Page 48 of Alien Huntsman

“She saved you,” he told them, his voice breaking. “And now I can’t save her.”

His claws extended, then retracted, the beast within him surging against his control. He felt the change threatening to overtake him—the shift that came from rage or fear. But he fought it back. Tessa needed him human now, needed his mind clear.

“Hold on,” he begged, brushing his lips across her forehead. “Just hold on.”

CHAPTER 19

The darkness engulfed Tessa like frigid water, dragging her down into its depths. She couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, couldn’t even remember how she’d gotten here. Time stretched and contracted around her—had she been floating in this void for minutes or years?

Cold seeped into her bones, her blood, her very essence. She tried to fight against it, to push back against the heaviness pressing down on her chest, but her limbs refused to obey. Her thoughts moved sluggishly, like honey frozen in winter.

Let go, the darkness seemed to whisper.Rest now. Sleep forever.

Part of her wanted to surrender, to sink deeper into the nothingness where pain and fear couldn’t reach. It would be so easy to let the darkness claim her completely.

But something tugged at the edges of her consciousness—a flicker of warmth, distant but persistent. She couldn’t see it or touch it, but she felt its presence like a beacon calling her home.

Tessa.

Her name drifted through the void, carried on a current of desperation and love. The voice was familiar, though she couldn’t place it through the fog clouding her mind.

Come back to me.

The warmth grew stronger, pushing back against the cold that had settled in her chest. It wasn’t enough to break the darkness’s hold, but it gave her something to focus on, something to fight for.

Memories flickered at the edges of her consciousness—berry crumble baking in an oven, playful wolf pups tumbling at her feet, strong arms holding her close, amber eyes watching her with hunger and tenderness.

Korrin.

The name formed in her mind, bringing with it a surge of longing so powerful it briefly cut through the numbness. She tried to reach toward the warmth, toward him, but the darkness pulled her back, jealously guarding its prize.

Not yet,it seemed to say.You belong to me now.

The cold intensified, driving deep into her core. She felt herself slipping further away from that precious warmth, that connection to life and love. The darkness swallowed her screams, her tears, her desperate struggle to hold onto the memory of amber eyes and gentle hands.

Then, cutting through the silence, a voice reached her. Soft but insistent, it tugged at her consciousness.

“Tessa, child. Come back now.”

The voice was achingly familiar—the gentle cadence, the slight rasp that came with age, the underlying steel that brooked no argument.

Agatha?

It couldn’t be. Grandmother Agatha was back in the village, not here in this empty void. And yet the warmth of her voice felt real, like sunlight breaking through storm clouds after endless rain.

“You have to wake up, Tessa. He needs you.”

The words drifted through her mind, elusive and teasing. Who needed her? Images flickered behind her closed eyelids—amber eyes wild with fear, strong hands trembling as they cradled her.

Korrin.

Something sparked inside her—a fragile thread of awareness. Tessa reached for it desperately, clinging to this tenuous connection to the world beyond the darkness.

“That’s it, child. Fight. The poison wants to take you, but you’re stronger than it thinks.”

Poison? The word stirred a memory—the sweet taste of honey, the dizziness that followed, Edgar’s face swimming before her eyes.

“He’s going mad with worry, your Vultor. Never seen one of them so undone. If you don’t come back to him, I fear what he’ll become.”

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