Chapter 46 – GEO #2
"I've got you," I murmur, knowing she can't hear but needing to say it anyway. "I've got you, little one."
Then I bite.
My teeth sink into the soft flesh of her neck, finding her scent gland. Blood floods my mouth, copper and sweet and right in a way that makes my entire body lock up.
The bond snaps into place like a rubber band pulled taut and released.
Holy fucking shit.
It's not like anything I expected. A connection that goes deeper than flesh, deeper than blood, sinking into my very soul and anchoring there.
I can feel her.
Not just her heartbeat against my chest, but her. Her pain, yes—still there, still overwhelming—but also her strength. Her stubborn refusal to let go, to slip away into that darkness pulling at her.
The bond spreads through me like wildfire, and I feel it reaching out, connecting to the other marks on her neck. Raven's bond flares bright, then Nikolai's. Three threads weaving together, strengthening each other.
She's fighting.
This fierce little omega is still fucking fighting.
But it's still not enough.
I pull back, licking blood from my lips, and the reality hits me like a sledgehammer.
We need more.
I lift my gaze to Knight, and the massive alpha has backed himself against the far wall, his frame trying to make itself small.
Impossible, but he's trying.
His stark white hair hangs over his face, hiding everything except one scarred blue eye locked on Cosima, his human hand pressed over his ruined mouth. He looks so human and vulnerable without his mask, even knowing what's been beneath it this entire time.
"She needs you," Raven says quietly, moving to stand beside the giant alpha. "You know this. You can feel it through your bond."
Knight shakes his head violently, a rough sound escaping him that might be a whimper if it came from anyone else.
"You have to try," I say, forcing steel into my voice even though my hands are shaking. "The bond you share… it's special. Shit that shouldn't even be possible."
"She dreams of you," Azarel adds hoarsely from across the dungeon, and everyone turns to stare at him.
His eyes remain fixed on Knight, his expression raw with both pain and acceptance.
"She's been dreaming of you her entire life.
You're not the monster she feared. You're the mate she was searching for. Trust yourself the way she trusts you."
The words clearly cost him. I can see it in the darkening of his eyes, the way his jaw works.
Shit. Maybe he really does love her.
Knight moves forward slowly, each step deliberate, like he's walking to his own execution. When he reaches Cosima's side, he kneels with a care that seems impossible for someone so massive. His entire body shudders as he lowers himself over her, dwarfing her.
She's small compared to me.
Compared to Knight…
He could tear her head off with a single bite.
And, somehow, he has to hit her scent gland, not her fucking arteries.
We all tense.
Knight's exposed jaws open wide, the ruined muscles stretching with the motion, revealing razor-sharp teeth designed to rend and tear flesh. His breath ghosts across Cosima's throat, and I see her skin pebble with goosebumps even in her unconscious state.
My own skin prickles at the sight, my hair standing on end. I clench my jaw. All I can do is fucking pray.
Please, for the love of every god that cares, be gentle.
His long tongue curls out through his parted teeth, lapping the blood from Cosima's neck as he moves closer. He moves so slowly I can barely tell he's moving at all, his hair falling around them like a curtain. I can't even see what's happening anymore.
Then Cosima's entire body goes rigid.
A choked sound escapes her throat—not quite a scream, more like all the air being forced from her lungs at once.
Blood pours from her throat.
"Fuck—" Nikolai lurches forward.
"Knight, ease up!" Raven's voice cracks with panic.
But the massive alpha doesn't—can't—adjust. His teeth are designed to kill, not to mark. Every instinct built into that engineered body is screaming at him to tear, to rend, to destroy. The fact that he's being as gentle as he is must be taking every ounce of control he possesses.
It's not enough.
The blood keeps coming, pulsing with each weak beat of Cosima's heart, soaking into her silver hair and turning it dark, pooling on the ground beneath her.
"She needs the final mark," Plague says, his medical training overriding everything else. His voice is tight, clinical, desperate to save the omega bleeding out in front of us all. "She's losing too much blood. If she doesn't get it in the next minute—"
He doesn't finish the sentence.
He doesn't have to.
The silence that follows is suffocating. We all know what he means.
We all know there's only one alpha left who could provide that final mark.
Azarel moves.
Not hesitating. Not asking permission. Just stepping forward with the grim finality of a man walking to the gallows.
"I'll mark her," Azarel says, his voice flat and absolute.
"I know she doesn't want to be bound to me.
I know she'll hate me more for it. I can never tell her the truth without risking her life.
But she'll be alive to hate me, and that's all that matters. If I have to be the villain of her story, so be it. As long as she’s alive to finish it. "
He takes another step toward Cosima's prone form, toward where Knight still holds her against his massive chest. The massive alpha has gone very still, watching Azarel approach with unblinking blue eyes, pupils narrowed to pinpricks.
Azarel takes another step, and I see Nikolai's whole body go rigid.
For a split second, his face is a mask of pure, desperate conflict.
He glances from Cosima's bleeding form to Azarel, and I can practically see him weighing her life against her will. He’s the one who suggested it, after all.
But the moment passes, and his expression hardens into pure defiance.
"She doesn't want your mark," Nikolai snarls, his voice low and dangerous. "She made her feelings about you perfectly fucking clear."
"Because she doesn't know the truth," I find myself gritting out. Can't believe I'm actually defending this asshole. "She thinks he abandoned her to save his own ass. She doesn't know he was trying to keep her alive. She doesn't have all the information. If she knew—"
"But she can't know," Nikolai snaps. "That's the whole fucking problem."
"None of this matters," Azarel cuts in, his voice eerily calm. "Once she's stabilized, once the bond takes and she's safe, I'll end my own life. The bond will break. She'll be free of me. She'll never have to live with a bond she didn't choose.”
The words land like stones into still water, sending ripples of shock through everyone present.
Then Knight's scarred blue eyes lock onto Azarel with sudden, terrible focus.
A snarl rips from his throat. It's the most aggressive, threatening snarl I've ever heard from him, and I've heard plenty.
"Knight." Azarel's voice remains steady as he takes another step forward. "She's dying. Let me save her. Please."
Knight's response is to gather Cosima closer against his chest, his arms curling protectively around her limp form. Blood—hers and his—smears across his bare skin.
Another snarl. Louder. More threatening.
"Knight, please—"
Knight moves.
The massive alpha rises to his full impossible height in one fluid motion, Cosima gently cradled against his chest with his human arm as if she's made of spun glass.
He pivots, his massive frame somehow graceful despite his sheer size, despite the blood loss, despite the sparking damage to his augmented arm. His claws lash out, catching Azarel with enough force to send the prince crashing into the stone wall.
FUCK!
I lunge forward. "Wait—!"
Knight's metal fist connects with my chest before I get two steps.
Everything goes white.