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“Whatever happens, her comfort is my priority.”

With that sharp-edged truth, Beatrice disappeared behind the swinging doors. My stomach dropped. There was a clawing need inside of me that wouldn’t be tamed until I saw Tully and heard her sweet voice. The urge to use had been scratching at me for days, heightened by the disastrous visit from my parents. Tully’s fiery protection was the only thing that stilled my tongue and kept my dark desires in check.

The color on her cheeks, and the set of her jaw.

I wanted to sink into the feel of her more than any false high. She inspired me, like a pink glittered phoenix. Especially after her livestream, her words gave me so much strength.

Barely ten minutes passed before Beatrice burst back through the door, her cheeks bloodless. She was a Baylark and used to presenting herself impeccably. Whatever she’d learned aboutTully unraveled her. She motioned frantically, and I didn’t hesitate, barreling after her.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of Tully encased in a narrow hospital bed, a drip attached to her wrist. Her skin was violet with smudged bruises. My knees turned to water, and I stumbled, swallowing my horror. She was asleep. Her eyes darted underneath the paper-thin skin. As if her torment fled with her into sleep, poisoning her with nightmares. We rushed to her side, compelled to touch wherever we could reach.

“Some space, please.” Dr. Stanson’s eyebrows bunched together with ire.

This fucking doctor was going to lose his tongue if he tried to keep me away from my omega.

“Listen to him, you great pack of oafs.” Beatrice swallowed.

I gripped the bedspread as my vision narrowed.

“What’s wrong?” Ajax gripped his throat.

Misery and fear were a permanent cloak over his skin. I brushed Tully’s tangled hair back from her forehead. Her forehead was a clammy furnace. Dr. Stanson shooed Lloyd out of the way. He retreated with reluctance, dragging his hands through his hair.

“Did one of you try to mate with Tully?” he asked, and the seriousness of his question sent a chill through me.

I exchanged looks with the others, each of us stunned into silence.

“No, of course not,” Walden said with a curse as he gazed at Tully like she was his sun, and he bathed in her light.

Even small and broken, she was perfect. She washere. So, what was wrong?

“If there is an outburst, I will eject you, no matter what Miss Baylark has to say in your defense.” He eyed us. “Understand?”

His comment thickened the tension in my lungs, but we all nodded. Control was tenuous as I forced myself to comply. NowI was here, they would have to tear me away from Tully. I needed her like she was my only anchor to sanity.

Dr. Stanson sighed, shuffling aside her hospital gown to reveal a bruise of a bite mark, faded violet. The color of dying hope. Fiery red inflamed the outside, the skin shiny and swollen as if ready to burst.

“No. No. No,” Lloyd moaned, cupping his face.

“There has to be a mistake,” Ajax cried as he sagged against Walden.

The culprit was Chase. It had to be. Acid burned my stomach. I sent a curse to the gods, but they couldn’t be real, not if they allowed Tully to be bonded to someone so evil. He’d fooled me for years with his gilded charm. It was a privilege to mark an omega, and not something an alpha could take by force. If an omega was unwilling, the bite would fester and disappear.

So why hadn’t the mark healed?

My chest cracked open, and I teetered on the edge of blood and bone.

“She didn’t want this. The alpha who did this terrorized her.”

“It’s not a bonding mark, not exactly. See the partial skin tear? Tully’s body has prepared itself in readiness for a mark that wasn’t completed. There is a fraying tether inside her body and it’s poisoning her. It’s putting pressure on her body. Cases like this are rare, and she is too far gone for conventional medicine. In previous cases, the only solution is a completed bond, to cancel out the partial mark.”

He looked at each of us, and his thick eyebrows met each other.

“And if she doesn’t? What are you saying?” Walden barked and even I trembled from the force in his voice.

Our wild scents flooded the room with violence, and Lloyd and Beatrice bowed under it with gritted teeth. I wanted to get on my knees. I trusted him for salvation more than the gods.

“A mark can’t stay untreated or uncompleted for long before the body shuts down. Tully needs a solid bond. Her body thinks she was being claimed and won’t heal until she’s marked properly. Beatrice says you are her pack, and she’d welcome a bond from you. It would be healthy enough to reject the poisoned one.”