No answer. Just the rock of his heels, his hands pushed to his mouth. I hesitated before reaching for him. I didn’t want to jolt him, just hoped to draw him out of the daze. I brushed my fingers against his—
—and hissed, yanking back.
Fire. His skin was onfire.
Not warmth. Not heat. But absolute burning. The veins along his hands had darkened, spidering like black vines.
“Wells?”
His head hung against his chest, hands and hair shielding me from whatever he hid. But then he looked up, the world shifting when his eyes met mine.
Crimson strains laced through every inch of the white in them. His pupils had shrunk, sinking under the weight.
And there, beneath it all, was the pain.
A metallic sting coated my tongue, straight to the curse where it lashed against my temples. I fell to the ground the same moment he did, our knees slamming against muck.
Any light he had left broke from him, flooding into red then black.
And I had no idea how to stop it.
Scarlet speckled his hands, dripping from his nose, pooling in the creases of his fingers. My breath faltered as my mind ran through every possibility of what could have caused this. I only ever landed on one thing.
This wasn’t just blood. This was a result. Evidence. The tic in his hands. The shudder in his bones—
The one thing Gemma never prepared me for. But the crucial thing she should have...because it didn’t come from outside this world. It was a consequence. Of me.
A whisper crept up my throat, hissing its verdict, lashing toward the spill of red.Mine. Mine. Mine.
He never healed. Not fully. Not truly. And they had kept that truth from me, probably too afraid the guilt would consume me. Or worse, that the curse would demand I finish what I had started.
Wells whimpered, “I need…fuck.” The words came ragged from his throat, his palms pressing into his eyes, smearing blood across the sockets.
Panic sprung on me, every thought fracturing. But I needed to dosomething. I forced my eyes closed. Took one breath. Then another, drifting back, past the curse, past the venom. Past the girl they feared.
And I found her. Verena Vale.
Not the Viper, not the monster, but the girl who wanted to heal. The girl who saved before she slayed. And I dragged her forward.
Quickly, I scanned the crowd again, desperate for a glimpse of Gemma. But everyone was pushed shoulder to shoulder, backs turned, bodies forming a wall between me and the world. Shielding what I shielded.
Behind me, Wells’ voice cracked again, too weak. “No,” he said. “My pack.”
His body shuddered. Blood no longer trickled but gushed, pouring from his nose. I ripped a piece of fabric from my shirt, pressing it beneath it, trying to halt the flow.
The cloth soaked instantly. Useless.
I dropped it, cursing, and made the mistake of looking into his eyes.
My heart sank.
They weren’t just bloodshot anymore. They weredrowning.
He’s going to die. I’m too late.
The words echoed repeatedly in my head as tears streaked his face, the same shade that glinted at the base of my dagger’s hilt.
Ruby red.
