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His eyes widen in fear and despair.

Without blinking an eye, my grandfather bites his throat, ripping it out. He looks at me and I know what he’s asking me to do. I can see the darkness gathering around the soldier’s heart and I rip it out. The soldier still has some life in him, and when he looks at me, blood bubbling from his mouth, he looks grateful. The light fades out of his eyes and my heart hurts.

“See?” Karina chuckles. “You can’t defeat me. You can try, but you’re not going to succeed.”

I am weak enough that holding my wolf form is harder for me right now. I shift back to human form.

It is obvious to everybody around me that I don’t have the strength to go on for much longer. Karina throws her head back laughing. “Look at you. You can barely walk right now. Do you really think you can take on my entire army? Don’t be ridiculous. Even with all three alliances against me, I will win.”

My grandfather nuzzles me, helping me up. When Karina realizes I am not going to give up, irritation, flickers in her eyes. “I’ve never met a more stubborn person in my life. Fine. You want to be this way? Then, I’ll see how well you can withstand this attack. Kill the Silver Wolf’s mother.”

There is a smile on Karina’s lips and the witches lift their arms, creating those fire bows again. Only this time, all of them are aimed at my mother.

I run.

Summoning every bit of magic left within me, I throw a barrier around her, just as the sky is filled with a thousand burning arrows.

My barrier fails.

I try to create another one and it doesn’t work either.

I’m empty now.

Stumbling on my feet, I crash face down on the forest floor, and as I look up at the sky, I see that it looks like it is on fire.

Dimly, I remember a faint voice saying, “When the sky is burning, then summon me and my coven.”

When the sky is burning…

It looks like the sky is on fire.

My body is too weak and I can’t get up. My grandfather is racing toward my mother and out of nowhere, my ears catch the faint sound of glass breaking.

My grandfather throws himself on my mother and the arrows land.

Only, they don’t land on him, but on a barrier surrounding him, Elsa, and my mother.

Karina lets out a scream of anger, but I am barely listening.

My head turns in the direction where I heard the sound of the glass breaking. Familiar faces are standing in the middle of the battle, their eyes hard, their hands outstretched.

Marlene.

I let out a sob of relief.

But then Marlene steps aside, and another figure steps out from behind her.

Alex.

Chapter 26

Alex

As a child, I always loved to hide in small spaces. It made it harder for the other children to find me, but my parents would always know where I was. It didn’t matter whether I was curled up in the trunk of a tree or in a closet where no one ever looked, my parents would always find me. I never minded small, dark, and confined areas.

And then I saw my parents die before my eyes. I saw my uncle murdered as he tried to protect me. And the woman who killed my father, all the while smiling so sweetly at him, dragged me to a cage and thrust me inside. It was a cage meant for a small cat or a dog. It was not meant for a nine-year-old little boy. My body would not fit, and I had to pull my knees to my chest and curl into a ball.

That was the first time I learned that there were times when breathing was hard. That drawing in air was not always as easy as it seemed.

Over the next seven years, I would often be punished this way, stuffed into a cage and stashed somewhere where very little air could reach me.

Humans called it claustrophobia.

My kind doesn’t give it a name because it doesn’t happen to us.

I spent years hiding this weakness from even my closest friends because I was ashamed.

But Karina knew.

She always knew and she delighted in subjecting me to this torture.

As I grew stronger, she stopped doing it. And I began to forget about it. I never wanted to think about those years.

But as I stare at the bars of the cage, my body squeezed into the small space, I feel like a child again, scared and unable to breathe.

My heart isn’t beating fast enough. It is beating too fast.

I want to get out of here.

I want to go back to that cell. At least I could breathe in there.

I don’t know when I begin to feel a sense of calm. Maybe it’s the thought of Sophia. Maybe it’s the fear of the fate that awaits her. All I know is that her image is floating in my head, and I know I have to get out of here for her. The fear and breathlessness begin to abate.

Nobody’s coming to protect me, but I have something to protect, something precious that Karina cannot get her hands on. The dirt is packed around the cage. I cannot break the bars, but I can dig in the dirt. Using my fingers, I scrape at it. It falls within the cage, and I don’t care.

I’m not thinking straight. In fact, I’m not even thinking at all. I just have to get to my mate.

The bars are made of iron. Breaking them is impossible right now. But I keep digging. However, when I start digging in the dirt above me, it begins to fall into my cage, and it occurs to me that I might just end up buried alive.

It feels like a lifetime. My fingers are bruised and bleeding as I dig like my life depends on it. It would be easier if I could break the bars. I could use one of them to help the digging process.

I am plagued by thoughts of Sophia. Where is she? Has Karina gotten to her yet? How much time has passed?

I am now digging around the cage instead of on top of it. But as I do, I hear something strange. It’s as if somebody is digging above me.

The dirt is falling on my shoulders, on my hair. I can’t stretch and I’m feeling that sense of suffocation again.