DAMIEN

Darkness clung to me like a second skin—cold, thick, and endless. The last thing I remembered was pain. Raw, soul-burning pain.

Then something cracked through the void.

A jolt.

Then another—sharper this time, biting through the haze.

“Wake up, damn it,” a voice hissed near my ear, urgent and female.

Another sharp zap of energy hit my chest, like lightning cracking through ribs.

“Come on, bloodsucker, wake up!”

My eyes snapped open with a gasp, lungs dragging in air like I’d been drowning. I blinked against the blur, vision swimming with golden flickers and shadowed outlines.

Faces hovered above me—women. Fae. All of them with wide, anxious eyes and...