Page 9

Chapter

Nine

K YSON

Azalea whimpers as she jostles in my arms. Her blood streams down my arms as I make my way to the bedroom. I kick the doors open, and they bang against the walls. Dustin comes rushing in behind me, runs past me and toward the bathroom, shoving the door open and turning the shower on.

Not only is she losing an alarming amount of blood, but I know those barbs are dipped in wolfsbane and water-hemlock, which are used to prevent healing. Water pours from the shower head, and Dustin turns to me. He uses his claws to shred what’s left of her dress, letting it fall away in tatters to the floor.

“Give her here, you shift,” he says, holding his arms out for her. I pass her to him. She’s like a rag doll in his arms, her body flopping around as he steps into the shower, forcing her back under the spray to rinse the poison off her while I shift. Using one hand, he turns the other shower head on, turning the head and aiming it at her back. Moments later, Liam runs in, looking worse for wear. I don’t even care that they’re all seeing her naked. My sole focus is on stopping the wolfsbane from soaking into her system and killing our baby.

“What do you need?” Liam asks.

“Alcohol,” I tell him, knowing I am about to ingest whatever was in her system, and hopefully, the alcohol would burn it out.

“On it,” he says, disappearing out the door. Dustin’s arm moves to the back of her neck and the other under her ass, exposing her back to me, and I waste no time running my tongue over her wounds, healing them and sucking the poison out where the barbs had dug into her flesh and ripped off her skin in chunks.

A growl escapes me, the wolfsbane burning my throat, and I heave, retching when I get a huge mouthful of it. My hand hits the wall, steadying me as I throw up before returning to heal the other two long gashes up her back. Her wounds eventually close, and I know the wolfsbane and water hemlock are gone, or she wouldn’t have healed.

My throat is now on fire, and I press my face under the stream, banging my head on the shower head because I am taller than it in this form. Liam rushes back in with a bottle of tequila. Not my go-to, but it will do. He breaks the cap, thrusting the bottle at me, and I grab it, retching again as my surroundings spin. Suddenly, I’m seeing double. My legs give out under me when I am forced to shift back, my ass hitting the hard tiled floor in the process.

“Shit, take her,” Dustin says, passing Azalea off to Liam. Liam grabs her, wrapping a towel around her before disappearing out the door as Dustin crouches over my gasping figure. My lungs feel like they have been engulfed in flames, my blood boiling in my veins. He pries my mouth open just as Liam comes in. Dustin pries my eyelids open, his hair and clothes both drenched as he looks down at me. He looks over his shoulder at Liam.

“Azalea?” I mumble.

“Damian just got here. He is with her. He sent for a Doctor.”

I nod or try to. Dustin grips my jaw, yet my arms feel numb as I try to lift the bottle to my lips. Liam snatches the bottle from my hand.

“Come on, big fella, down the hatch it goes,” he says, tipping the tequila down my throat. I gasp, breathing it in, and choke and sputter as it goes down the wrong pipe.

“Now, now, none of that. Dustin can give you some pointers on how to swallow if needed,” Liam mocks, earning a menacing growl from Dustin. Liam pours more in my mouth this time, not waterboarding me with it. I gulp it down, feeling it warm my stomach and entire body. Ghastly stuff, yet I can feel it diluting the poison I had ingested. I feel it working through my system, not that it makes me feel any better.

My head lolls forward as the poison burns out, leaving me shitfaced and on the verge of passing out drunk. Liam slaps my face with his hand, tilting my head back. My eyes try to close, and he smirks, chugging the rest of the bottle before passing the now empty bottle to Dustin.

“Never thought I would see the day when I had to carry you over the threshold bridal style,” he chuckles, grabbing me and tossing me over his shoulder, jostling me in such a way that the tequila threatens to come back up. “Hmm, caveman style, what can I say? I am a barbarian,” Liam chuckles.

“Pretty fucking ugly bride, though,” he laughs, slapping my ass. If I could, I would hit him for that. Damn, this man is a handful sometimes. It’s like he doesn’t have an off switch. I know he swings both ways, but he really toes the line, that’s for sure. He walks out of the room, dropping me on the bed. Meanwhile, Damian comes into view on top of me, chucking a towel over my waist and prying my eyelids open.

“Council,” I mutter.

“Gone, those that showed from the pack are dead. Cassandra is in dungeons,” Damian says. I sigh.

“Rest. I have everything handled.”

“She knows now,” I try to tell him, and his eyes dart past me. I try to turn my head to see her, but it feels ridiculously heavy.

“She does, but you have the bond. She loves you, Kyson,” Damian says. Yet, that isn’t my worry. Once she figures out her Alpha voice, she outranks me. Yet even that doesn’t worry me. I could still control her with the calling, the one thing she could never resist. What worries me is her realizing I kept it from her. I’m not even sure why I did that. Probably because I figured she had the power to leave me if she really wanted to.

Empress of Alphas could not be tied by a bond; she could walk away, and I would be destroyed and powerless to stop her. I couldn’t lose her. Yet now it would be out, everyone would know, and they would come for her. It was only a matter of time. Her blood was more precious than gold, and if she shares the same gifts as her mother, I know she had one trait of her father’s. But if she obtained both, they would come for her. Come for her and our baby. Her blood was the key to putting the werewolf and Lycan species into extinction, or it could be their salvage. If the hunters get wind of her, they will never stop, and without a doubt, I will spend the rest of my life fighting to keep her safe.