Harper
My fingers touched the collar.
Cold. Not like Vane's. Vane's collar had warmth underneath, a pulse, something alive pushing back. This was like pressing my hand against a door at the bottom of the ocean. Temperature gone. Light gone. Everything gone.
The Destroyer's body seized. Not a freeze. A convulsion. Every muscle rejecting the contact at once, the way a body rejects a foreign organ.
His hand locked onto my shoulder. Nails bit through fabric, through skin. He was going to rip me off like a bandage.
I clamped down on the collar until my knuckles went white. If I let go, this was over. All of it.
His grip faltered. Half a second. Enough.
I pushed through.
No wall. Vane's mind had a wall, iron-cold and sealed, with a storm raging behind it. This mind had nothing. No defens
