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Even broken, even turned inside out, the terror-inducing sound of that howl made my hair stand on end. I supposed that was the purpose of it.

I felt a tear slip down my cheek when he finally stopped. It was a tear of relief. I could not take one more horrible thing, not even on the tail of my rescue. My mind was at its breaking point.

His hands trembled as they lowered to me. One went to my cheek, the other to a part of my body I couldn’t see and didn’t want to.

A sickeningly wet sound told me that he was moving some organ back into place, his breath shuddering out in horror. I couldn’t even look at him directly, couldn’t face his unbearable eyes.

He was in a state. Who the fuck could blame him?

I think that a person’s reaction upon being rescued from the most dreadful experience of their lives tells you a lot about their nature.

What did one express at a moment like this? What priority had taken precedence in my near-broken mind? With agony singing through every inch of my slaughtered body, what did I reach for?

Call me what you will, but I am not indecisive.

I reached for vengeance.

“It was Helen,” I gasped out, no part of me numb, each syllable working its way through what was left in the ruins of my lungs. “She betrayed you. She handed me to them.”

That was all I had left. I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

THE RIVER

The passage of time is a funny thing. In the darkness, it felt to me like a flowing river, growing wider in places and narrow in others. The darkness brought time to its narrowest point and spilled me gently into its widest. I floated along, mind racing aimlessly through the many years of my existence.

I still don’t know what it was, this darkness. Sometimes it wasn’t even dark. Sometimes it was so bright and warm that I found myself basking in it.

It was benevolent, this outer realm, letting the recent horrors filter far enough away from my consciousness to let me breathe, to let even the broken parts of my mind begin the healing process.

All I know for sure is that the darkness took me from the earthly realm, and that being there meant that I was near enough to death for me to question my mortality.

It was a bit like the place I went when my dragon takes over completely, but it wasn’t that because that place still gave me a sense of the familiar. When I’d given birth to the egg that would one day be my son, I’d drifted for what felt like days, and turned out to be months, the monster inside of me sheltering me from a natural pain.

I came back to my body knowing I’d been in a fight for my life, and that I must have won.

I was in a familiar bed, which was a good sign. I couldn’t move, which had to be a bad one.

Shifting my head down to glance at my body was a chore, but I caught enough of a glimpse of bloodied bandages covering just about everything to let it go, for the moment. Maybe I’d try again in a few days.

I moved just my eyes to look to my right. Dom was there, decked out in full combat gear, still as a statue, head in his hands.

Not good.

I tried to speak, and it was better, at least, than trying to move, though still an effort.

Again, I couldn’t help thinking it’s a sort of twisted personality test, your first words coming out of a near-death experience.

“Did you kill her?” I asked, my voice a pitiful rasp, my eyes still craned far to the right to study Dom.

He shuddered, a great wave of it rocking his body before he could lift his head, and when he did, I looked away, pure instinct making me recoil.

I hurt enough, without shouldering his terrible pain, as well.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “I killed them all.”

The darkness took me again.