A partial smile forms amid my broken gasps. How would I even explain this to a paramedic? Paralysis by bond? I close my eyes and listen. Upstairs, Rickon isn’t screaming in pain, just crippled by the violence barreling into us.
“Just you,” I whisper.
“Okay, stay on the line. I’m heading to the parking garage now.”
I keep talking to distract myself; otherwise, my mind might scramble. But it’s hard to push words through when I can barely breathe. “Not . . . heading to court?” I whisper.
“How could you tease me at a moment like this?” the alpha on the other end of the line growls. “Fuck! If you need me, Red, I’ll—” He groans, and the next moment a car door slams. “I’ll always come for you.”
Weakly, I cover my eyes with one arm, a tiny smile tugging at my mouth. “All right,” I whisper. Warmth floods my icy body. Callisto’s coming.
“Can you tell me what hap—?” The line goes dead.
I curse my battery silently.
Rage batters into my rib cage as if Wild Red hatched there in the flesh, jerking my body with every punch and kick. More tears leak from my eyes as I imagine Zack in the underground fighting ring, crowds jeering for his blood as he worked himself into a killing frenzy. I don’t care if he kills. I don’t care if I must endure this rage forever—he just needs to survive.
“Alpha,” I whisper, wanting to feed him strength.
Rickon groans and vomits, his retching every bit as choked as my breathing. A moment later, his voice floats down the stairs. “Red?”
“I’m okay,” I call back. Not really the truth, but he sounds in worse shape than me.
“I’m coming,” he says, voice broken and scared.
“Stay there,” I yell. Fuck, if he tries to come down the stairs like that, he’ll break his neck. “Calli’s on his way.”
He groans and thumps on the flooring, and a moment later I hear him throwing up again. I whimper on his behalf. We knew the danger, taking a feral alpha’s bond. I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter, but Rickon did, and he accepted the risk anyway. He’s so pure, this force might end him.
Zack’s fury shunts at me, crowding my thoughts into a corner of my mind. I writhe on the bench top, sucking down my hisses so Rickon doesn’t hear them. If Zack told me to stop breathing with this much alpha command, my body would obey. If he were here in the room, I might really explode.
But I can’t help loving the wild aggression, if for no other reason than it tells us Zack’s alive and fighting with everything he has.
The door lock beeps, and I groan with relief.
“I’m here,” Callisto calls, running into the room. “Oh, shit. Darling, are you okay?”
“Glass,” I choke out, coughing on the words. I wave weakly toward the far end of the bench.
“I see it,” he says, taking a wide detour. His footsteps slapping on the floor feel like my heartbeat.
A moment later, Callisto pulls me into his arms. I quiver as I throw my hands around his neck. His cherry wood scent fills my nose, along with the petrichor of an approaching rainstorm, relaxing some of the tension binding my throat. I gasp in a series of shallow breaths, each one loaded with his scent.
“Fuck! You’re bleeding. Where’s Rickon?”
“Upstairs,” I mutter into his neck.
Callisto reaches under me, pulling me to the bench’s edge, and then lifts me into his arms. I don’t have the strength to hold myself up, but he takes my weight easily enough. My head flops on his shoulder, bouncing with each step as he carries me to the top floor.
Rickon made it almost to the top of the stairs. He lies on the ground on his belly, one arm above his head, the other pressed to his throat.
Callisto gasps. “Ricky? Fuck, baby. Are you with us?”
Rickon nods his head miserably, revealing streaks of vomit on the floor under his chin.
“Wait one second,” Callisto hisses, carrying me down the hall and plonking me on the end of the bed. I lean over my knees, weak with equal amounts of fear and relief. Callisto always knows what to do in an emergency, so now all I have to do is breathe. And, if possible, keep from shooting my panic through the bond. Zack needs to focus.
Water runs in the bathroom, and Calli’s steps thump along the hallway. Reality blurs until he arrives back in the room, carrying a damp, shirtless Rickon. I choke on another sob as I finally clasp hands with my first alpha, and he pulls me into his quivering chest.
