The sun bled out across the horizon, dragging the last of the light with it like a wounded animal crawling off to die. Both of them knew what darkness meant on a mountain full of things that could see in it. They were fucked. Specifically, they were the kind of fucked that comes with a countdown timer and zero margin for error.

Gavriel: Do you know how much further?

Serena: Not exactly.

Gavriel: “Not exactly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Serena: Up. The answer is up.

Gavriel: Incredible. Thank you. I feel so oriented now.

Serena: You’re welcome.

Bodies fell and more replaced them instantly, a conveyor belt of violence that had been running for hours and showed absolutely zero signs of a shift change. They were being driven uphill. Luckily, that was their goal. Unluckily, the mountain seemed to know that and was making it personal.

The path ahead narrowed.

Dramatically.

What had been a rough trail carved into volcanic stone shrank to a corridor barely wide enough for one person, hemmed in on both sides by sheer cliff walls that rose jagged and close like the mountain was trying to swallow the walkway whole. The drop to the left was infinite.

Gavriel: Don’t look left.

Serena: I already looked left.

Gavriel: And?

Serena: I’m not looking left again.

The wall to the right was obsidian-smooth and offered zero handholds. It was, architecturally, a death funnel designed by a sadist with a grudge against wolves.

And it got worse. Twenty yards in, the walls pressed closer, squeezing the corridor down to shoulder-width, then less. The ceiling, which hadn’t existed a minute ago, appeared overhead like the mountain had grown one out of spite.

Gavriel stopped.

Gavriel: Tell me that’s not where we need to go.

Serena: That is exactly where we need to go.

Gavriel: Of course it is. Why would it be anywhere else. Why would anything today be easy, convenient, or survivable.

Serena:Are you done?

Gavriel: I have more, but I’ll save them for the next death trap.

Serena slid off his wolf.

The sparks stopped immediately. Every crackling current, every live-wire hum that had been buzzing through her body for the last hour, gone. Cut off like a switch had been flipped the second her skin left his fur.

She had gotten used to them. Adjusted to the static the way you adjust to a noise you can’t identify: eventually it becomes background, and when it disappears, the silence feels louder than the sound ever was. Problematic because you don’t ’get used to” mysterious electrical currents running through your body when you touch your friend’s wolf.

Serena: Did you feel that sensation go away?

Aurelia: Oh, yes.

Serena: Why do you sound excited about that?

Aurelia: I was wondering how long you would pretend you weren’t noticing.

Gavriel shifted back to human form. He rolled his injured shoulder once, wincing at a pain he would deny having if asked, and fell into step behind her.

They moved through the narrow corridor at a jog, shoulders brushing stone on both sides, the path so tight that single-file was the only option. Gav stayed behind her. She could feel his gaze on the back of her head like heat from a forge, steady and focused and impossible to ignore.

She shook her head, trying to concentrate. What the hell was wrong with her?

A lot of shit, apparently. A comprehensive, multi-Chapter list of shit that was growing by the hour.

Aurelia: Your face is red. He can’t see. But I feel it.

Serena: This isn’t funny, Aurelia.

Aurelia: I disagree. This is very funny.

Serena: Explain it, then.

Aurelia: It’s this island.

Serena: It is not. I felt it in Drakenfell too.

Behind her, Gavriel cleared his throat. She walked faster.

Aurelia: Maybe it’s because he’s our mate.

Serena:Aurelia, be serious. He is NOT our mate.

She tripped on a rock she absolutely would have seen if her face wasn’t on fire. Gav hooked her around the waist from behind before she could fall. More electricity shot through her instantly.

“Thanks,” she breathed, ignoring the sensation with the power of a thousand suns.

His arm stayed locked around her waist a second longer than necessary, body solid and warm against her back. The contact sent another sharp pulse of heat straight through her, low and unmistakable.

“You good, or should I just carry you the rest of the way so we can skip the dramatic rock incidents?”

“I’m great,” she answered immediately.

Aurelia: He sure smells like a mate. Feels like a mate. Plays with us like a mate.

Serena: No, we have two mates. It must be that the necklace rerouting my matebond sensations to the wrong person. Like interference. Like magical static.

She nodded to herself, satisfied with the explanation. Aurelia was quiet for a moment.

Aurelia: Maybe. Let’s ask him if he feels it too.

Serena: Ask him WHAT?

She nearly walked into the cliff wall. Corrected. Kept going. Pretended that didn’t happen.

“You okay?” Gavriel asked from behind her.

“Fine,” she said, in a voice that convinced absolutely no one, including the mountain.

Aurelia: Ask him what you asked me.

Serena: I hate you.

Aurelia: You love me. Ask him.

Serena: Fuck it.

Serena was past the point of rational thought. Past the point of careful. Past the point where overthinking served any purpose beyond making her feel worse about a situation that was already a dumpster fire wearing a crown.

Without a word, she stopped abruptly.

Gavriel stopped behind her. Close. Close enough that she felt the warmth radiating off his chest, felt his breath disturb the white hair at the crown of her head. Close enough that the absence of sparks felt deliberate, like her body was waiting for permission to start again.

“Serena?” Gav asked. His voice was careful. The particular kind of careful that meant he already knew something had shifted and was giving her space to name it first.

She turned, looking at him.

Volcanic light caught the angles of his face, blood drying on his jaw, green eyes steady and patient and waiting in a way that was so completely, infuriatingly Gavriel that it made her chest hurt for reasons she was going to aggressively misattribute to cardio.

“Gav.” She exhaled. “Can I ask you something?”