Chapter 5: Four Minutes

Cassian Vale hit the stairs first. I know because I was behind him, and I have never seen an Alpha King move like something hunted. Healing wing. East hall. Two healers on the boy, one pinning his shoulders, one reaching for the silver ash. Theo Vale is seventeen and looks fourteen. Dark hair soaked to his forehead. Lips going the color of ash. His wolf was trying to surface — teeth lengthening, spine bowing — and it was killing him. "Hold him down!" Seraphine shouted, shoving in. "Ash...