Chapter 18 · Dirty Healing

"Don't you dare die on me." Mara slapped Rhys across the cheek, hard enough to turn his face toward the tunnel wall.

Nothing.

His head rolled back. His eyes stayed shut. The contract mark under his collarbone had gone gray, the linked pulse between them flat and dead.

Behind them, metal screamed.

The hunters were cutting through the sealed entrance.

Mara dragged Rhys farther into the old rail tunnel and dropped to her knees beside him. His coat was soaked with blood where the silver bolt had gone in. She had pulled the weapon free and patched the wound with a binding mark, but the seal was already cracking.

"Come on," she snapped. "You don't get to pull that trust stunt and then check out. Wake up."

His fingers twitched once.

Then the contract mark flashed black.

Mara sucked in a breath and pressed her palm over it. Pain shot up her arm. Her knees hit the concrete.

"Mara?" Talia's voice crackled through the cheap comm bead in her ear. "Answer me. Are you both through?"

"We're in the tunnel," Mara said. "Rhys is down."

There was a sharp pause on the other end.

"Down how?"

"Unconscious.