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Elliot grinned. “I like the way you think. Let’s do it.”
Five increasingly painful shocks later, I was one jump away from that damn boulder.
Elliot had let out a shout when he’d landed, which was enough to let me know that it wasn’t going to be fun, but Iwas committed now.
“You just make the jump,” Elliot said. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall in.”
It was only after I’d made the leap, in the split second before landing, that I wondered if Elliot would get shocked again since he was still on the boulder.
The answer wasyes,but he still managed to catch me in his arms.
We both fell and slid a little, coming perilously close to the quicksand that surrounded us, but Elliott caught a handhold at the last minute. With one arm wrapped tight around me, he dragged us both to the top of the boulder.
When we reached it, we collapsed and just lay there, breathing.
“How is this idiotic obstacle course supposed to help mesurvive Zowen?” I demanded.
“What are you talking about?” Elliot sat up and looked down at me.
I just waved my right hand as if that would somehow dismiss what I was about to say. “It’s a theory Kasi and Jasmine have, that the professors are making me take all these courses to get me ready for when Zowen comes back for me.”
“Hold on a minute.” Elliot sat up straighter. “You think he’s going to come back for you?”
“Of course, he’s going to come back for me, Elliot. That was never even a question. He told Kasi in their confrontation that he’d be coming for meandfor her.”
Elliot looked furious. “No one told me that. No one told me he’d threatenedyou!”
“Hetorturedme, Elliot. I think he did a hell of a lot more than just threatened me.”
“What the fuck do you mean he tortured you?” He roared. “You were only in the Shadow Realm for thirteen minutes! How could he even have had time?”
“Time’s different in the Shadow Realm. It stretches a little at the edges, with every minute feeling like—I don’t know.” A hundred years, a tiny voice whispered in my head. “An hour maybe.”
“Son of a bitch,” Elliot muttered. “I was right there. All along. I was in the Academy, taking classes, not even aware that my mate was in another year, taking classes nearby. Not a clue she’d been taken or tortured,was lying in a coma. I mean, I knew what happened, of course, but we’d never met, so I didn’t know we were mates.”
I sat up. “It’s not your fault, Elliot. I didn’t know either. Maybe we weren’t supposed to know. Because you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing about what happened.”
He gave me an incredulous look.
“No, really. I just realized the other day that I wouldn’t have my leopard if?—”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do. I’ve known since I was sixteen that I wasn’t born with a leopard. Maybe when she first came to me, I deluded myself into thinking she was a regular shifter-leopard, but now I know the truth. She’s not. Or at least she’s not one hundred percent shifter. She’s a shadow-leopard, Elliot, and if I hadn’tbeen taken into the Shadow Realm, she never would have been born and I can’t imagine her not being part of my life now. So I wouldn’t change anything, except maybe it would have been nice to have met you sooner.”
“Mikaela,” he murmured, then leaned over and kissed me.
The feel of his lips on mine, finally, sent heat surging through me.
I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back, trying to ignore the sound of Miki-Leopard cheering in the back of my mind.
Elliot rolled us so that he was lying on the hard rock and I was stretched out on top of him, both of us struggling to get closer, when he stiffened beneath me and a second later, a bolt of electricity, the strongest oneyet, zapped me, making me cry out and shudder.
When it finally passed, I found Elliot’s arms were clasped around me tight.
“Are you okay?” He asked hoarsely.
“Yeah. But I am so done with this place.” I struggled to my feet, reached deep inside and found Miki-Leopard and a fucking ocean of power waiting for me there.
