Chapter 86
*Jiselle*
The battlefield was chaos, raw and merciless.
Screams tore through the night, wolves howled in rage and agony, and blood slicked the cracked stone beneath my boots. Smoke curled in thick, suffocating tendrils through the shattered remains of the arena, blurring the line between earth and sky. Magic lanced through the air, rending it into ribbons of light and sound, and everywhere I turned, the world wes breaking apart.
And yet–through it all–one thing cut clearer than anything else.
*JISELLE!*
I spun, heart hammering in my chest, not from fear–no, something deeper. Something instinctual Primal Every fiber of me knew without seeing that danger was coming
Across the fractured field, I caught a glimpse of Eva, her hands sparking with fire, her mouth forming my name again. But the roar of collapsing stone swallowed her words whole, the ground trembling beneath us.
Move. Run. Now.
My wolf’s voice shredded through my mind, frantic, urgent.
I barely had time to shift my weight before they appeared.
Two figures, moving faster than humanly possible–faces masked, bodies cloaked in dark leathers–closing in like shadows with blades. Not ordinary rogues. Trained. Lethal. I recognized the way they moved–the same brutal precision soldiers were taught. The same way predators stalked their prey.
One reached for me.
I ducked instinctively, twisting my body, but I wasn’t fast enough. Fingers clamped around my wrist like a vice. Another hand seized my other arm, yanking me off balance. They locked me between them, forcing me backward, brutal in their control.
I fought–gods, I fought–kicking, thrashing, baring my teeth. But their grips were iron and their bodies unyielding.
A crack split the air behind me–high–pitched, burning–and white–hot light exploded across my vision.
A rune. A suppression rune.
Agony lanced through my spine, stealing my breath, numbing my limbs. I staggered, my magic sputtering inside me like a dying flame. My body refused to obey me. My power dulled, slipping from my grasp like water through my fingers.
“No–NO!”
I thrashed harder, pure desperation fueling my limbs, but it wasn’t enough. Their hands only tightened as they dragged me across the broken stones, pulling me toward something shimmering at the edge of the ruins.
Through the blur, I saw Ethan pivot, fire roaring to life in his hands. He hurled a blast toward us–white–hot and furious–but one of the rogues yanked me into his chest, using me as a shield.
The fire splintered against a ward rune that flared to life in the air, exploding in a cascade of golden sparks.
The heat rushed past me–but it didn’t even singe their leathers.
The rogues didn’t flinch. Didn’t even slow down.
*JISELLE!
Eva’s voice ripped through the chaos, raw and desperate, a lifeline thrown across the battlefield.
I tried to answer. Tried to scream back. But my throat locked, my lungs tight with panic.
Instead, I did the only thing I could–I reached for Nate.
Not physically.
But with everything else inside me.
The bond between us lit up like a flare in the dark, throbbing with urgency, with a desperate, furious call.
And somewhere–through the smoke, through these
A rising tide of rage and terror crashing throug Successfully unlocked!
His fury was a living thing, a storm, a promise.
He knew.
He knew I was in danger.
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Chapter 86
He was coming.
I clung to that spark with everything I had left–clung to him–because it was the only thing keeping the terror from swallowing me whole.
But the rogues moved faster.
Ripping me backward, their hands bruising and unrelenting.
Dragging me toward a swirling mass of rune–smoke that shimmered like a broken mirror–silver and black and pulsing with dark magic.
“No!” I thrashed harder, my boots scraping uselessly against the stone floor.
Panic clawed up my throat. The portal loomed larger, hungrier, crackling with energy that tasted metallic on my tongue.
In a surge of frantic strength, I twisted my body, wrenching one hand free.
Silver light blazed from my palm–a desperate blast of raw magic–and slammed into the rogue gripping my arm.
He stumbled back with a snarl, armor scorched, his grip loosening.
For half a second, hope flared.
But it died just as fast.
The second rogue moved faster, shoving something cold and burning against the side of my neck.
A disc–small, metallic, etched with twisted runes.
The moment it touched my skin, my magic shriveled, collapsing into itself.
Like a candle snuffed out in a storm.
I gasped–a choked, broken sound–and tried to scream again, but nothing came out.
The suppression spell was sinking deeper, muting everything inside me.
The portal loomed, close enough now that I could feel the pull of its magic scraping across my skin, cold and wrong. Terror clawed at my chest, frantic and wild.
Every fiber of my being screamed at me to fight harder, to tear free, to survive.
Where was Nate?
Where was-
“JISELLE!”
ttlefield w
His voice ripped across the battlefield like a thunderclap.
My head jerked up.
And there he was.
Nate.
His face bloodied, hair wild, hands crackling with dark energy, sprinting toward me like a force of nature. He tore through wolves trying to block him, ripping them aside without breaking stride. His entire body was a storm–fury and panic and unstoppable force.
Our eyes locked across the battlefield.
The bond between us snapped taut, sparking so violently that pain flashed through my chest.
“Nate!” I choked, yanking against the rogues, stretching my hand toward him.
I felt it–the pull, the spark, the ignition of everything between us.
One more step.
Just one more step and he would reach me.
But the rogues yanked me back–and the chill of the portal licked up my heels.
The magic crawled up my spine, cold and wrong and invasive.
Nate’s mouth moved–I saw the words on his lips, clear even across the smoke.
“I’m coming.”
But the rogues didn’t wait.
With a brutal jerk, they dragged me through.
Silver smoke exploded around me, swallowing me whole.
I screamed his name–pure, broken–but it was ripped from my lips before it could reach him.
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Chapter 86
“NATE-!”
The bond between us stretched–quivered-
And then snapped.
The pain of it stole the breath from my lungs.
And the last thing I saw before the portal slammed shut was Nate’s face–wild, desperate, feral–his hand reaching through the smoke, just inches too late.
Gone.
He was gone.
And so was 1.
