The blinding white light of the spiritual realm shattered, sending me back into the atmosphere of the colosseum.
The transition was so abrupt that the sudden rush of foul air nearly made me retch.
My eyelids flew open as the physical reality of the arena locked around me once more.
I was still suspended, the rusted iron chains biting deep into the raw flesh of my wrists and ankles.
But everything had changed.
The silence that had filled the chamber before my unconsciousness was gone, replaced by a thick tension that felt like the moment right before a lightning strike.
In front of me, the duel seemingly remained still in time. The massive, gold-marked wolf that was Ronan still loomed over Darius’s midnight-black form, his jaws clamped tightly down.
But through my newly awakened,
