Chapter 35
They found me at least a block from the theatre. I hadn’t known where I was going, just that I had to get away.
I was in an alley when they pulled up.
“Glade!” Kyan’s voice was more broken than I’d ever heard.
“Poison.” It was all I could say, unable to look away from her as Kyan cupped her cheek, tanned fingers shaking. Then he was dragging me into the back seat. He tried to take her, but I couldn’t let her go.
The engine roared. Knight must be driving.
“You have the antidote?” I croaked. Where was it? He had to have it.
“I will.”
It wasn’t here?
“How long?”
“Working on it.”
I ran my hand over her hair, watching her chest rise and fall, too fast, too shallow, but it moved. “Stay with me,” I breathed.
Time was a blur as I held her in my arms. Kyan and Knight were talking. About what, I didn’t know.
We had to get her a cure—had to get away.
That’s all that mattered.
It felt like I blinked, and the engine had stopped. The sweet and woody scent of pear grove was right there. Knight was in the back with me. His hand brushed her cheek, and I felt him in the bond. A storm held at bay by a thread as if he was about to crack.
Like I had.
“Where’s… Kyan?”
He was gone.
But he knew these poisons. He was the only one who could fix her.
“He’ll be back.”
Right. He’d just left. Going into a pharmacy, he’d said…
“He can… he can fix her?” I asked, voice hoarse.
“They’re not over-the-counter meds. We’ll have to cut and run the moment he’s out. I’m sorting another ride now. Ace will have our plates.”
That meant… I shook my head like I was trying to dislodge a fly. She was in my arms. My fingers had found the pulse on her wrist and it wasn’t letting go.
Kyan was… he was robbing a pharmacy?
The image caught up to me. He’d been tugging a gun out, digging out a balaclava from the glove compartment.
“Why doesn’t he… have the antidote?” I thought he would. Wouldn’t he have brought it?
“Most of his drugs are back in the warehouse. It’s not safe.”
Okay. Right. There was no choice. It wasn’t like the antidote was simple, but we had a plan. It would work—even when her pulse was so weak, breathing coming short and sharp.
It was wrong. All so wrong. I remember the first moment I’d seen her, as she looked up at me from that bench in her father’s garden.
I’d come to give her a choice, but I was forgetting why. She was the piece around which the world orbited, the most beautiful woman in the world, and I didn’t know why I couldn’t just claim her now.
But I’d learned why.
I’d learned why in the beauty of the smile I saw the first time when I’d earned it. The way the galaxy seemed to glitter in her eyes when she was filled with wonder. The heart stopping sound of her laugh, which I’d heard just briefly once more, up in Kyan’s room when he’d taken her from me just days ago.
She made the world full of life and colour in a way it had never been before.
And I’d been stupid enough to believe it was all a lie. To believe that woman I’d fallen for, wasn’t real.
“I was wrong, Baby,” I whispered, stroking her hair. “I was wrong, and so fucking stupid, so just come back so I can tell you that.”
But her skin was pale, and everything was wrong as she lay, limp in my arms.
“This is my fault.”
“Not the time?—”
“It’s my brother… How did I not know?” I asked. “Why did I believe she… she left us?”
“Because she’s the smartest person we’ve ever met, and that’s what she wanted you to think.”
I took her hand in mine. It wasn’t warm enough.
One of her nails had snapped, I realised. I don’t know why I couldn’t take my eyes from it. Each was long, silver and manicured—except one, which was lilac. That was something she’d chosen to go and have done, even living by herself. Why hadn’t I noticed before?
But now, one was snapped.
Had it broken today? Or when she was with us?
An Omega who deserved everything—the whole fucking world, and I’d locked her in a fucking cell.
“I’ll get it fixed,” I whispered, running my finger over the broken silver piece. I’d take her myself. I would fix everything. “Just wake up.”
My finger traced her wrist, waiting for the pulse.
My jaw clenched, a surge of white hot fear hit my veins. “Her pulse…” Where was it?
Was I imagining it?
“Knight.”
He was reaching over already, fingers finding her throat, brows drawn. “She’s… fine. She has to be.”
“Knight, I c-can’t feel it.”
His breathing was tight as he pressed deeper.
“No, no, no…” I stroked her cheek. “Baby, no, you’ve gotta wait a bit longer. Kyan’s coming, all right?”
But… her pulse should be there. Panic gripped me as I looked up at Knight. “What do we do?”
This wasn’t supposed to happen. There was a plan.
We were waiting for Kyan. He was a mad genius. He’d fix her, then I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to her. I would take her to get her nails done every day if she wanted.
She couldn’t leave now. Not like this. Not because of me.
“Glade…” I shook her.
“Zed…” I’d never heard Knight like that. “Zed, move.”
“Why?”
The pulse was gone, but I must be numb, that was all. I was so numb I couldn’t feel it.
“Lay her straight.”
What?
Knight was trying to take her from me. I didn’t understand. Kyan was coming back. She’d live. I’d get on my knees and tell her… what? I was sorry? As if that covered it.
That was so stupid. She’d tell me it was stupid, too.
I stared at her, realising her breaths had stopped.
“Glade.”
Her scent had changed, curdling cream, spice of cardamom turning stale in the air.
“Move.” Knight grabbed my arm, his terror turning the bond to lava. “She needs CPR. She isn’t going to?—”
My sanity cracked, the feral side that made me an Alpha burning me alive. I didn’t know what made me do it. Not when I should have moved and let Knight take over.
My fingers were weaving through her hair beyond my control as I lifted her.
“Zed—!”But Knight cut off as my teeth sank into her neck.
My offer of a bond burst to life in an abyss, leaving me frozen and more vulnerable and alone than I’d ever felt.
Glade?
I felt like I was calling into the void after her. If I offered a bond, she had to accept it to join, but Glade had chosen our pack long ago. She’d chosen us the day she’d given everything for our protection.
Don’t leave me.
Not now.
She was drifting away, fading into nothingness. She needed an anchor. Something to hold on to.
Please, don’t leave me.
I was… nowhere.
Fading so fast, clinging to the only silver lining—death on my own terms.
But there was so much grief. So much terror that it was over and he’d won. What he’d taken was forever; I would never be with them the way I’d dreamed…
This couldn’t be it.
The doors were closing, and I… I wasn’t done.
I felt the rustle of life, leaves blowing in an icy wind, and ahead, the flicking warm light through a cabin window between santals strained beneath heavy snow.
Zed…?
I could feel him reaching out, trying to drag me back.
For one brief second, I hesitated; I shied back, even as everyone I loved waited ahead, an offer of everything I’d ever begged the universe for.
But if I crossed that threshold, would I bring with me the curse I carried?
Die with it, a voice whispered. Let go, and take your nightmare with you.
But then the ghost of that nightmare would be the only companion I’d ever had.
They had each other, while I had no one.
And I was so, so scared.
I didn’t want to die alone.
So I did what I never should have, and I stepped toward the offer that was reaching back for me.
I don’t know what it was—a strength of body or soul that the bond gave—but she came back. A flutter of life like a bird’s wings in the darkness, the touch, feather light, but hers.
MyGlade, holding on.
I choked in shock, breaking and curling over her, shaking as I clutched her, afraid to lift my teeth away as if it might remove the hand to which she held.
I didn’t know how long I remained trembling, with the faintest thread between us.
Then there was movement. Her arm shifted, and autumn persimmon tickled my senses as I clung to her.
The engine started, and from the edge of my vision I saw a needle being threaded into a vein. His hands still shook, and he took a breath, steadying himself.
Kyan was back. He was saying something. To me or Knight, I didn’t know.
“Distributes to the local hospital… Need to get out of here before…”
I didn’t catch the rest, feeling the strength of her pulse pick up, and with it, my sanity began seeping back in.
She was alive.
Somehow.
“You can let her go.”
I didn’t want to move. She was alive, but what if… What if I let go and she fell, tumbling back into that abyss? Something told me if that happened, she’d never come back.
“The atropine is working. She’s going to live, but there’s more. You have to let go.”
Finally, I drew back, a low wounded sound in my chest as I did, terrified of what might happen.
Kyan’s hand cupped the back of my neck.
“She’s going to live.”
He would never say that if it wasn’t true…
Uncurling and drawing back was like cracking a clay cast that surrounded me.
I made myself move, finally hearing the roar of the truck’s engine, seeing the flashing Vegas lights passing us by, tasting the tang of iron on my tongue, and… It was the only thing that freed me truly. The soft, cool tones of cream cardamom in the air.
Her scent.
Clear.
True.
As beautiful as it was the first time I’d sat on that bench beside her all those years ago.