He moved her.
"Wrap your legs around me," he said against her ear.
She did instantly, arms locking around his neck, legs clamping tight around his waist as if she were drowning and he was the only air left on the planet. Her grip was iron. Her body was shaking so hard the shaking was transferring into his chest, her tremors becoming his tremors, the matebond carrying her terror through every point of contact between their bodies.
He ran.
Alpha speed.
Holding her against his chest like she might break if he loosened his grip for even a second.
Her ragged breaths finally began to steady, shallow, uneven, but present.
Figures stepped out of the walls ahead. Tall. Thin. Wrong in a way that was different from everything else this corridor had produced, and the corridor had produced a comprehensive catalogue of wrong.
Each one's skull was twisted completely around, chin resting against their spines, faces staring backward into the stone they had emerged from.
