Hunter grips me tighter. “You’re not dying.”
He’s wrong. I am.
Because I know, deep down, this isn’t just a normal heat. It’s the mark. The bond tearing itself from my body.
I don’t think I can survive it.
There are voices.Muffled. Distant. Like they’re underwater, just out of reach. I can’t understand the words. Can’t makesense of anything beyond the waves of pain dragging me under.
“—worse than we thought?—”
“—fuck, Graham, hurry up?—”
A hand smooths over my sweat-slick skin. I flinch, weakly, but the warmth stays—solid, anchoring. Hunter.
“Stay with me, princess.” Soft. Coaxing.
I try to answer, but my lips part uselessly. A broken whimper slips out.
“She’s burning up. This isn’t normal. Her scent’s all over the place. Fix this.” Carson fires off, fast—too fast. Too close. His breath catches at the edge of the last word.
“Fix it?” Hunter growls low. “What the fuck do you want me to do, Carson? Bite her myself?”
The air goes taut, stretched thin. No one moves. My body shakes. Wet heat tracks down my cheeks—tears? I don’t know. The scream trapped in my throat won’t break free. The pain eats everything.
Footsteps. Too loud. Voices jumbling. I can’t tell who’s who. The room tilts, tilts again.
“Shit. Get her in the bathroom, she’s on fire.”
I’m lifted—weightless, unmoored. Cold cloth drags over burning skin. Pointless. Water pours over my body, hissing on contact, but the fire inside doesn’t fade. I clutch at Hunter, barely aware of my own grip. Sobs rip through me, loud and ragged.
Close now—Carson again. His breathing isn’t steady. A hitch, a low growl swallowed between clenched teeth. “She’s not getting better.” Another breath. Rougher. It makes my body grow taunt. My scent spiking to entice him further. “She needs him.”
No—not him. Not Landon. Gone. He’s gone.
A sob bursts loose. “Make it stop.”
Hunter’s arms tighten. “We can’t.”
Another sob, hoarse. “Please.”
No one answers. The heat pulls at them. I can feel it—Hunter holding too tight, Carson too close, alpha instincts bristling under their skin. But none of it stops what’s happening to me. None of it pulls me out.
CHAPTER 7
Landon
Mason stopsin his tracks as I double over, my vision blacking out for a second. Someone’s reached into my chest, gripped my heart, shoved it into a blender on high. My ribs cave inward, the force of it so violent I drop to my knees on the cold pavement, barely catching myself on my hands before my face hits the ground.
Willow.
No.
I gasp, trying to suck in air, but my lungs refuse to expand. The pain is suffocating, barbed wire coiling around my ribs, slicing deeper with every pulse of agony. It’s not just pain—it’s her pain. And I feel all of it.
Two months.
It’s been two months since I let her walk away, since I forced myself to believe it was the right thing, the only way to set her free. But there’s no freedom in this; no clean break, no slow, dull ache of missing someone.
