Chapter 91
Ember
My mate is gone.
And that familiar emptiness — the mate-bond longing that hits whenever we're apart for more than a heartbeat — coils through my chest. A tug, a hollowness, a soft ache where our connection normally thrums warm and steady.
But now is not the time to baby my feelings.
A scouting party of wolves took off at dawn to wipe out a cluster of rogue vampires nesting a few miles from our borders.
I should be with them, I want to be with them — but Kellan and I finally reached a painfully negotiated compromise:
I don't leave Moonsand.
I don't go hunt vampires.
But anything that crosses into my territory?
Fair game.
And unfortunately for the idiot sprinting in my direction, he crossed the line.
The trees rustle with the speed of his movement, a blur of pale skin and bloodlust, but before he can even open his mouth to hiss something sinister, I'm already moving.
One clean strike.
Claws slicing through bone like soft fruit.
