The silver tipped arrows poised on the archers bows, glinting like death under the noon sun. I stood at the center of the cracked rink, Leo's pained howls echoing in my ears as his small body fought the forced shift. The widow's smug smile burned into my memory, her hand still resting on her swollen belly while Darius circled like a predator who thought he had already won.
Time slowed to surgeon's precision. O e cut and everything would bleed out.
I slashed the glowing scalpel across the largest rune line on the ice. Sparks exploded upward in a fountain of red and silver energy. The ritual faltered, the old mate bond pulling at my chest like barbed wire. Pain lanced through me, but I pushed forward, dropping to my knees beside Leo.
"Hold on, baby," I whispered, injecting the last of
