I reach out, my hand settling on her ankle through the blanket. It’s something I used to do for my little sister when she had nightmares. A grounding touch. Barely there, but present.
The effect is immediate. Her restless movements cease, her breathing deepening slightly as she settles back into a more peaceful sleep.
“There you go,” I murmur, keeping my hand in place. “Just rest. We’re handling everything else.”
I find myself continuing to talk, the words coming more naturally now that I’m not expecting a response. I tell her about growing up in Sweetwater and then meeting Rett in college. About the tough early days as a young pack and finding myplace as the protector. I tell her about my security work at Sterling Solutions, about the satisfaction of identifying threats before they materialize.
I don’t tell her about the fear that gripped me when I saw her limp in her apartment. I don’t tell her about the cold, razor-sharp panic that sliced through me when the doctor explained the bond was failing. Some things are still too raw, too new to voice.
But I do tell her this:
“I need you to fight,” I say, my voice dropping to a rough whisper. “I need you to stay. Not for the static. For us. For me.”
I almost imagine I see her expression change, a slight furrow appearing between her brows. But it’s gone as quickly as it appeared, her face smoothing back into peaceful sleep.
My hand remains on her ankle, that simple point of contact becoming an anchor. Through it, I can feel the faint, fluttering pulse of the bond. It’s weak, but it’s there. A reminder of what we stand to lose if we fail.
The moon crawls across the windows, its pale light tracing a slow path across the floor. The soft, rhythmic beep of the medical monitor beside the bed becomes a kind of mantra, a steady counterpoint to the frantic, silent prayers in my own head.
I don’t need to see them to know the others are awake. I can feel their restless energy through the bond, a low, anxious hum from the other room. Rett, pacing. Tristan, staring at a screen that he’s not really seeing. Diego, in the kitchen, his worry manifesting in the soft, useless clatter of pans. We are a pack holding its breath.
As the night deepens, my gaze travels up her body. Her legs are no longer restless. Her chest rises and falls in a slow, even rhythm. Peaceful.
My eyes linger there longer than they should, on the soft curves hidden beneath the cotton of the sleep shirt Diego dressed her in. A memory flashes in my mind: her in that black dress at the art gala, the smooth, pale skin of her shoulders, the delicate, sharp line of her collarbone.
A low, possessive heat coils in my gut. My free hand clenches into a fist at my side. The reaction is automatic. This isn’t just about the bond.
It’s... her.
I force my gaze upward and focus on her face. In the faint predawn light, she looks... fragile. My eyes land on her throat. On the marks. And my blood turns to ice.
And a cold, sharp alarm shoots through me. The marks. They’re disappearing. They look like old scars, almost translucent.
“Rett,” I say, my voice a low, urgent growl that cuts through the silence of the room. “Get in here,” I command, my eyes never leaving the faint, disappearing marks on Zoe’s throat. “All of you. Now.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Rett
I’m at Zoe’s door before Dane’s voice stops echoing through the room, Diego and Tristan right behind me. We’ve been sitting in the living room for hours, none of us able to sleep, all of us pretending to work while we wait for news. Any news.
I push the door open, not bothering to knock. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Dane is standing by Zoe’s bed, his posture rigid, his face set in lines I’ve only seen a handful of times in all the years I’ve known him. It’s the look he gets when something is critically, catastrophically wrong.
“The marks,” he says simply, stepping aside so we can see.
I move to the bed, Diego and Tristan crowding in behind me. For a moment, I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Zoe is still sleeping, her face peaceful, her breathing even. But then my eyes drop to her neck, and the bottom falls out of my world.
The claiming marks—our claiming marks—are fading. Not just fading. They’re almost gone, just faint, silvery traces on her skin, like old scars that have been healing for years instead of weeks.
“No,” Diego’s voice breaks as he pushes past me, rushing to her side. His hand hovers over her, a look of pure, heartbroken anguish on his face. “No, no, no...”
Tristan starts pacing. “What do we do? Do we call the doctor back? Do we... I don’t know, bite her again?!”
I try to think, to find the logic in a situation that feels like it’s spiraling out of control. My eyes dart to the medical monitor, scanning the readouts as if they might hold some answer, some solution.
“Her vitals are stable,” I say, grasping at the only concrete fact I can find. “The fever’s down. That’s good, right?”
