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Panic surged through me.

Time had run out.

I spun and drove my claws into the front of the guy’s throat before he could even advance on me.

I didn’t have time for this shit.

I wrenched my claws free and cleared the remaining distance to the car, ignoring idiot number two entirely. I needed to get to Zeke. Now.

As soon as I reached into the car to grab the man pinning Zeke against the seat, something stung the back of my neck.

No.

The world around me blurred.

Zeke’s panicked words sounded as though they came from underwater, and I couldn’t make out what he was saying. Raelynn’s screams to my right faded in and out.

I needed to help them.

A car door slammed shut.

I needed to… do… something.

19

FERANZIS

RAE

“Zeke!”

I bolted upright and swayed when a dizzy spell washed over me.

The first thing I noticed when the world stopped spinning was the chill in the air. The second thing was that I was completely alone.

What happened to Zeke?

I remembered fighting for my life against several Shyrlivi who’d pulled me into their car and then losing my mind when one of them hit Zeke, but very little after Cyn collapsed across the seat trying to rescue us.

I rubbed my eyes and sighed when I looked at the black on my fingers from my smudged makeup. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t exactly the picture of refinement.

My updo had fallen apart, most of the gemstone pins lost somewhere between the driveway, the car, and wherever I was now. My dress certainly didn’t look sexy anymore, stained with the strange charcoal-colored dirt beneath me.

Speaking of where I was now…

I looked around, trying to make sense of my surroundings.

The trees in this forest weren’t like anything I’d ever seen on Earth.

Gnarled trees surrounded me on all sides, draped in decaying vines with leaves similar to those I’d seen in Cholian.

Between the gnarled trees that snaked through the forest like petrified serpents stood thick trunks covered in dark blue-black ridges that spiraled around them. Their roots rose from the ground, some towering higher than I stood.

An eerie cyan fog, similar to the one in Cholian, filled all the empty spaces, making it impossible to tell what lurked beyond the twenty feet surrounding me.

I pushed myself off the ground, fingers slipping on the moist dirt beneath me, and looked around for any sign of life.

Overhead vines hung in tangled curtains, some as thick as my arm. They appeared decayed, with bark peeling away from their surfaces like rotting flesh, exposing dark, viscous liquid beneath.