus on me,” the voice calls to me, kind and soft, but it just makes me whine in agony. “Quinn . . .”
“Quinn, fucking stop it. Snap out of it.” The sharp tone pierces my pain, and I lift my head, blindly searching for a lifeline. My gaze lands on familiar bright eyes.
The voice belongs to him.
Vale.
I can barely see through my tears as they track down my face. “You have to be strong. You have to because right now, we are surrounded by hunters who want to rip you apart for fun. Youcan fall apart later.” I watch him close his eyes for a moment. “Right now, we all need each other, we need you, so swallow it.”
“I can’t.” I whimper.
“You can and you will,” he roars. “Do it with me. I did the exact same thing. Take all that pain, all that grief, and shove it into a ball. That’s it, now swallow it. Bury it so deep, you cannot feel it anymore. It will sting every time you take a breath and will be waiting for you, but you’ll be able to think.”
I do as he orders. It eases a bit, but my heart aches, and every breath is still hard. “Why? Why do you do that?”
“You might have hated my father, and he might have been a monster, but he was still my father, and when he died, it broke me,” he admits softly. “It’s how I survived it. We cannot afford for you to break now. We need to get out of here.”
