Swallowing hard, she nodded. “Just my hair.” As long as he didn’t touch her skin, his emotions wouldn’t seep inside her. Although . . . she couldn’t help but notice that the brief flashes weren’t so sharp and biting today. Apparently he was in a good mood.
As his fingers gently parted her hair, Ally’s stomach clenched as a fierce need slithered through her. It didn’t matter that he was only touching her hair. Having his body eating up her space, his hot breath on her forehead, his brooding eyes focused solely on her . . . There was an intensity and intimacy to the moment that took her by surprise.
Derren released her hair, but he didn’t step back. He breathed her in, letting that luscious scent settle in his lungs. “It’s stopped bleeding, but it’s deep. You’ll need to clean it.”
That was gonna sting like a bitch. “I’m going to my lodge to take a shower.”
“I’ll walk you back.”
“It’s okay.” She stepped away, intending to leave. “I’m—” She broke off as a strange, ominous sound whooshed through the air. “What—” A deafening, piercing boom shocked the breath from her lungs, and she was suddenly encased in heat. Flames grazed her skin as she was propelled through the air and crashed to the hard ground. She heard a crack, and quickly realized it was her skull.
The adrenaline rushing through her helped her ignore the ringing in her ears, the disorientation clouding her reasoning, and the agony attempting to take hold of her. Her instincts told her to get up and move.
She crawled away from the corroding heat at her back and the trees that were collapsing around her. A hand suddenly snatched her arm and dragged her forward, urging her to move faster. When the hand released her, she collapsed on her front. A face was staring into hers. A face she knew. Derren.
He cast a nauseated glance at her back, and she wondered what he saw there. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Wait there? Her instincts didn’t think that was a good idea. She should keep moving, get as far away from the danger as possible. And she would have done exactly that if Caleb hadn’t crouched in front of her, asking her questions she didn’t understand—the pain at her back was so consuming she couldn’t think.
A chorus of curses and grunts of pain was quickly followed by the appearance of several others. They were heaving two wolves along with them, one of whom was a coughing and badly injured Eli. Ally double-blinked in surprise as a body was dumped at her side.
“Do something!” ordered a harsh male voice. Jesse. “You can save her!”
But she couldn’t. Shaya—her body unmoving, her eyes open wide, her skin scorched and red and blistered—was already gone.
“Help her!”
“I can’t! She’s dead.” It was too late. Ally closed her eyes against the emotional and physical blow to her system. Feeling hands pulling on her upper arms, making frost jab her bare skin, Ally opened her eyes with a gasp . . . and found Derren standing in front of her, the image of concern.
“Ally! Ally, answer me!”
Instinctively, she shrugged out of his hold, escaping the chill and hunger coming from his touch. Glancing around, she saw that there was no fire. No heat. No fallen trees. The male eyes around her regarded her curiously.
“Are you okay?”
Hearing that familiar voice, Ally glanced at the redheaded female beside her. Not dead but alive. At once, realization hit Ally, and horror slammed into her. “Move! We have to fucking move now!” She grabbed Shaya’s arm and pulled hard as she turned and ran.
“Where are you going?” demanded Zander.
Without breaking stride, she very briefly glanced at him over her shoulder. “Unless you want to burn, run!” Footsteps thudded behind her as the males kept pace with her and—
A blast of fire. A rumble through the ground. Heat racing along her back. Trees crashing.
She wasn’t sure what sent her sprawling to the floor. The impact of the explosion? The reverberations in the ground? Her own instinct to dive away from the danger? She didn’t care, was simply glad of two things: One, she didn’t feel the same pain as she had in the vision. Two, Shaya was alive, albeit shocked and scared.
“Fuck!”
Hearing a harsh exclamation, Ally looked to see Eli and Caleb supporting Derren’s weight as they lowered him to the ground at her side. Resting on his front, he hissed out a breath. Bile rose in her throat as she got a look at his legs, the denim torn and sticking to the badly burned skin.
“He shielded me,” said Kent as his mate called Nick on his cell phone. “Derren shoved me to the ground and covered me.” And took the injuries intended for Kent.
“You can heal him, right?” Bracken asked Ally.
She struggled to a sitting position, startled by Derren’s harsh “No.”
“Derren, let her help you,” encouraged Eli.
“No,” he again ground out, looking close to blacking out. His eyes blazed into hers. “It’ll hurt you. It already hurts when I touch you.”