Urgent.
Relief and fear bleeding across her battered face.
I stagger a step, pain flashing white behind my eyes.
Silpha grabs my arm to steady me.
I jerk away.
"I’m fine," I snarl.
"You’re not," she says coldly. "But you’re stubborn enough to fake it."
A rough laugh slips from my throat, half-cough, half-growl.
"Then let’s get this over with."
Because if anyone lays a finger on Kelli or those kids before I get there.
I’ll burn this entire goddamn planet to ash.
CHAPTER 15
TRAZ
The tunnel stinks of rust and mold.
My boots hit the cracked concrete in a slow, deliberate rhythm, each step sending shockwaves through the wound stitched up under my jacket.
Hurts like hell.
Don’t matter.
I barely feel it.
All I feel is the bond thrumming under my skin, tighter and hotter with every step deeper into the dark.
Silpha moves ahead of me, silent but quick, slipping through broken doorways and crumbling halls like a ghost.
She stops at a bent metal door half-hidden behind a pile of scrap.
Turns.
Looks at me.
"This is it," she says, voice rough.
I don’t answer.
I can't.
My throat’s a knot too tight to breathe through.
She taps a coded knock—three soft, two sharp—and the door groans open a crack.
A narrow strip of light spills into the hallway.
I see a shadow move inside.
