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How often had we thought about this moment? Longed to make Dakota ours?

Now, we’d done it, and he was dying. How could any part of this feel right?

As soon as the bond locked in place, a cold agony gripped my chest. He wasdying, and I would never know if it was the burns that killed him or my bite.

Whatever my part in this, it would always be my fault.

My fault for putting him in danger.

My fault for letting him close enough to risk his life.

My fault for not recognizing the danger Igarashi posed.

The door to the stairwell burst open.

It wasn’t just Seth there, but Maia and Jillian too. They’d felt my terror and anguish, surely, or maybe Seth had grabbed them on his way up. To the side, the light above the elevator door went down and down.

“Fuck,” Seth hissed when he took in the mess, the papers burning on the floor and singed carpet, my burnt clothes and—and Dakota.

“Igarashi Jiro,” I whispered.

Maia was the first to growl.

“Where’d he go?” Seth demanded.

“Elevator,” I croaked.

Seth nodded sharply, jumping into action at once. He disappeared into the stairwell and?—

Fuck, I should’ve told him to be careful.

Igarashi Jiro had put me on my knees like it was nothing. It’d felt like he could break every bone in my body with nothing but a thought.

I should be the one taking him down, but I was frozen, listening to every one of Dakota’s shallow breaths and each quiet heartbeat in his chest. I couldn’t leave him.

No wolf could leave their mate, knowing these might be their final moments.

I wanted to touch him, to lay my head down on his chest and wait for him to get better, and I was terrified that even that would hurt him more.

“I’m calling Prudence,” Maia snipped. She was panicked, I could feel the buzz of it at the back of my skull, but she wasn’t the kind of woman to sit back and let the horror of the moment overcome her. She had to do something.

I should have done something.

Instead, I was stuck there, watching Dakota, afraid to touch him because even that could make his life worse.

And Jillian was just standing there, her shadow across his body. I could feel her, recognized her shoes, but I didn’t dare look into her eyes. I couldn’t stand to see the truth in her eyes.

She turned and stared at a desk in front of my door that had been tossed backward and now sat on its side, the bottom singed black from the flames. The whole space around my office was a disaster.

For a moment, she just stood there. I heard Maia down the hall, talking in hushed, urgent tones to Prudence.

Then Jillian took a deep breath, gingerly stepped around Dakota, and knelt at my side. Her hand slipped into mine and she squeezed, hard as she could.

In that moment, I was thrown back to when we were kids, afraid of the alpha we’d later escape, walking on eggshells.

I remembered when she’d gotten into school, and her nervous, hopeful smile when she told me.

How I’d been willing to fight the whole world to give her the same chance I got, even when the alpha wanted to put his foot down and keep her in the pack, no college allowed, just because she was a girl.