Maddox’s POV:
Her body was shutting down. I could feel it from the way her footsteps waggered, her skin trembled, and her eyes rolled back in their sockets – all in the same heartbeat.
And then it happened, her eyelids drooped as her legs finally gave out.
I lunged forward and wrapped my arm around her waist, catching her just before her knees could hit the floor hard enough to leave bruises.
“Iliana,” I called her name dreadfully, but she remained unresponsive, collapsed in my arms.
My pulse thundered in my arms as I realized how pale she had gotten. Fear–so raw, so foreign–gathered at the base of my spine.
I’d witnessed wolves bleed out in warzones, I’d held countless dead bodies, hell, I’d even watched life seeping out of my father, but none of that ever clenched my chest the way
