Dane's Pov
I counted to ten in my head.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
Every muscle locked up tight, screaming to move, to rip into them. But I held it. Barely.
Not while those assholes still had their hands on Freya. One twitch from me and she’d be the one paying for it.
Viktor kept chanting, those creepy old words making the air feel heavy and wrong, like breathing soup. The pool around her kept getting brighter silver light crawling across the water like something alive and hungry.
And through the bond… God. I could feel every bit of her pain. Her fear. And something else something massive waking up inside her, stretching, pushing.
*Hold on,* I kept sending. *Just hold on, baby.*
Her answers came back faint. Broken. Like she was getting pulled under.
“Dane.” Henry’s whisper was so
