Azarel's eyes lock onto Cosima in my arms and feral pain and rage flashes across his face. Knight's head snaps up, scarred blue eyes finding her immediately through the curtain of white hair.
They both tense, coiled to attack.
"Wait—" I start, but Cosima moans softly.
The sound is weak, pained, barely audible. But it cuts through the silence and tension all the same.
Knight lurches forward.
My arms tighten instinctively around Cosima's limp body, every protective instinct screaming to run, to take her as far from him as possible. Knight just tore through so many guards, his hands are still dripping with their blood.
"Let him," Raven says quietly.
I turn to stare at him. "Are you fucking insane?"
"Let him," he repeats, his voice firm. "He knows better than we do."
The certainty in Raven's tone makes me hesitate. Against every rational thought, against the voice in my head screaming that this is a mistake, I slowly lower myself to my knees and settle Cosima gently on the cold stone floor.
Knight drops beside her immediately. All that feral violence melts away the moment his human hand touches her face. His fingers tremble as they brush silver hair back from her blood-streaked cheeks, so gentle it hurts.
A sound escapes him. Low, broken, utterly anguished. He cradles her against his chest with a tenderness that shouldn't be possible.
"What have you fucking done to her?" Azarel's snarl cuts through the moment, raw with fury and pain.
I force myself to meet his eyes. See the same self-loathing I feel reflected back at me, mixed with an accusation that lands like a knife to the gut.
"Something went wrong," Nikolai says, his voice carefully controlled in a way that means he's barely holding it together. "The scan triggered something. The implant activated or malfunctioned or—we don't know. She started hemorrhaging. Convulsing."
"I fuckingtoldyou not to tell her about—" Azarel starts, his voice rising.
"You can tell me you're right all you want later," Nikolai cuts him off, and there's genuine hatred in his tone. Not for Azarel, but for himself. I recognize it because it's the same poison currentlyeating through my gut. "Right now, Cosima needs to be marked by her mates. And we're fucking scared of what's going to happen when Knight bites her."
The word hangs in the air between us.
Mates.
Azarel's entire body goes rigid. His eyes find Cosima's unconscious form, then track to her neck where there are fresh bite marks from Raven and Nikolai.
"I can't. But Knight should," Azarel says, his voice rough. "Their bond—the dreams, the soul connection—it's stronger than anything I've seen. If anyone can pull her back from death, it would be him."
"And what if he can't?" I ask, even though I already know what the answer needs to be.
Azarel's jaw tightens, but he doesn't answer. Just watches Knight with that same grim intensity.
Nikolai looks like he's going to puke or scream or kill Azarel with his bare hands, but the way his gaze steels, I know he agrees.
Raven's eyes are brimming with tears. "If she dies…"
"She won't," Azarel grits out, but the words sound like a vow he's making to himself rather than a promise to us.
"Plague," I say through my teeth without taking my eye off Knight and Cosima. "Tell me you've got blood ready for a transfusion."
"We can arrange—" Plague starts, his voice tight.
"Not arrange.Now." The command comes out sharper than I mean it to, but I'm past giving a shit about offending royalty. "Because if she?—"
"I'll have it brought immediately," Plague cuts me off, already gesturing to one of his guards.
