The absolute darkness of the smuggler’s tunnel pressed in on us, heavy with the scent of damp earth, spilled wine, and the sickeningly sweet tang of Kaelen’s blood.

"Keep moving," Kaelen rasped again, his voice tight with barely suppressed agony.

I didn't listen to his bravado. I slung his heavy

Fire.

It started in my stomach, a cold, sharp burning that rapidly turned into an inferno. The glass slipped from my fingers, shattering against the hardwood floor. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't scream.

*“You had to be removed,”* Chloe’s voice hissed in my mind, a venomous echo bouncing off the

The silence in the bedroom was so absolute I could hear the hum of the city traffic ten stories below.

Kaelen stepped between me and the door, his massive frame blocking the only exit. His face was an unreadable mask of stone, but his Alpha aura rolled off him in suffocating waves, testing me, try