A scream of pain ripped from me as Al tapped a line, sending its strength thundering into me. My muscles jerked and a spasm shook me until my face hit the pavement. I was on fire, and I clenched into a fetal position, hands over my ears. Scream upon scream beat upon me. I couldn’t block them out. They hammered at me, the only thing that was real besides the agony in my head. Like an explosion, the force of the line ran through me, settling into my center, spilling over to set my limbs on fire. My brain felt as if it had been dipped in acid, and all the time, that awful screaming racked my ears. I was on fire. I was burning.

I suddenly realized the screaming was coming from me. Huge, racking sobs took their place as I managed to stop. An eerie, keening wail rose, and I managed to stop that, too. Panting, I opened my eyes. My hands were pale and shaking in the light from the car. They weren’t charred. The scent of burnt amber wasn’t my skin peeling away. It was all in my head.

Oh God. My head felt like it was three places at once. I was hearing everything twice, smelling everything twice, and having no thoughts that weren’t my own. Al knew everything I was feeling, everything I was thinking. I could only pray that I hadn’t done this to Nick.

“Better?” Al said, and I jerked as if whipped, hearing his voice in my head as well as my ears. “Not bad,” he said, yanking me unresisting to my feet. “Ceri passed out with only half that much, and it took her three months to stop making that awful noise.”

Numb, I felt spittle slip from me. I couldn’t remember how to wipe it away. My throat hurt and the cold air I sucked into me seemed to burn. I could hear dogs barking and a car engine. The light from its headlamps wasn’t moving, and the snow sparkled. I hung loose in Al’s grip, feet trying to move as he began walking again. He dragged me out from in front of the car, and in a slippery squeak of snow and ice, it sped away.

“Come along, Rachel, love,” Al said in the new darkness, clearly in a good mood as he pulled me over a snowplowed hill and onto the shoveled walk. “Your wolf has given up, and unless you submit to me, we have a good bit of city to walk before I can get you to a ley line.”