Page 28 of Starting a New Life

Chapter 7

Nix

A shiver ran down my spine, my head pounding, mouth dry as the desert. I rolled to the side, the hard ground I was lying on digging painfully into my hip bones as I fought against a wave of nausea.

Right. That was why using up all your magic was a bad fucking idea.

I pressed my palms into my eye sockets, desperately trying to shake off the pain in my skull. It didn’t work. It never did. The pain wouldn’t go away until my magic had replenished. And my magic wouldn’t recover until I’d rested.

I shivered again, curling in on myself, one hand blindly searching for my cloak to wrap it more tightly around me, but coming up empty. Instead, my fingers hit the hard wood I was apparently lying on.

Where was I?

There’d been an alarm, the barrier screeching in my head. The injured wolf. A gunshot. Another injury.

I’d helped, pushed myself to the limit and beyond.

And in the end… that bright aura reaching out to me. Those dark eyes filled with rage were etched into my memory for all eternity.

Cell.

He’d said something about a cell.

A wave of ice hit my body at the memory, my breath dying in my throat as panic took hold of me.

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no, no.

No!

I screamed internally, but no sound left my lips.

I had to be wrong.

I just had to be.

I tried sitting up, but my muscles wouldn’t cooperate, still too shaky to hold my weight, and everything started spinning even though I hadn’t opened my eyes yet. I didn’t want to open my eyes. Didn’t want to face the reality of my situation.

I was in a cell—and my fated mate had put me there.

Tears sprang to my eyes, and I applied more pressure with my palms, trying to keep them from falling.

I couldn’t be fated to a shifter. What cruel twist had fate planned for me to pair me up with someone from a species that liked to enslave mine?

What had I done to deserve a mate whose first reaction upon seeing me was to throw me in a cell?

A gust of cold air hit me, leaving me shivering even worse as a door was opened somewhere.

I tried opening my eyes again, but my lids might as well have been made of lead. I needed rest. I needed energy. I’d been running on fumes for too long. The only thing that’d kept me going was my magic. I focused on the well inside me, but it was empty aside from the spark that’d remain until the day I died. There was nothing left to use. I couldn’t even muster the energy to put up a simple protective shield around me. I definitely didn’t have enough energy to heal myself, even though my body was screaming in agony. And if I couldn’t heal myself, trying to pick the lock of my cell was a futile attempt.

Fuck.

Footsteps came closer, heavy boots on concrete. Someone was running down a flight of stairs.

“Levi, wait!”

My heart jumped, skipping a beat, and I started fighting again. I had to open my eyes, had to sit up.