Page 28

A lina

I don’t feel the mud beneath my knees or the blood soaking into my palms.

I don’t even care that I just killed someone.

In fact, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I know now that I am capable of fighting not only for myself, but for the man that I love with every atom and molecule that forms my beating heart.

The gunman’s blood is all over my mouth and trickling down my throat, but I don’t even taste it.

In this moment, all I care about is Rowan.

His wolf body lies in the dirt, massive and unmoving, his fur matted and dark with blood. So much blood. His chest rises in shallow, stuttering gasps, each one a rattling sound that I swear is killing me just as slowly as it is stealing the life from him.

“No,” I whisper. My voice is shredded, raw. “No, no, no. Rowan, please—”

My hands shake as I press down on the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, trying to do something, anything, but it’s too deep. The bullet tore through him, and I can’t fix it.

That doesn’t mean I don’t try, though. I lean over him, snatching at the bond as it tangles and frays. Pain lances through me, pain that I share with him not only as his Mate, but because losing him will cause me just as much agony as it did the first time.

I’m certain, actually, that it will hurt even worse the second time around.

When I was younger, being rejected by Rowan was a simple, petty pain. It was an agony that I carried with me like a shroud, one born from shame and regret and an incurable feeling that I was worthy of rejection purely because I was worthless overall.

Now, the fresh pain is so much worse. It gnaws at me, stinging and burrowing deep because this time, the tear in the bond isn’t voluntary. It doesn’t matter if we love each other. It doesn’t matter if we’ve chosen each other now. We are quite literally being ripped apart.

Because Rowan is dying.

“Stay with me,” I beg. “Please just stay. I love you. I love you. Don’t leave me.”

His wolf eyes flutter open. They’re glassy and unfocused, but still the same fierce blue that I’ll know even long after I’ve left this plane of existence.

I would know him in death, and I would know him in the afterlife.

I would know Rowan even if I lived a thousand more lives after this one.

There is a tether between us that will always seek to be drawn tight, no matter how far apart we are.

Those burning eyes find mine, and his body shifts beneath my hands. The fur fades, limbs reshaping, bones breaking and fusing. He lets out a begrudging sob through gritted teeth, curling in on himself at the pain of forcing himself out of his wolf form.

And then he’s here, human again. Bleeding out in my arms.

“Lina…” he chokes out, voice barely audible.

“Don’t talk,” I cry, cupping his face. My fingertips are covered in blood. I don’t even know if it’s his or mine or someone else’s anymore. “Save your strength, okay? I’m going to help you.”

But he shakes his head. It’s little more than a trembling flinch, and his eyes are becoming more unfocused by the second, but I understand what he’s trying to communicate. “I have to tell you…”

“No, you don’t.” I press my forehead to his. “You don’t have to tell me anything right now, my love. Because you’re going to be okay, and you can tell me when you’re all better. We’re going to take you home. You and me and Noah are going home, with the Greenbriars You’re going to be fine—”

“I was so afraid,” he says, every word a death rattle that feels like a sheet of icy cold rain pouring over me. “Of how much I love you. But I do…love you…”

I grow still. My throat closes up. Those aren’t the words of a man who knows he’s going to be all right. That’s the sort of thing you say when you know, deep down in the marrow of your bones, that you don’t have much time left.

And he’s crying.

I’ve never seen Rowan cry.

I know it’s not from pain, either. It’s too soft and gentle, the way those tears spill from the corners of his eyes as he does his best to remain lucid enough to hold my gaze.

“Rowan…”

“Listen. Please.”

I drape my body over him, clinging on to the Mating bond for dear life.

In the back of my mind, I’m only somewhat aware of the battle dying down.

Of the fact that the shack is nothing more than a set of crumbling walls that Greenbriar wolves are now pulling apart to reach us in the aftermath of two Alphas facing off.

I know that there are people shouting. I think someone might be calling my name, calling Rowan’s name.

I ignore all of it, pouring my energy into holding our bond close.

I allow all of my love for him to flow into it, feeding the fading glow with all the words that I haven’t yet had the chance to say, all the emotions I haven’t yet gotten the opportunity to share.

The future I never let myself dream of gushes through the bond like fresh blood to a dying patient.

We could be so happy, if only he could live through this. I can picture it now, even with both of us bloodied and battered. A formal Mating ceremony, or a backyard wedding. A home for the three of us. A chance to start over.

“You didn’t ruin me,” he whispers. “I ruined myself…because I loved you so much it made me a coward. I pushed you away. I pushed everyone away. I hurt you, hurt myself. I lied…I… betrayed…I told mys elf it was prophecy, fate, whatever I needed to say to justify it. ”

Tears slip down my cheeks, falling onto his chest. “Rowan…”

“But it was never you.” His hand reaches for mine, weak and trembling. “You were never my ruination. Not truly. Not even now, as I lay here having taken a bullet for you. I would do it a million times over, Alina. You’re the only thing that’s ever made me want to be…alive…”

I let out a sob so sharp it scrapes my lungs. I don’t care that we’re on a battlefield. I don’t even care that Samson Blackburn is finally dead or that I’ve finally avenged my family. None of it means anything if I lose him.

“You can’t say goodbye,” I whisper. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to bleed out in my arms after saying something like that. You have to fight. Do you hear me, Rowan Greenbriar?”

He tries to smile, and it’s the most broken yet beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’m so tired, Alina.”

I kiss him, blood and tears and sweat mingling between us. It’s desperate, a little frantic, and everything we never got to say poured into one last breathless moment.

“You’re going to live,” I promise against his lips. “You’re going to come back to me and Noah. You’re going to wake up tomorrow and regret every single dumb thing you just said.”

A weak laugh escapes him. “That sounds like me.”

His eyes slip shut.

“Rowan,” I say, voice cracking.

He doesn’t respond.

“Rowan.” I shake him. “Rowan.”

I scream his name into the dark.

But the world goes silent around me.

After that, things get a little hazy. My vision goes blurry, and I think someone might be trying to physically pry my heart out of my ribcage.

In the end, they have to forcefully pry me off of him.

I’m still screaming his name when Rowan’s father, the Greenbriar Alpha in all his blood-soaked warrior glory, kneels beside me and rests his hand firmly on my shoulder. There’s blood everywhere. On my hands. My face. Rowan’s chest. I can’t tell what’s his and what’s mine anymore.

“He’s alive,” the Alpha says to me, his voice steady and low. “Alina. He’s still breathing.”

It’s true, but it’s barely more than a shallow drag of oxygen repeated slowly. It could stop at any minute, especially with the way his heart is fluttering.

I shake my head, clutching Rowan’s hand like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth. “Don’t take him from me. Please—he needs me—”

“You’ve done everything you can,” a Beta I vaguely recognize assures me. He speaks gently, though his eyes are sharp and full of purpose. “Let us help him now, Luna. We will help your Mate.”

Something about the use of my title—which is hardly a title at all, given that Rowan hasn’t claimed full leadership yet and I’ve only just come back to the Greenbriars—gets through to me.

What kind of Luna does it make me if I allow my Mate to die because I can’t let anyone else near him?

I loosen my grasp on Rowan and allow his father to pry me off him.

Two more wolves shift and step forward, their forms bloody and bruised but moving with quiet, practiced coordination. They lift Rowan’s limp body between them like he’s something sacred. I rise with them, stumbling slightly, refusing to let him out of my sight.

“I’m coming with you,” I croak out.

“You need to see your son,” the Alpha reminds me.

I falter, only staying upright because Rowan’s father is still holding on to me.

Noah.

My head snaps around, my body reacting before my mind catches up.

I turn toward the dark trees just as Cal appears, blood on his clothes, scratches along his jaw.

My son is clinging to the Beta, to Rowan’s cousin, as if he’s known the man his entire life.

As if he knows that he’s family, that he can trust him intrinsically and wholeheartedly.

“Noah!” I rush forward, legs shaking beneath me, heart hammering like it might tear itself free. Maybe it would, if I wasn’t sure my heart has already been yanked out and carried away along with Rowan’s motionless body.

Cal’s eyes soften when he sees me. “He’s okay. I swear it.”

Noah lifts his head. “Mom?”

His voice cracks, and that’s what does me in. I fall to my knees and pull him against me, sobbing into his hair. His little arms wrap tight around my neck like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go.

“I was so scared,” he whispers.

“I know, baby. I know. I’ve got you now.”

He’s here. He’s safe. But all I can feel is the yawning, blood-soaked hole where Rowan should be.

“Is Dad gonna be okay?”

The question guts me.

I pull back, brushing Noah’s dark hair away from his face, trying to smile even though my lips are shaking. “They’re helping him now. He’s strong, remember? He’s going to fight.”

I don’t know if it’s a lie. I want it to be the truth so badly that I can barely breathe.

Cal comes forward and touches my shoulder. “I’ll stay with Noah. Go to Rowan, Alina. Your Mate will need you. The bond will help the healing process.”

I hesitate, but only for a second. I press a kiss to Noah’s forehead and rise on legs that don’t feel like mine.

The battlefield is scattered with bodies and smoke.

Greenbriars in wolf and human forms circle the fallen, and I think I spot a search party heading out to track down any runaway Blackburns who think they can actually get away with this.

The moans of the injured mingle with the cries of the grieving, but I don’t really register any of it.

I only see the trail of blood leading toward a grassy, moon-soaked clearing. Kseniya is there, and so are a few other elder healers that I’m pretty sure I recognize from when I was younger.

But, most importantly, Rowan is there.

Alive.

Still breathing.

I follow that path like it’s the only thing left in the world that matters.