Chapter 14

Briar’s POV

Rachel. Dead.

The image of her blood-soaked body wouldn’t leave my mind.

Her face pale, her lifeless eyes closed like she’d gone in her sleep. But she hadn’t. The vampires had done this.

Put her in a state of death and life.

She did not transition into a vampire. Nor did she die fully as a wolf.

She became the in-between.

My assistant. My friend. Gone.

I stumbled away from the stretcher, my breaths coming in shallow gasps. My vision blurred with unshed tears, and my body trembled as a storm of grief and rage coursed through me. Lizbella trailed after me, her expression unusually somber.

"Briar..." she began, her voice softer than I’d ever heard it.

"Don’t," I choked out, shaking my head. "Don’t say it. Don’t tell me it’s going to be okay, because it’s not. Rachel...Rachel is dead.."

She stopped, biting her lip. For once, Lizbella had no sarcastic quip, no lighthearted j