Elle POV
I find him at the end of the shattered corridor.
The moment I see Blake, my breath catches—not from fear, but from the sheer force of what he’s holding back.
He’s braced between two fractured pillars, hands buried in the stone hard enough that cracks race outward beneath his grip. His head is bowed, shoulders heaving as though each breath is a battle he’s losing inch by inch. Heat rolls off him in brutal waves, thick enough to distort the air. Scales flicker along his arms and throat—dark, jagged, never fully surfacing because he’s forcing them down with everything he has left.
Holding off the shift.
Barely.
His head snaps up the instant he senses me.
“Elle,” he roars, the sound tearing out of him—too deep, too raw to be fully human. “Go back. Now.”
The bond slams into me
