Instead, my anger filled the void where my arcana should have been. Exhausted and out of options, I waited for Alvin to issue another command.
He didn’t. I heard him curse under his breath. There was a flurry of movement behind me, but I couldn’t turn to see what Alvin was up to. He seemed panicked, which pleased me.
My heart leapt in excitement. If Alvin was panicked, that could only mean one thing.
“Ryder,” I breathed.
The door in front of me flew open. My favorite dragon shifter filled the doorway. His dark eyes smoldered like churning storm clouds. The air between us crackled with unspent electrical energy. It greeted me like an old lover as it rushed along my skin.
Ryder stepped into the room. His gaze slid past me, but the furrow of his brows told me a disappointing story. Ryder scanned the room. I sighed, frustrated.
The binding gave up. My shoulders collapsed. I sank to my knees. The impact should have jarred me, but I was too hollowed out at that point. There was nothing left in me to shake. Breath rushing out of me, I collapsed forward and just barely caught myself before my face hit the floor.
I had every intention of telling Ryder to chase after Alvin. We could have him cornered by now, but Ryder bent and lifted me from the floor instead. He cradled me close to his chest. I didn’t have the energy left to fight him as he carried me outside.
We weren’t in Lakesedge anymore. The landscape outside belonged to Syracuse, the human part of the city. I curled in on myself to hide the fact that I was naked beneath this coat. Hopefully, no one paid any attention to the beefcake of a man carrying a half-naked woman out of an abandoned building.
Ryder’s fingers dug into my flesh. He held on so tight that I thought we would become one. I wanted to ask where Alvin went or what the pack was doing, but my throat was hoarse, and my body was empty.
“Don’t worry,” Ryder said, his voice a whisper between just the two of us. “I’m taking you home.”
But the pack, I thought. They needed us. We had to go back and make sure they were all right. What had happened to Janessa? I hadn’t stayed long enough to see her return. I’d followed Alvin with the expectation that Janessa would find her way back so long as I kept Alvin distracted. It’d been a foolish mistake, and I wanted to make sure that Janessa was all right.
Cerri had been hurt. I still didn’t know what Alvin had done to my friend. He’d tried to make her pay for my transgressions. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been catatonic. Cerri had ignored me completely. Where was she now? Was my friend all right?
Would she…would she ever forgive me?
I didn’t have any tears left in me.
“Take me home.”
* * *
With the doorslocked behind us, Ryder finally set me back onto my own two feet. I swayed, slightly. The world wobbled, but I kept one hand on the wall as I walked down the hall. Even if that hadn’t worked, Ryder remained one step behind me.
I could feel the energy radiating off him. It wasn’t electric. This was a different kind of energy. I saw it in the way his fingers twitched. I could hear it in every hitch of his breath. He watched me like he was worried I might fall over at any moment.
He wasn’t entirely wrong. The ice in my chest seemed fragile, like it might shatter and take my sanity with it. The frigid barrier kept me safe, but that strange arcana was still swirling just under my skin. If the binding arcana struck out at the ice inside me, then I would come crumbling down.
I bent and grabbed my bag from the floor near the bed. Heat from Ryder’s body warmed my back. He stepped closer and slid his fingers into my hair. His fingertips grazed my scalp and drew a groan out of me.
He jerked back like he’d touched fire. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me.”
I could have told him that it was all right, that I wanted more, and that I wished he’d never let go. Ryder had a mate, though. I tried to think of Brigid, with her fiery hair and charming smile. My hound shut out all thoughts of the other dragon shifter. The hound wouldn’t allow my mind to drift in that direction.
Bri wasn’t here. It was only Ryder and me. Though I’d been hollow a moment ago, a rush of sensation filled me when Ryder’s fingers found my shoulder. He tugged the jacket off me and let it fall to the floor. My back warmed as he stepped up, pressing his chest to my skin. His arm slid around my waist and held me tight to him.
Ryder buried his face in my shoulder and breathed deep. I should have said no and told him to remember Bri, but my words failed me. I couldn’t speak her name. Hell, I could barely even think it while Ryder was so close.
“She’s safe. She’s safe…” Ryder whispered the words over and over, perhaps to himself.
Though I’d wanted to get dressed, I turned and fisted my hands in the front of Ryder’s shirt. He rested his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling. Here, I could feel him relax. I heard it in his soft sigh.
He continued touching me. His fingers slid over every soft, vulnerable crevice of my body as if searching for wounds. His touch trailed along my neck and down my arms. The gentle sound of his relieved sigh in my ear made my body clench tight.
He pushed, and we tumbled onto the bed, his body weighing me down in a way that made me feel safe. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders as his hands roved up and down my body. His breath hitched. A soft growl rumbled inside him as his back arched.
I started to say that I was okay, to reassure his worried beast, but the words failed me. The binding arcana slithered under my skin and nearly drew a whimper out of me. I swallowed the sound down. Ryder didn’t need to worry about that right now.