Chapter 94 94
Damien POV
I’m falling.
Plummeting down a cliff, my body dragged by an invisible force, my fingers scraping uselessly against the rock as I search for something anything to hold on to. Gravity owns me. It never relents.
Am I dead?
Am I falling straight into hell?
My stomach twists painfully with the endless drop until, at the last second, my hand snags a strip of grass jutting from the cliff face. The fall jerks to a halt so violently it steals the breath from my lungs.
This cliff has no end.
I glance down at my feet, dangling over nothing. No ground below. No sky above. Just stone stretching endlessly in both directions, as if the world exists only as this sheer wall.
Gritting my teeth, I haul myself upward. Pain flares through my back, sharp and familiar the bullet wounds are still there, still burning.
With everything I have, I drag my body onto the narrow ledge and collapse onto my side, pressing myself flat against the rock. I close my eyes, fighting the vertigo, waiting for the world to stop spinning.
A sound above me makes my skin prickle.
I lift my head.
A black crow circles overhead, its wings slicing through the air with lazy precision. As soon as I notice it, it dives and lands beside me, its dark eyes fixed on my face.
It watches me for a moment.
Then it starts pecking at the rock beneath us.
Unease coils tight in my chest.
“No” I reach for it, trying to shove it away.
The cliff rumbles beneath my hand.
The ground gives.
My grip slips and I’m falling again this time swallowed by darkness.
“NO!”
I jolt upright, my body drenched in sweat, lungs dragging air in fast, panicked gulps.
“Alpha… Alpha…”
Hands press against my shoulders, trying to force me back down.
“Damien stop. It’s just the poison. It will pass.”
Lucas’s voice cuts through the haze just before a sharp sting bites into my upper arm. A needle. Cold spreads through my veins.
Darkness claims me again.
I’m falling.
The cliff rushes past until I see the ledge again and reach for it, fingers clawing desperately. I catch it. I pull myself up.
This time, the motion doesn’t make me as sick. I manage to sit upright, chest heaving, my head clearer.
Time passes.
Then I hear wings.
The black crow is back, circling above me just as before. It lands on the ledge and stares at me.
Is this déjà vu?
Purgatory?
I kick at it.
It launches into the air, wings spreading wide, retreating at last. Relief floods me when it doesn’t attack the rock this time. Maybe I can rest. Maybe I can figure out where the fuck I am.
I lean my head back.
A harsh quark sounds above me.
I look up.
The crow hovers overhead its claws wrapped around a massive boulder.
“That’s not even possible,” I whisper.
It drops the rock.
The impact explodes beneath my feet. The ledge shudders violently, then tears away entirely.
I fall again straight into the abyss.
This time, I wake slowly.
I don’t open my eyes right away, afraid I’ll still be falling. But instead of endless stone, I feel a bed beneath me. Instead of wings, there’s the steady beep of machines.
I finally open my eyes.
A white ceiling greets me.
I sit up carefully and realise I’m in a medical centre tubes running from my arms, monitors humming softly. Lucas is slumped in a chair beside the bed, fast asleep.
How long have I been here?
That dream… it had to be the wolfsbane. The toxin working its way through my system, my body fighting it.
“Shit,” I breathe as pain flares across my back from the movement.
The sound is enough.
Lucas’s eyes snap open and he’s on his feet instantly, alert and ready.
“Alpha? How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” I mutter. “What happened?”
I yank the tubes free and swing my legs over the side of the bed, preparing to stand.
“Take it slow,” he warns. “You were in a bad way.”
He tries to push me back down. I swat his hands away.
“Where is she?” I growl, Geneviève’s betrayal slamming back into my mind like a blade.
“And that fucker he was in on it.”
“The guard,” Lucas says grimly. “Yes. He escaped with her.”
“Why was he the only one on duty?” I seethe as I push myself upright. Pain burns through my back, wolfsbane still biting deep.
I brace my hands on my thighs, pausing just long enough to let my wolf gather his strength.
Because this isn’t over.
Not even close.