A glowing cavern surrounded her, and she had to squint, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the glow as thousands of shards pulsed around her in hot, angry bursts.

Crashing echoed out, startling her, and she twisted, hissing when more shards pressed into her thighs. The lake roiled a few feet away from her, the roar of the waves unimaginably loud as they slammed furiously over the shore, each one reaching farther than the last.

Still unable to stand, she scooted back on her ass, desperate to put more space between her and the water. Her head was still pounding, and terror filled her chest. She’d never come here awake before, and Jaren wasn’t around this time to help pull her out.

Gods, Reniya would have no idea what was happening. Was her body sitting in a trance of some kind, or had she completely passed out in the middle of the damn hall?

Her breathing came out ragged, her lungs working double time as she searched for her friend, knowing in her heart she wasn’t there, but unable to keep herself from looking anyway.

She cursed, slapping a hand to her chest and feeling her heart slam against her rib cage, when a male stood a few yards behind her, his body facing the wall. A dark-haired, very muscular, very naked, male.

Alarm bells rang in her head, some animal-like instinct warning her that whoever he was, he was dangerous. She slowly eased a hand to the side, trying not to make a sound as she blindly felt around for a rock of some kind, keeping her eyes on the stranger.

Like Alean, he didn’t seem aware of her. At least, not yet. He stood in the same spot she had, his head tilted and hands fisted at his sides as he stared at a large, dull crystal embedded in the wall.

A large, broken crystal. His tan body radiated fury, and a new wave of nausea rolled through her at the absolute power pouring off him as he slowly raised a hand to the crystal’s jagged edges.

She held her breath, watching him press his palm into it, not a single twitch as he impaled his hand on the shard. With trails of blood dripping down his forearm, he only tipped his head back, murmuring something she couldn’t quite make out.

The entire cavern swelled at his words, each crystal glowing brighter than a star, and then her neck snapped back, mouth open on a scream, as agony like she’d never known speared through her body.

And then she knew nothing at all.

JAREN

He grunted, pressing a hand to his head. Leave it to his fathers to give him a gods damn headache before they’d even started talking. A hot soak with his mate sounded pretty fucking good right about now. Better than this, at least.

He still wasn’t sure how he’d let her convince him to leave her side to go somewhere private with his fathers to talk.