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Skye burst through the kitchen door, Taly limp in his arms. She’d collapsed as soon as they were out of sight of any onlookers. Blood soaked his shirt, now dripping down the front of his trousers and disappearing into the dark fabric.

“Put her there,” Aiden ordered from behind him.

Aimee rushed to clear the long prep table that split the kitchen, clearing plates and silverware with a jet of water. “What happened to her?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” Skye said tightly, easing Taly face-down onto the table.

Her eyes were open, but she’d stopped responding halfway to the townhouse. All she did now was shake, teeth clenched. Her breaths were sharp, shallow, rattling around the blood-spattered thorns curling from her lips.

Skye smoothed a lock of blood-soaked hair from her face. “What can I do?” he asked. “Just… just tell me what you need. Crystals, medicine—”

“I need you to leave,” Aiden said, clipped and brusque, hefting a healer’s kit up onto the table. Skye opened his mouth to protest, but Aiden snapped, “I’m serious. Unless you want your mate to bleed out on this table, you need to leave and let me do my job.”

Then he peeled back the cloak. Blood had soaked through it. The fabric stuck to her wounds. And maybe… maybe Skye just hadn’t really seen it before. He’d been so consumed by rage, blinded by it. But now, looking at it, really looking…

His pulse thrummed in his ears. Quiet at first. Then building.

Her back was raw. Gone. Carved to the spine, the muscle shredded, raw tissue glistening beneath torn skin and thorns buried so deep they moved when she breathed.

Trembling, his fists curled tight. Aether pulsed hot beneath his skin, begging to be loosed. He didn’t let it. He already knew who had done this, had already made them pay.

With a tight nod, he took the vials of Faeflower Aimee handed him and made his feet move towards the door.

“Take the mimic too,” Aiden barked.

Skye had to drag the beast out by the scruff. He yowled the whole way.

Outside, Kato sprawled on an old patio chaise, head tipped back like he was enjoying the sun. Red stained his tunic and the powder blue cushions beneath him.

Skye dropped the vials in his lap. “Are you sure you don’t want a healer?”

Kato groaned when he shifted. The gaping hole in his chest was still struggling to close. “My body might be wounded, but my pride is intact. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“You’re an idiot,” Skye muttered. His voice was sandpaper. It felt like he’d been screaming. Then he remembered—he had.

Collapsing into a seat beside his brother, he made himself breathe.

And breathe.

And breathe .

But each inhale dragged in more of the scent of Taly’s blood, warm and cloying, like incense left to smolder.

Dark streaks of it had dried into the cracks of his knuckles. His sleeves were damp and tacky, the fabric stiff where it had begun to harden.

It was everywhere. Blood. Her blood. The same blood he was supposed to keep from spilling.

His jaw tightened. The wrath inside him was a slow, steady burn—one spark from an inferno.

He’d known the risks when he accepted the bond. Known that it would mess with his instincts, and that soul-bonded mates were prone to violent fits of madness when the other was threatened.

But those men, today… He’d enjoyed killing them.

He’d savored every cry of pain, every last, shuddering death rattle.

And he was still hungry for it. It wasn’t enough violence, not nearly enough suffering—it wasn’t enough blood to match the raw agony of Taly’s back.

“I’m sorry.”

Through the fog came his brother’s voice. Soft. Quiet.

Skye looked up, and even though Kato’s eyes were still closed, tears streaked the blood on his face.

“About what?” The words came out strained.

Kato didn’t answer. Just breathed in sharp and whispered again, shakier— “I’m so fucking sorry,” as he hid his face with a hand.

Skye shook his head. “This isn’t your fault.”

Kato groaned, fighting to sit up, even as the wound in his chest gaped open. “I got there first,” he grunted through the pain. A blood-slicked hand pressed to his chest as he met Skye’s gaze. “I tried—I swear—I tried to protect her. I didn’t just say I would.”

Skye grabbed him as he pitched forward.

“I wasn’t that useless bastard, not this time. I didn’t lie, didn’t flake .” Kato sagged against him, breath shallow, teeth red. “I… I really did try.”

“Hey, take it easy,” Skye said, easing his brother back onto the chaise beside him. “Keep this up and you’ll split down the middle.”

“I’m sorry,” Kato whispered again, his voice hitching.

Skye stared down at his brother. He’d seen Kato lie before, but this…

It would’ve been easier to hate him. There had been too many years of hurt. Too many silences, too many cuts that never quite scarred over. And he could hold on, keep the wound open.

But in that moment, he didn’t want to.

He moved without thinking, before he could second-guess, knowing that if he didn’t reach now, he might never.

Skye wrapped an arm around Kato’s shoulders. And for the first time in his life, he hugged his brother.

“I believe you,” Skye said.

Kato didn’t move, but something in him gave. Skye could feel it.

All this time, he’d been waiting for the pain of the past to fade. But maybe it didn’t work like that.

Maybe forgiveness was just… deciding to stop holding on.

Aiden did not allow himself to think. To feel. He banished every speck of recognition for the woman bleeding out on his table.

Because if he didn’t, if he let himself see the gold hair matted with blood, the pale, battered face beneath it—if he began to connect them with the mangled skin of her back and too-shallow breathing…

Aiden clenched his hands into fists, squeezing until they stopped shaking.

Just another patient. Fey. Female. Sub-30 juvenile.

Diagnosis: Vorpal Vine

One of the minor Curses, it was a parasitic vine that propagated through the nervous system.

The seed had been planted at the base of her spine and allowed to grow from there, thorns curling along the nerve roots.

They burrowed outward, mapping her pain in lightning strikes.

Blooms were already forming around the patient’s shoulders, where the thorns had punched through mangled flesh, glistening red buds made redder by the blood staining their petals.

He had until those blooms opened, however long that might be. Right now, it was still feeding off the residue of her aether, but once that was gone and there was only her anima, the flowers would bloom. And she’d be dead.

Aiden breathed in. Then out.

Method of treatment: address the Vorpal Vine first, then rebuild the muscle and nerve tissue before applying a fresh layer of skin.

Aimee finished cleaning the many open wounds. She stood back, awaiting orders.

Aiden stared at her from across the table. “It’s alright if you don’t want to stay and watch. I can get one of the maids to help.”

But his sister stood straighter. Complete and utter trust shone in her eyes, faith in his skills, his knowledge, that he knew what to do.

Just another patient . But his heart wouldn’t stop pounding as he pulled a large earth crystal from his kit.

Aimee’s eyes widened in equal parts shock and horror when she saw the rune engraved on the surface.

Vorpal Vine had to be cut out, removed thorn by thorn and disentangled from its host. That took hours. With it this close to blooming, he needed to kill the vine before it killed her.

And there was only one way to kill a Vorpal Vine: convince it the host was already dead.

“Hold her down,” he said, his voice mercifully even. “We get one chance at this.”

When her heart stopped, Taly hoped that was it. Then it started again.

Fact: The brain had a limited capacity to process pain.

Fact: An earth mage’s pain-relieving magic didn’t immediately take effect.

It started at the farthest edges, smoothing away the softest aches first. Invisible points of pain Taly hadn’t even noticed beneath the deluge of larger agonies in her body, and only visible to her now by the tension left behind in the muscle.

The strain where her neck had arched, and her back had bowed, and even her legs had begun to cramp, reshaped by suffering.

Then came the more immediate aches. The cuts on her face, the broken bones, the slashes on her arms, legs, and shoulders, still riddled with thorns and leaking blood—one by one, they became invisible to her senses as the magic spread beneath her skin.

Leaving bit by extra bit of her focus for that one ultimate, unbearable, unrelenting pain raging on her back.

Making it burn brighter, hotter, deeper .

There was nothing to distract her from it now, and Taly thrashed against the hands that chained her to the table.

“Hold her!” Aiden barked. Aimee was sobbing, but she gripped Taly’s arms, using bands of water to keep her flat against the wood.

And then Aiden made his first cut.

Taly screamed. And once that scream came out, she couldn’t stop it.

Every scream she’d swallowed, every scream she would’ve taken with her to her grave back in the square—she didn’t bother holding any of it back now.

To hell with pride. Dignity. Ego . What purpose did they serve in a world that was only pain in every direction?

“Aimee, you have to keep her calm,” Aiden growled. “I’m removing the seed. It’s latched to the spinal cord. One twitch and I lose it.”

“What do I— What do I do?” Aimee stammered.

“Talk to her. Tell her a story, anything.”

“I, uh…” Aimee tried, stalling for an idea.

Then she said, raising her voice over Taly’s screams, “Do you remember the last day we spent together in Picolo? Just a few days before you turned five? Probably not,” she murmured.

“But it was… nice. Really nice, actually. We went surfing—you surfed, by the way. My father taught us all. He started when we were babies, and you were good. Great even. I remember that day, it was—”

Taly screamed and jerked, her body arching against the table.