No…
The word ripped through me mid-air, sharper than the wind screaming in my ears.
I wasn't going to make it.
The other side of the cliff loomed before me, a wall of shadow and stone, so close I could almost believe I would land. But my paws weren't long enough, my body too small yet too heavy.
The arc of my leap was wrong.
Too short.
By a few meters.
I stretched my claws anyway, desperate to catch the edge, to scrape against anything that might hold me. My chest hammered, each heartbeat louder than the river below.
But there was nothing. No rock. No rope. Nothing but air.
Panic flared white-hot, flooding every vein, every nerve.
Behind me, from the cliff I came from, a roar burned my ears.
The sound rattled my bones, a howl so furious it made the night itself shudder.
I didn't need to look to know his rage burned gold behind me.
I could feel Finn's fire chasing me down, a streak of red flame stretching toward me, hungry to burn me even here, mid-fall.
