Chapter Thirty-Three
Bast O’Connor
Blood and Binding Words
Just a few minutes ago…
She’s bleeding. There’s so much blood. No. My wolf fights, wanting to charge. We can’t do that yet. The scent of Bridget’s blood hits my senses like a sledgehammer, copper-sweet and terrifying.
The T-shirt is so stained now—the one she stole from my drawer just yesterday. Just yesterday, when everything was perfect. When she was safe in my arms.
Now she’s swaying on the castle steps, the witch’s fingers are still gripped around the knife buried in her flesh.
But I can’t move. Can’t shift. One wrong move and she’ll tear that blade upward, ending everything.
The weight of Lawrence’s protection spells tingles across my fur—magick that keeps us partly shielded from their attacks.
The moment we shift back, we’ll be vulnerable.
Naked. Defenseless. They’ll kill everyone.
Bridget’s eyes find mine across the courtyard. Even now, even with death pressing against her ribs, she’s trying to be strong. Her lips form silent words. Don’t do it.
The scent of her fear mingles with her blood, with the acrid stench of other deaths already scattered across the perfectly manicured lawn and stone. But the Mathairs don’t care about those losses. Their faces remain serene, untouched by the carnage their orders have caused.
“Submit,” the witch purrs, twisting the blade.
Bridget’s gasp of pain ignites the primal beast in my chest. My wolf surges forward, claws digging deep furrows into the ground.
Every muscle trembles with the need to tear, to kill, to protect what’s mine.
But I hold. We all hold. The other wolves’ growls join mine, rumbling through the courtyard like distant thunder.
“Guess he doesn’t love you enough,” she whispers to my mate. Then shoves the blade deeper, and Bridget’s knees buckle.
The first howl that breaks the silence comes from my alpha—Aiden. Then Liam’s joins. They are here for me. For Bridget. She is pack. She belongs to us. Mine.
We charge as one, a wave of fur and fang and unrepentant rage.
The witch rips the blade free, dark arterial blood spraying across white marble. Bridget crumples, one hand pressed to her wound, the other reaching toward me. The distance between us feels endless.
A magickal shield slams into place, a wall of crackling energy that separates us from our prey.
From my mate. My teeth find the barrier, tearing into magick like its flesh.
The taste of their power burns my tongue, but I don’t stop.
Can’t stop. I feel Bridget’s life force flickering like a candle in the wind.
“Hold them!” Another witch screams, her hands weaving more power into the shield. But she doesn’t see Lawrence coming up behind her.
His power hits her like a baseball bat to the skull, decades of rage concentrated into a single strike. Her body falls immediately.
The shield falters. I rip into it harder.
The other witches from Lawrence’s coven and from ours at home press our advantage, their spells tearing through everything.
Another witch falls to Gen’s wolf, her scream cut short as fangs find throat. This isn’t their carefully controlled Court. They have no stealthy advantage. No surprise. This is face-to-face war, primal and brutal and they don’t stand a chance.
“My queens!” Several remaining witches form a protective circle around the Mathairs. “We need to retreat! We can’t hold—”
My teeth finally break through their barrier, power shattering like glass beneath my fury. Blood fills my mouth—my own from fighting through their magick, theirs from when my fangs find flesh. The taste of their fear in the air is sweeter than any kill.
The witch who stabbed Bridget shouts something, but I barely hear it over the sound of my own heart pounding. My focus narrows to one thing—Bridget’s body on the ground, blood pooling beneath her on the marble courtyard like spilled wine.
The Mathairs are running now, their dresses billowing as they retreat into their castle. Cowards. They’ll die for this. But right now, none of that matters.
Only her.
I reach her in three bounds, my body already shifting before I touch the ground beside her. My fur melts away, leaving me bare on my knees beside her. Everything narrows to the sight of her blood on my hands as I press them against her wound.
“No, no, no. Stay with me. Please.”
Blood seeps between my fingers no matter how hard I press. Her skin is already too pale, her breathing too shallow. The tether between us flutters weakly, like a bird with broken wings.
“Chun tú,” I whisper, the ancient words falling from my lips like a prayer. “Geallaim mo chroí agus anam go deo.”
Her eyes flutter open, focusing on my face with effort. “Bast.” My name comes out as barely a breath. “You came.”
“Always.” Tears blur my vision as I pull her closer, cradling her against my chest. “I’ll always come for you. Just stay with me. Please.”
One of Lawrence’s witches stands guard over us as the battle moves toward the castle, following the Mathairs. The sounds of fighting echo in the distance—spells crackling, wolves snarling, stone crumbling. But all I can focus on is the weak thump of Bridget’s pulse beneath my hands.
“Chun tú Geallaim mo chroí agus anam go deo,” I chant again, pouring everything I have into the words. Into her. “Come back to me.”
Her fingers brush my cheek, leaving trails of her own blood on my skin. “Thank you,” she whispers, “for showing me what real love feels like.”
“No.” The word comes out as a snarl. “Don’t you dare say goodbye. We’re not done.”
I repeat the bonding words again and again, each repetition more desperate than the last. Her eyes drift closed, head growing heavy against my shoulder. The tether between us stretches impossibly thin.
Then I feel it—a whisper of power, different from before. New marks begin to etch themselves around her collarbone, spreading up her throat like vines beneath the T-shirt. The designs shimmer emerald green, nothing like the dead black bands around our wrists.
Matching marks burn into my own skin, and suddenly I can feel her again. All of her. Everything. Her wound begins to close beneath my hands, flesh knitting together by the same power that marks us. My wolf is healing her. The bond is healing her.
The tether pulses stronger, brighter.
Then Bridget gasps, her entire body arching as her eyes fly open.
When our gazes meet, my world explodes back into color—those impossible emerald eyes blazing with life, with magick, with everything I thought I’d lost forever.
A sound tears from my throat, half sob, half wolf’s cry of triumph, and I press my forehead to hers, breathing her in like a drowning man breaking the surface.
“Bast,” she breathes, and this time my name sounds like a beginning instead of an end.