Chapter 14 · The Cost of a Heartbeat

"Get your hands off him, Lorne!"

Serra’s voice sliced through the ringing in my ears. I didn't move. Couldn't. I was sprawled on the cold vault floor, chest heaving, the black lock embedded in my skin screaming with a raw, searing heat.

Cade lay inches away. Still. No breath. No pulse. Just a hollow shell of the man who’d spent the last hour trying to break me. Now, he just looked fragile.

"He's dead," I whispered. My throat felt like it was full of glass.

"He's not dead, you idiot. He's drained," Serra snapped.

Her heels clicked with lethal precision on the metal plating. She didn't look at him with grief—just the clinical interest of a jeweler examining a flawed diamond.

"The contract shifted," she continued. "The energy didn't just open the gate; it used him as the ground. He's a battery that just hit zero."

I reached out. My fingers trembled as they brushed his neck. Ice. Pure ice. I felt the jagged pull of the chain connecting us, a phantom tension tugging at my sternum.

"Fix him," I demanded, glaring up at her. "You did this. Put him back."

Serra laughed. A sharp, dry sound.