The world gives out beneath us.
One second Adam is holding me against his chest as the clearing cracks open. The next, the earth drops like a collapsing lung. Dirt explodes upward. Roots snap. The ground shatters under our feet.
I feel the moment gravity takes us.
Adam curses, pulls me tighter, and leaps, launching us into nothing.
We fall.
The air whips past my ears in a vertical scream. Adam shifts midair, bones twisting, fur bursting along his skin in a violent rush of sound. His arms tighten around me as they become forelegs, his chest broad and powerful beneath my limp body. The shift saves us. It has to. His wolf twists mid fall, claws scraping against shifting stone and loose roots.
He hits a ledge.
The impact jolts through his entire body. The rock groans under his weight. D
