"Knight, ease up!" Raven's voice cracks with panic.
But the massive alpha doesn't—can't—adjust. His teeth are designed to kill, not to mark. Every instinct built into that engineered body is screaming at him to tear, to rend, to destroy. The fact that he's being as gentle as he is must be taking every ounce of control he possesses.
It's not enough.
The blood keeps coming, pulsing with each weak beat of Cosima's heart, soaking into her silver hair and turning it dark, pooling on the ground beneath her.
"She needs the final mark," Plague says, his medical training overriding everything else. His voice is tight, clinical, desperate to save the omega bleeding out in front of us all. "She's losing too much blood. If she doesn't get it in the next minute?—"
He doesn't finish the sentence.
He doesn't have to.
The silence that follows is suffocating. We all know what he means.
We all know there's only one alpha left who could provide that final mark.
Azarel moves.
Not hesitating. Not asking permission. Just stepping forward with the grim finality of a man walking to the gallows.
"I'll mark her," Azarel says, his voice flat and absolute. "I know she doesn't want to be bound to me. I know she'll hate me more for it. I can never tell her the truth without risking her life. But she'll bealiveto hate me, and that's all that matters. If I have to be the villain of her story, so be it. As long as she’s alive to finish it."
He takes another step toward Cosima's prone form, toward where Knight still holds her against his massive chest. The massive alpha has gone very still, watching Azarel approach with unblinking blue eyes, pupils narrowed to pinpricks.
Azarel takes another step, and I see Nikolai's whole body go rigid. For a split second, his face is a mask of pure, desperate conflict. He glances from Cosima's bleeding form to Azarel, and I can practically see him weighing her life against her will. He’s the one who suggested it, after all. But the moment passes, and his expression hardens into pure defiance.
"She doesn't want your mark," Nikolai snarls, his voice low and dangerous. "She made her feelings about you perfectly fucking clear."
"Because she doesn't know the truth," I find myself gritting out. Can't believe I'm actually defending this asshole. "She thinks he abandoned her to save his own ass. She doesn't know he was trying to keep her alive. She doesn't have all the information. If she knew?—"
"But shecan'tknow," Nikolai snaps. "That's the whole fucking problem."
"None of this matters," Azarel cuts in, his voice eerily calm. "Once she's stabilized, once the bond takes and she's safe, I'll end my own life. The bond will break. She'll be free of me. She'll never have to live with a bond she didn't choose.”
The words land like stones into still water, sending ripples of shock through everyone present.
Then Knight's scarred blue eyes lock onto Azarel with sudden, terrible focus.
A snarl rips from his throat. It's the most aggressive, threatening snarl I've ever heard from him, and I've heardplenty.
"Knight." Azarel's voice remains steady as he takes another step forward. "She's dying. Let me save her. Please."
Knight's response is to gather Cosima closer against his chest, his arms curling protectively around her limp form. Blood—hers and his—smears across his bare skin.
Another snarl. Louder. More threatening.
"Knight, please?—"
Knight moves.
The massive alpha rises to his full impossible height in one fluid motion, Cosima gently cradled against his chest with his human arm as if she's made of spun glass.
He pivots, his massive frame somehow graceful despite his sheer size, despite the blood loss, despite the sparking damage to his augmented arm. His claws lash out, catching Azarel with enough force to send the prince crashing into the stone wall.
FUCK!
I lunge forward. "Wait?—!"
