Cora fell to her knees the moment the portal closed in front of her. She had just freed Theo. She had also just pushed him away. And the deep part within that was reaching to be connected with him grieved with an ache that she had never felt before, even when her father was lost. She clenched her teeth together, pushing back against the internal screaming for her mate that would alert any vampire in the area should she let it escape.
This was not what she had seen happening when she brought Theo out to the garden. This was the opposite. This was the very opposite.
She grabbed the grass in her fists, holding it like it was her anchor to the earth—like she might drift away if she did not secure herself here. But something about her touch poisoned it, because it died under her fingers—yellowing and losing the rigid vibrancy of its life, wilting instead into a soft death.
