Jax hit the ground with a sound I never wanted to hear again. Not a fall. Not a stumble. A collapse. His massive wolf form buckled, legs folding under him, ribs heaving as silver light gushed from the wound Eidos had carved through him.
Amber bled with it. Mixed. Wrong.
It looked like two colors that should never meet, like something sacred being ruined in front of me. The light pulsed in weak, uneven bursts, dimming more each second. It soaked into the dirt, hissing like it burned.
I felt it before I understood it. A sharp sting in my chest. A crack in something deeper than bone.
The vessel bond trembled.
A thin, sick ripple ran through it, like someone taking a perfectly tuned instrument and striking it with a hammer.
My heart lurched. “Jax.”
Hazel shouted something behind me, but
