CHAPTER 220
The silence that followed their whispered words was heavier than the snow burying the mountain. For a long, agonizing heartbeat, neither of them dared to breathe, terrified that the mere vibration of their lungs might draw another silent, reality-shredding streak out of the gray fog.
Aleric was the first to move, though the fluid grace he usually carried was entirely fractured. He scrambled backward in the deep snow, his heavy boots kicking up a spray of white powder as he violently yanked Isabella by the arm, dragging her deeper into the thick, protective shadow of a granite boulder jutting out from the ridge.
"Did you feel that?" Aleric hissed, his teeth literally chattering—not from the sub-zero temperature, but from the raw adrenaline spiking through his system.
"That wasn't physical force, Isabella. That was an erasure. If that thing touches your skin, there is no healing factor in the world—vampire or Lycan—that can knit a body back together from nothing."
