He stumbled into the clearing, silver dagger still clutched in hands that shook with adrenaline and fear. Evan's hands still pressed against my throat, blood seeping between his fingers despite his desperate attempts to hold me together.
“Oh no,” Dad breathed, dropping to his knees beside us. “Oh fuck, no.”
His hands joined Evan's, engineer's precision trying to assess damage that had nothing to do with mechanical systems. But the look in his eyes said everything about what he was seeing, about calculations that didn't add up to survival.
“How bad?” he asked Evan, voice steady despite the tears that had started falling.
“Bad,” Evan whispered, not looking away from my face. “Too much blood. The artery's severed. I can't... I can't stop it.”
My vision wavered like heat shimmer off summer pavement, consciousness trying to slip away from me like smoke in wind. But Evan's hands were warm against my neck, his touch the only thing keeping me tethered to a world that was rapidly fading to gray.
“Stay with me,” Evan snarled, shaking me hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Don't you dare leave me now.”
I tried to answer, tried to tell him that I wasn't going anywhere, that whatever had just happened to me didn't change the fact that I loved him more than life itself. But words wouldn't come, and the edges of my vision were going dark.
The forest power that had surged through me moments before was gone, leaving nothing behind but ordinary human fragility in the face of wounds that no amount of stubbornness could heal.
“Guess I'm not useless,” I managed to whisper, the words barely audible even to my own ears.
Dad's hand found mine, squeezing tight enough to leave marks. “You're not useless,” he said fiercely. “You're my son. You're the strongest person I know.”
But we all knew it wasn't enough.
Gideon appeared at the edge of my vision, magic flickering around his fingers as he assessed damage that went beyond anything normal healing could address. His face was grave, shadows in his eyes that spoke of medical knowledge that couldn't offer hope.
“The artery,” he said quietly to Daniel. “It's too deep. Even if we could get him to a hospital...”
He didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.
Daniel knelt beside his son, placing a heavy hand on Evan's shoulder. “There might be another way,” he said, voice carrying the weight of decisions that couldn't be undone.
“What way?” Evan demanded, desperation making him grab at any possibility, no matter how remote.
“The bite,” Daniel said simply. “Pack bonds. If you bite him now, while he's dying, while the magic is still fresh in his system from whatever he just did...”
“No.” The word came out flat, final. “Absolutely not. I won't force that on him.”
“It's not forcing if it saves his life,” Dad said quietly, understanding dawning in his eyes. “If it's the only way.”
“Michael.” Daniel's attention shifted to my father, Alpha authority radiating from him in waves. “This is your choice. Your son. But if we don't do this now, we lose him.”
Dad looked down at me, taking in the blood that had soaked through my clothes, the way my breathing had grown shallow and irregular. “Will it work?”
“Maybe,” Daniel admitted. “The transformation might trigger enough healing to save him. Or it might kill him faster. There's no way to know.”
I tried to speak, to tell them what I wanted, but my throat wouldn't work anymore. All I could do was look at Evan, at Dad, at the people who'd become my family in ways that transcended biology.
The darkness was creeping in at the edges of my vision, and I was pretty sure this was it.
“Do it,” Dad said suddenly, voice carrying authority that brooked no argument. “If there's a chance, any chance at all, do it.”
Evan's face crumpled, tears falling freely now as he looked down at me with something that might have been apology or permission or both. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'm so fucking sorry.”
His teeth found my wrist, fangs lengthening into something designed for more than eating. The bite was sharp, quick, surgical in its precision.
Fire raced up my arm, burning through veins that had grown cold with blood loss. It felt like lightning and molten metal and every transformation I'd ever been afraid of, all compressed into a moment that seemed to stretch toward eternity.
The last thing I heard before darkness claimed me completely was Daniel's voice, steady and sure.
