The instant Alaric's fangs broke the delicate skin at my throat, the agonizing pain radiating from my crushed windpipe vanished, entirely swallowed by an explosion of blinding heat. It was nothing like the weak, ceremonial bite Cassius had given me years ago. This was raw, untamed Lycan power. A wave of something wild, warm, and violently alive poured in through the puncture wounds, flooding my veins like liquid gold.
I gasped, my back arching off his arm, but he held me firmly against his solid chest. The energy from his mark surged through my broken body with terrifying purpose. I felt the sickening crunch of bone as my right hand—the fingers Selene had sadistically ground into powder beneath her wooden heel—violently snapped and knit back into perfect alignment. The deep, agonizing te
