Chapter 46 – GEO
GEO
Cosima weighs nothing in my arms.
That's the first thought that cuts through the haze of self-loathing threatening to drag me under. She feels insubstantial, fragile, like if I don't hold her just right she'll slip through my fingers and vanish entirely.
Blood seeps through the thin silk of her dress, warm and wet against my forearms. From her nose, her ears, between her thighs.
Still breathing.
I cling to that like a lifeline as we move through the palace corridors. Each shallow rise and fall of her chest is a miracle. Proof that I haven't completely fucked this up beyond repair.
Yet.
The word echoes in my skull with every step. Yet, yet, yet.
My jaw clenches hard enough to make my teeth ache. Later. I can beat myself bloody later. Right now, she needs me present, focused, not drowning in guilt that serves nobody.
If she lives, I'll spend the rest of my existence making this up to her. I'll listen to Raven remind me he was right until my ears bleed. I'll grovel. I'll beg. I'll do whatever it fucking takes.
And if she dies—
No.
That thought leads to a void I can't look into.
A black hole where any conceivable future should be.
The idea of existing in a world without her fierce spirit, without her cutting remarks and unexpected laughter, without the way she looks at me like I'm more than just a fucked-up thug with blood on my hands. ..
How the fuck did this omega burrow so deep into my cold stone heart in such a short time?
Doesn't matter. She's there now, roots dug in so deep that tearing them out would kill me just as surely as whatever's happening to her right now.
"Almost there," Plague says, his voice tight with some fraction of the shame I feel for being so fucking wrong.
The dungeon entrance looms ahead, a descending staircase that disappears into torchlit darkness. My knee screams in protest as I start down, but I ignore it. Pain is just information, and right now the only information that matters is the steady rhythm of Cosima's heartbeat against my chest.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Still alive. Still fighting.
She's so strong. Stronger even than she probably gives herself credit for. This stubborn little omega who looked at a prince and decided to poison him, who faced hell and survived, who somehow found it in her to trust us despite every reason not to.
She deserves better than this.
Better than us.
Better than me second-guessing my instincts because I was too focused on logic to listen to the warnings Knight and Azarel were screaming.
Azarel.
The thought of him makes my chest twist. Azarel was right. Knight was right. And we didn't listen.
And the fucking worst part?
Cosima doesn't even know.
She thinks her mate abandoned her because he's a selfish prick, not because telling her the truth about what her father did to her brain could literally trigger a kill switch.
How the fuck was he supposed to explain that? "Hey, sweetheart, your dad put a bomb in your head but I can't tell you about it because knowing might blow it up"?
I hate the fuckin' guy, but that's not why.
We reach the bottom of the stairs and round the corner into the main corridor.
And freeze.
Azarel stands in the center of carnage, chains dangling from his wrists, blood splattered across his plain black clothes. Behind him, Knight sways on his feet, looking like death warmed over.
The bodies of guards litter the stone floor. At least six that I can count, maybe more. The walls are streaked with blood, and the stench of fresh death hangs heavy in the confined space.
They broke out.
These two alphas who fought like devils to stop the scan are standing here surrounded by the bodies of men who tried to contain them.
And they were both fucking right.
Azarel's eyes lock onto Cosima in my arms and feral pain and rage flashes across his face. Knight's head snaps up, scarred blue eyes finding her immediately through the curtain of white hair.
They both tense, coiled to attack.
"Wait—" I start, but Cosima moans softly.
The sound is weak, pained, barely audible. But it cuts through the silence and tension all the same.
Knight lurches forward.
My arms tighten instinctively around Cosima's limp body, every protective instinct screaming to run, to take her as far from him as possible. Knight just tore through so many guards, his hands are still dripping with their blood.
"Let him," Raven says quietly.
I turn to stare at him. "Are you fucking insane?"
"Let him," he repeats, his voice firm. "He knows better than we do."
The certainty in Raven's tone makes me hesitate. Against every rational thought, against the voice in my head screaming that this is a mistake, I slowly lower myself to my knees and settle Cosima gently on the cold stone floor.
Knight drops beside her immediately. All that feral violence melts away the moment his human hand touches her face. His fingers tremble as they brush silver hair back from her blood-streaked cheeks, so gentle it hurts.
A sound escapes him. Low, broken, utterly anguished. He cradles her against his chest with a tenderness that shouldn't be possible.
"What have you fucking done to her?" Azarel's snarl cuts through the moment, raw with fury and pain.
I force myself to meet his eyes. See the same self-loathing I feel reflected back at me, mixed with an accusation that lands like a knife to the gut.
"Something went wrong," Nikolai says, his voice carefully controlled in a way that means he's barely holding it together. "The scan triggered something. The implant activated or malfunctioned or—we don't know. She started hemorrhaging. Convulsing."
"I fucking told you not to tell her about—" Azarel starts, his voice rising.
"You can tell me you're right all you want later," Nikolai cuts him off, and there's genuine hatred in his tone.
Not for Azarel, but for himself. I recognize it because it's the same poison currently eating through my gut.
"Right now, Cosima needs to be marked by her mates.
And we're fucking scared of what's going to happen when Knight bites her. "
The word hangs in the air between us.
Mates.
Azarel's entire body goes rigid. His eyes find Cosima's unconscious form, then track to her neck where there are fresh bite marks from Raven and Nikolai.
"I can't. But Knight should," Azarel says, his voice rough. "Their bond—the dreams, the soul connection—it's stronger than anything I've seen. If anyone can pull her back from death, it would be him."
"And what if he can't?" I ask, even though I already know what the answer needs to be.
Azarel's jaw tightens, but he doesn't answer. Just watches Knight with that same grim intensity.
Nikolai looks like he's going to puke or scream or kill Azarel with his bare hands, but the way his gaze steels, I know he agrees.
Raven's eyes are brimming with tears. "If she dies…"
"She won't," Azarel grits out, but the words sound like a vow he's making to himself rather than a promise to us.
"Plague," I say through my teeth without taking my eye off Knight and Cosima. "Tell me you've got blood ready for a transfusion."
"We can arrange—" Plague starts, his voice tight.
"Not arrange. Now." The command comes out sharper than I mean it to, but I'm past giving a shit about offending royalty. "Because if she—"
"I'll have it brought immediately," Plague cuts me off, already gesturing to one of his guards.
I turn my attention back to Cosima, to the pool of blood spreading beneath her body.
Too much. Too fucking much.
"You have to mark her," Raven says to me, his voice shaking. "You're her mate too. I can see it. The way you react to her, the way you've been with her… you're a scent match even if you can't smell it yourself."
"What?" The word comes out more defensive than intended. "I'm not—"
"Stop being so fucking stubborn," Raven cuts me off sharply. "Mark her, Geo. Strengthen the pack bond. Give Knight's mark more power to work with when he bites her."
The words hit like a punch to the solar plexus.
Scent match?
Mate?
Me?
It's not like I haven't considered the possibility. The pull she has on me. The fact that even muted, even with a sense of smell as broken as the rest of me, her scent calls to me. But I never thought the gods would give her someone like me as a mate.
"If you mark her first," Raven continues, his voice urgent, "it might be enough to save her without Knight needing to mark her, too. And without needing—" He glances at Azarel, then away.
Without needing Azarel to mark her.
Knight looks fucking defeated, his massive form hunched over Cosima like he's trying to shield her from the world. Or from himself. He glances between us, then slowly—gently—lowers Cosima to the dungeon floor and rises to his full height, taking a step back that clearly pains him.
And maybe it's just my imagination, but he seems to nod to me.
"Do it," Nikolai says.
I stare down at Cosima's pale face, at the blood still trickling from her nose. At her chest rising and falling in shallow, inadequate breaths.
I never thought I'd have a mate.
Let alone an omega.
Never thought I deserved one after everything I've done, all the violence and bloodshed that's written in the scars across my skin. Definitely never thought someone like her could belong to someone like me.
Someone strong and delicate at the same time. Someone who can gut you with words one moment and break your heart with vulnerability the next. Someone who looked at me and saw something I can't.
But if this will help her...
If this feels right...
I lean down, positioning myself carefully over her prone form.
The blood has made her scent slightly stronger—moonlight and rain that I can taste rather than truly smell.
Raven was right about that, too. My hands frame her beautiful face, thumbs stroking her bloodstained cheeks.
I'm vaguely aware of Knight's wary growl behind me, but I don't give a shit. Right now, nothing matters but her.