Chapter 13 · Knock of the Reaper

"Get back, Kaelen. Now!"

I didn't just shout it; I shoved him. My palm hit his chest, hard, sending him reeling back a step as the floor beneath us groaned. A silver wire, thinner than a human hair but glowing with a sick, violet light, snapped taut across the doorway.

If I’d been a second slower, that wire would’ve taken my head off. Or worse, it would've triggered the collapse of the entire ceiling.

"Why?" Kaelen’s voice was low, vibrating with a hunger that didn't sound human. He didn't move back. Instead, he stepped closer, his boots crunching on the debris of the safe house. "I can handle it, Sloane. I can kill whatever is waiting for us."

"You can't even handle your own pulse right now," I snapped, glancing at the veins in his neck. They were pulsing black, a rhythmic, oily throb that matched the flicker of the violet trap. "Look at you. You're leaking power like a cracked vase. If you touch that ward, you'll blow us both to the Void."

He didn't listen. He never did when the fragment took over.