Chapter 35 · Forbidden Resonance

"Get your hand off my head!"

Sloane's fingers snapped around my wrist, crushing it mid-air. Her nails dug straight into the bone. I didn't flinch.

"I'm not hurting you," I said, voice low. "I'm trying to keep you here. Look at me. Just look at me."

"You opened it," she hissed. Her eyes were blown wide, black eating the silver. "You opened it, you idiot human—you opened it!"

She wasn't talking to me anymore. Her body locked up. Rigid. Shaking.

That name she'd screamed a second ago still hung in the air. *Elara.* She'd never said it before. Not once.

"Sloane, hey. Breathe with me," I said. My wrist was going numb, but I didn't pull away. "You're in the shadow barracks. You're with me. You're safe."

"Don't say safe!" she spat. "Don't you dare. You don't know what it is. You don't know what she—"

Her knee buckled. She dragged me down with her.

We hit the stone floor hard. Her back slammed against the wall and she hauled me into her space, her breath hot and frantic against my mouth. One hand still strangling my wrist, the other fisted in my shirt—