SCARLETT
The silver fissures split the obsidian plain, the light burning into my skin until I thought it would rip me apart. My wolf clawed inside me, desperate, howling, torn between bonds.
Kael’s flames roared from his body as his chains cracked, fire searing the shadows that bound him. Darius’s lightning blazed, splitting the dark, his storm surging in violent arcs.
And still Lucien held me, his hand on my throat, his eyes black voids swallowing the silver glow. “Look at them,” he whispered, his voice a dagger wrapped in velvet. “They can’t even agree on how to save you. One wants to burn you. The other wants to cage you. Only I—only shadow—can let you be free.”
I gasped, the shadows coiling across my chest, heat and darkness sliding between my ribs like silk. My wolf trembled at t
