ALARIC POV
I did not want to shift back.
Drake stood still under her touch, even if everything in us screamed to go. Nostrils flaring toward the direction the children had taken, refusing to lower his guard, refusing to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with the clearing except that it was now quiet and the threat had been erased.
Aria’s hands on our skin were a kind of blissful torture, the only thing grounding enough to make the blood and adrenaline feel secondary.
That was the first problem.
She stepped through blood like it was nothing, like the three broken bodies at our feet were nothing more than debris, and when her hands sank into my fur I felt something I hadn’t felt during the entire fight.
Not pain.
Not adrenaline.
Fear.
Her fingers found the wound along my f
