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I laugh once, bitter and breathless despite the pain. The sound enrages him.

“What?” he demands.

“Nothin’,” I say, and blood slides over my tongue. “Just real funny you sayin’ that to me.”

Parker’s eyes narrow. “He said yours was weaker.” His mouth curves with mean satisfaction. “Yeah, he told me. Said his brother got soft. Said he put a mark on you and called it sacred because he was too weak to take what he wanted. Said when he was done with you, he’d kill him too. Eat him, probably. He hates him, did you know that? Your monster has a brother, and his brother is better at bein’ what they are.”

The bond jerks inside me. Somewhere far away, Onyx’s alarm becomes rage.

“What does he want with me?” I ask, keeping my voice steady because panic would make Parker feel powerful, and I am not giving him that if I can help it.

Parker scoffs, but something nervous moves under it now. “What do you think? He wants his brother broken, but he wants you to hurt first, because that’s what you deserve for makin’ him forget me.”

I stare at him, and whatever pity tried to live in me dries up. “You stupid son of a bitch,” I say, and keep going because if I’m about to die in a mine, I’m doing it with my mouth. “You helped somethin’ kill people because it made you feel special. You stood there at that creek and watched me panic over my nephew, and you still think this is about love?”

“You don’t get it!”

“I get it better than you do,” I snap, and the ropes burn my wrists as I lean toward him as much as they’ll allow. “I’ve seen the difference. I know what a guardian feels like. I know what a bond feels like. Whatever’s comin’, Parker, it ain’t that. You didn’t find a mate, you found a predator that figured out you were lonely enough to open the door.”

His face goes white, then something moves in the tunnel behind him. Parker turns with a relieved little breath, like God himself has walked into the mine to prove him right.

I look past him, and every brave thing in me goes still.

For a second, I think I know what’s coming because I know Onyx’s true form. I know the massive antlers, the fused skull, the long limbs, the terrible grace of a Cervari body moving through darkness like it owns every shadow. I know how the forest goes still around him, not because it is dead, but because it is listening. I know the scent of Labrador tea when it means home.

This thing brings the scent with it, and it’s all sorts of wrong.

It steps into the lantern light slowly, similar enough that some ancient part of the shape makes my heart lurch. But the resemblance ends there.

Onyx looks like the forest made itself a guardian and gave him teeth because mercy needs protection. This thing is a wound that learned to stand upright.

Its skull is stained dark around the mouth. Its antlers are jagged and uneven, wrapped in strips of cloth that swing softly when it ducks under a low beam. Its body is leaner than Onyx’s—stretched unevenly, bark markings warped into dark gouges that look less grown than carved. Its eyes glow through the sockets, pale and hungry.

The forest is not in it—that is what terrifies me most. It’s the absence and deadness around it. The mine feels colder because it enters, but not with earth-cold, nor with cave-cold. With the cold of something that has eaten every good purpose it was ever given.

Varkhyn.

Its mouth opens beneath the skull. “Well,” it says. The voice that comes out is rough, wet, and pleased while horribly capable of shaping human words. “There is the little ember.”

The sound makes my skin crawl. Onyx fought for my name with a throat that didn’t know how to carry speech. He croaked it like it cost him blood. This Varkhyn speaks easily. Smoothly. Human language is just another stolen thing hanging from its antlers.

Parker smiles shakily. “I brought him.”

The creature doesn’t look at him. Its gaze stays on me. “Yes,” it says. “You did.”

My mouth is dry, and my pulse pounds so hard the rope seems to throb around my wrists. I reach for Onyx through the bond, but terror and pain scramble everything. All I manage is a faint, broken thread.

I’m sorry.

The Varkhyn tilts its skull as if it hears the shape of the attempt. “He won’t reach you fast enough.”

The creature walks closer, each clawed footfall soft in the dirt. I try to pull back, but there is nowhere to go. The ropes creak above me. Pain lances through both shoulders. My pulse hammers so hard I can feel it in the mark at my shoulder.

The Varkhyn notices the mark, tilts its head, then reaches out. I jerk away as much as I can, which is almost nothing. One claw touches the scar, cold and slick with old blood. Revulsion slams through me so violently I gag.

“Brother writes pretty promises,” the creature murmurs. “Soft guardian. Soft teeth. Soft mate.”

“Don’t touch me,” I grind out.