CHAPTER FOURTEEN || REED #3
I tried to stand, to go to him, but my legs still wouldn’t work.
“Nathaniel!” Simone called sharply, when Sally let out a gasping rattle of breath. “I need you! Tend to the other one—we’re losing her!”
The vampire king was already there, crouching beside Sally. He bit into his own wrist without hesitation, dark blood welling from the wound.
Emma dropped to her knees beside Sally, shooting him an alarmed look. “She won’t turn?”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Not unless she dies with my blood in her system.”
Emma nodded, then cradled Sally’s head in her lap and carefully tilted it back, letting Nathaniel’s blood drip between her lips.
Sally coughed weakly, her eyelids fluttering.
Simone had already torn into her own wrist. She pressed it to Harris’s mouth, her other hand cradling his head. “Come now, detective,” she murmured. “Drink.”
I watched, frozen and useless, as ancient, powerful vampire blood seeped between my mate’s lips.
Would it work to undo the Algea’s wounds?
Would it save him? Vampire blood was one of the most powerful healing agents in existence—for humans, at least. But could it counteract the paralytic venom of the Algea’s claws?
The scene from another clearing just like this one, when my entire life had changed, played in my mind on a loop. Thierry feeding Jeremy his blood, pleading with him to wake up. Me nearby, helplessly watching, unable to fix anything, knowing I had been too slow.
Now, here I was again. Too slow to save someone I loved. All I could do was watch helplessly as the paralysis gripped my limbs. It was a nightmare I seemed doomed to repeat.
For a horrible, endless moment, nothing happened.
Then Harris’s throat moved. He swallowed.
Relief flooded through me and I let out a choked rasp that would’ve been a sob, had I been in human form. But my emotions were jagged and raw. It should have been me cradling Harris. It should have been me who had stopped this from ever happening to him.
Harris coughed. His eyes cracked open.
“Sally,” he rasped. “Is she—”
“She is alive,” Simone said. “Thanks to you.”
“The others—Reed!” Harris bolted upright, his gaze searching the clearing until it landed on me. He let out a strangled noise and lurched to his feet.
Then he swayed, staggering.
Simone, who moved faster than my eyes could track, caught him before he could fall. “If you die, Nicolas will be very upset. And then Thierry will be very upset with me for allowing it to happen,” she said. “You do not want to get me into trouble, do you?”
“There’s a vial of blood in the cabin,” Harris said desperately, pulling free of her grasp and lurching toward me. “It’ll fix this. It undoes enchantments! It’s what I used on Reed last time!”
Daniel and Lee, now in human form, were cradling Hunter from the opposite side of the clearing. Daniel’s face was streaked with tears and Lee looked paler than I had ever seen him as he gazed down at his twin. “We need to get it. Now,” Lee said.
“That’s not going to be necessary,” Ethan said quietly, straightening up. He had been checking on the fallen witches. Poppy and Tatiana were both sitting on the ground, shaken and covered in sweat, breathing hard. Wynn was unconscious beside them, her chest still rising and falling steadily.
“Ethan!” Nathaniel snarled, looking up from Sally.
He had been whispering to her—probably soothing her, or maybe even removing the horror of whatever she had experienced at the hands of the Algea.
Vampires were capable of altering memory.
I would have been grateful if he had—there was no reason for Sally to carry any of this. “Don’t! Let one of us do it.”
By “us” he probably meant him and Simone. The vampires.
But conviction settled across the warlock’s expression as he met his husband’s gaze. “No. I’m not sure what vampire blood will do to them, but they already know my blood works. Which means I can help them.”
The vampire king rose to his feet and blurred to Ethan’s side. “Don’t harm yourself. Please.”
The white-haired warlock locked eyes with his husband. “If it’ll help, I have to. You know that. This is what my power is for.” He smiled, a bit hesitantly. “It’s just a little blood. You know I’m not squeamish.”
Nathaniel hesitated, then nodded, though he didn’t look happy about it.
Ethan moved to Hunter’s side and pulled a small folding knife from his pocket, then clicked it open. Nathaniel followed close behind, watching nervously as Ethan cut the palm of his left hand with a practiced motion and let the blood drip between Hunter’s lips.
The effect was immediate. Hunter’s legs kicked, his body animating in a jerky motion. An instant later, he collapsed into human form, breathing hard. He was still in Daniel’s arms and didn’t try to pull away.
Lee took his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” his brother said firmly.
Daniel, his eyes still wet with tears, met Ethan’s gaze. “Thank you.”
Ethan shrugged, looking almost embarrassed. “Don’t mention it. This is what I do.”
Then he moved to me and, while I lay there helplessly, Nathaniel’s strong, cool hands parted my jaws gently so a few drops of Ethan’s blood could fall into my mouth.
With a herculean effort, I managed to swallow it.
The icy numbness burned away from my body instantly and I allowed myself to shift back into human form, just as Harris and Simone reached me.
Ethan and Nathaniel stepped back, giving us room. I pushed myself into a sitting position, not giving a single shit that I was naked and covered in my own blood. My eyes were locked on my mate.
“Harris,” I choked out. “You could have died. You could have—”
“She needed help,” he said simply. “I had to.”
I understood everything, then. Because Harris had spent years as a law enforcement officer and then as a detective. He ran toward danger, not away from it. He couldn’t stand by and do nothing when someone needed saving.
Of course he’d gone after her.
It was who he was. His courage was one of the many things I loved about him.
The realization hit me, twisting into my chest like a knife.
I was in love with him.
It wasn’t just the bond. It wasn’t merely the mate connection or magic or fate or whatever cosmic force that had brought us together. This was something deeper and simpler than that. It was real and raw and utterly terrifying.
I loved him.
The stubborn, reckless, impossibly brave man who had charged into the Otherworld to save someone he barely knew.
Who had taken silver bullets meant for vampires and turned them on monsters to save my life instead of running the other way.
Who read cozy mystery novels about witches who solved crimes and faced his own shortcomings head-on, even when it scared him shitless.
Who had somehow seen past all my walls, all my bullshit, and still decided I was worth staying for.
I loved him. Because how could I not?
And I had almost lost him.
The thought was a yawning chasm of fear so deep I thought I might fall into it and never come back out. Because Harris was mortal.
He could die.
Not someday in the distant future, but now. Today. In the next fight, or the one after that.
And there would be more fights. That was what it meant to be part of our pack, to be mated to the alpha. To protect this place, we had to stand between the monsters and all of the people we cared about.
What if I failed again, the way I’d failed this time? What if next time, Simone wasn’t there to save him?
“Reed.” Harris’s voice pulled me back. His hand found mine. His grip was weaker than usual but still steady. “I’m okay. I’m right here.”
I studied our joined hands. His knuckles were stained with dirt and blood, but if his hand had been injured, Simone’s blood had completely healed the wounds.
“You’re not okay,” I managed, the words painful and hard to speak around the burning lump of emotion lodged in my throat. “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t.” He squeezed my hand. “I’m still here.”
For now, I thought, misery gripping my heart. But for how much longer?