DERRICK POV
When Kai started from the line, my hand slipped into Dalton’s, fingers threading like the last tether to sanity. We both needed that touch, that reassurance.
Not because either of us thought she could fail. Goddess, no. Failure wasn’t written in Kai’s blood, wasn’t etched into her bones. She didn’t know the meaning of surrender. She was storm, she was madness, she was fire on legs, burning so hot she scorched anyone foolish enough to get close without kneeling. She was the kind of woman you didn’t stop—you braced yourself to survive her.
But watching her?
That was another kind of hell.
I hated it. Hated every second she sprinted across the clearing, her golden eyes glowing like molten suns. Claws elongated, Summer’s power pumping through her veins, the heat of her pressing
