"You're burning up, Beckett. Damn it, stay with me!"
The voice cut through the blur of fire and frost that consumed Beckett's mind. He didn't recognize it at first, only the urgency, the shuddering panic wrapped in it. Heat spread through his side, not from the gaping wound left by the Syndicate claw, but from his blood boiling beneath his skin. Poison. He could feel it pulsing through every vein, searing like wildfire.
He tried to speak, but his tongue was a stone in his mouth, heavy and useless. All he could do was moan, weak and low, as another convulsion rippled through his body. His vision cracked with white, then red, then darkness.
Boots scraped the edge of the ravine.
"Magnolia! Over here!"
The voice again. Familiar this time. Kai. The estate medic. Younger, not yet ranked, but loyal to Rhett and fiercely protective of those under the Callahan crest.
"We need to get him up the ridge," Kai muttered, breath ragged. "He won't last much longer down here."
