KAI
A scream tore from my throat, primal and visceral, the sound scraping against my vocal cords like shattered glass. The darkness wasn't just around me—it was alive, pressing against my skin with an almost sentient weight, probing for weaknesses. My muscles spasmed against the leather restraints, each movement accompanied by the wet sound of sweat-slicked skin sliding against the barriers that held me. Thunder, my wolf, thrashed beneath my consciousness with terrifying urgency, his desperation bleeding into my own until I couldn't tell where his panic ended and mine began.
"Thunder, be still!" Grandma Chen's voice carried ancient power that slithered through the air like smoke, coiling around my thoughts with suffocating intensity. "You must help him. Guide him through this!"
Thunder'
