Page 10

Chapter

Nine

T he journey to Mia's cabin took twice as long as it should have. Jim's weight against her side felt simultaneously foreign and achingly familiar, like a ghost of all the times they'd walked these paths together.

Each labored breath he took resonated through her body where they touched, and her wolf whined constantly, desperate to fix whatever was breaking him from the inside.

"Almost there," Mia murmured, her lips close to his ear. She told herself it was so he could hear her better, not because she craved the closeness.

Jim's only response was a grunt, his jaw clenched so tightly she could hear his teeth grinding. Beneath her palm, his skin burned with unnatural heat where she supported him around his waist.

"I've got you," she whispered, tightening her hold when he stumbled. "I won't let you fall."

His fingers clutched weakly at her shirt, and that small gesture of trust nearly undid her.

Her cabin appeared through the trees, a dark silhouette against the star-filled sky. The familiar scent of home washed over her, but tonight it felt incomplete—as if the territory itself recognized that something essential had been missing.

"Keys," she muttered, fumbling at her pocket while refusing to loosen her grip on Jim.

"Don't need them," Jim rasped, his voice rough with strain. He extended a trembling hand toward the lock, and the air rippled between his fingers and the door. Something clicked, and it swung open.

"That's new," Mia said, but her attention was already shifting back to him, to the way his body trembled against hers.

"Side effect," Jim managed, then stumbled forward.

Mia caught him before he could fall, her arms wrapping around him instinctively. For a moment, they stood frozen in her doorway—her holding him up, his face buried in the crook of her neck. His breath was hot against her skin, and her wolf nearly took over right there.

Mine, her wolf growled. Hurt. Need to protect.

She guided him to the couch, her hands reluctant to let go even as she eased him down. In the darkness, she could hear his heartbeat—too fast, too erratic. The sound made her chest tight with fear she didn't want to name.

The scratch of the match against the striker sounded like an accusation in the quiet room. As flames began to dance in the fireplace, casting shadows across the walls, she finally got a good look at Jim's condition.

Her heart clenched.

He looked like death warmed over. Sweat plastered his dark hair to his forehead in a way that made her fingers itch to smooth it back.

The veins at his temples stood out starkly against too-pale skin.

But it was his eyes that truly made her breath catch—shifting between warm brown and an unnatural silver, as if he was caught between two worlds.

"How bad?" she asked, dropping to her knees in front of him.

Jim attempted a smile that broke her heart. "On a scale of one to catastrophic?" A violent shudder ran through him, and she couldn't stop herself from reaching out, her hand finding his. "Let's just say I've had better days."

"The truth potion wasn't supposed to do this." She checked his pulse, trying to ignore how right his wrist felt in her grasp. His heartbeat hammered against her fingertips—rabbit-quick and desperate. "It's like you're dying."

"Not dying." Jim's fingers tightened around hers, and the contact sent electricity up her arm. "Conflicting magic. Truth potion trying to make me speak... blood oath preventing it."

His scent had changed, pain and distress creating a cocktail that made her wolf pace frantically. She wanted to gather him up, tuck him against her chest, and snarl at anything that dared hurt him further.

"Blood oath?" The words came out steadier than she felt. "With who?"

Jim's body convulsed, his hand crushing hers as the blue lines erupted beneath his skin. They traced patterns up his arm like luminous veins, beautiful and terrible.

"Charlotte," he gasped, and the markings flared so bright she could see his bones through his skin. He doubled over with a sound that would haunt her dreams—pure agony ripping from his throat.

"Jim!" She caught his shoulders as he pitched forward, and suddenly he was in her arms, his face pressed against her chest as his body fought itself.

"The oath," he choked out against her shirt. "Can't speak of... what we found. The vampire territories. The bloodlines."

Each forbidden word brought fresh convulsions. She held him tighter, as if she could keep him together through sheer will. The blue markings spread like poison up his arms, while a golden glow pulsed from his core—the truth potion fighting back.

"Stop talking," she begged, her fingers tangling in his hair. "Please, Jim. Just stop."

"Can't." His arms came around her waist, clinging like she was his anchor in a storm. "Truth potion won't let me stop. Need to tell you... everything."

The warring magics created a light show beneath his skin, blue and gold colliding in crackling arcs. The smell of burning filled the air—not physical fire, but magic consuming itself. And Jim was the battlefield.

A particularly violent spasm rocked through him, and he pressed closer, his forehead burning against her collarbone. The contact sent her somewhere else?—

Cold air. Snow. A circle of hooded figures chanting in an ancient tongue. In the center, Jim—younger, unscarred, but with eyes that had already seen too much. A woman with blood-red eyes pressed a glowing blade to his forearm.

"This oath will bind you until death," she purred. "Or until love breaks it."

Then she was back, Jim's labored breathing hot against her throat.

"You're killing yourself," she said, and her voice broke completely. "Whatever this oath is, it's not worth your life."

Jim laughed, the sound vibrating through her chest. "That's the thing about blood oaths." His lips moved against her skin as he spoke, sending inappropriate shivers down her spine. "Breaking them always costs blood."

His body went rigid, back arching. The blue markings exploded across his visible skin—up his neck, across his face, ancient symbols that pulsed with each struggling heartbeat. The golden glow pushed back, and Jim became a living battlefield of light.

Reality fractured around them. The cabin flickered between here and elsewhere—stone chambers, snow-covered forests, candlelit cathedrals. Through it all, she held him, her arms the only constant as time and space bent around them.

"I need to call Jasmine," she said, but couldn't bring herself to let go.

Jim's hand found her face, his thumb tracing her cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "No time." His voice echoed strangely, as if coming from multiple timelines at once. "Need to show you... easier than telling."

"Jim, no?—"

He pressed his forehead to hers, and the world exploded.

Medieval streets reeking of death. Bodies piled high. Through a grimy window, a boy watched—Jim, centuries younger, tears cutting through the dirt on his face. "Everyone dies," he whispered. "Everyone I love dies."

The memory shifted, and Mia gasped at the emotional weight of it—not just the horror, but Jim's desperate loneliness echoing across centuries.

Werewolf bodies, twisted between forms. A female voice from the darkness: "Your bloodline is cursed, boy. Everyone you love will die by fang or claw."

"Jim, stop," Mia pleaded, but she couldn't pull away. Her hands framed his face, feeling the tears that matched the ones in his memories.

Charlotte's red eyes boring into hers. "He'll watch you die a thousand times, little wolf. It's his gift and his curse."

Then the worst memory—the one that finally broke him:

Mia's wolf form, silver patterns carved into dead fur. The scene flickered between wolf and woman, between one death and dozens. Jim's hands, covered in her blood, reaching for her across time. Always too late. Always failing.

"I love you," memory-Jim whispered to each version of her corpse. "I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry."

The repetition, the raw agony in his voice across timelines, shattered something in Mia's chest.

"STOP!" She yanked away, but caught him as he collapsed. "You beautiful, stupid man. Stop trying to die for me!"

Jim's body went limp, blood trailing from his nose and eyes like crimson tears. The blue markings retreated beneath his skin as unconsciousness claimed him.

"Jim?" His name came out as a sob. "Jim!"

His heartbeat fluttered against her palm—there, but wrong. Too fast, then too slow, like even his heart was confused. She cradled him against her, uncaring that his blood was staining her shirt.

"Don't you dare," she whispered against his hair. "Don't you dare die on me. Not when I'm still furious with you. Not when I haven't told you?—"

She couldn't finish. Couldn't admit what her wolf had been screaming since he'd returned.

With shaking hands, she pulled her phone out and called Jasmine, never loosening her hold on Jim.

"We have a problem," she said, amazed her voice worked at all. "Jim's—" Her voice cracked. "Just get here. Please."

"Fifteen minutes," Jasmine said, all business. "Keep him breathing."

Mia dropped the phone and gathered Jim closer, his head in her lap, her fingers combing through his sweat-dampened hair. He looked younger unconscious, the lines of pain smoothed away. She traced the curve of his jaw, the arch of his brows, memorizing a face she'd never truly forgotten.

"You left to save me," she whispered. "You absolute idiot. Did you think I wanted to be saved if it meant losing you?"

Her wolf keened agreement. They'd rather die with him than live without him—a truth she'd been running from for over a year.

The minutes crawled by. She found herself murmuring nonsense—promises and threats in equal measure. "If you die, I'll bring you back just to kill you myself. I'll follow you to whatever timeline you slip to. You don't get to leave me again."

When headlights finally swept across the windows, she had to force herself to move. Jim made a small sound of protest when she shifted him, his hand catching weakly at her shirt.

"I'm here," she soothed. "I'm not going anywhere."

Jasmine burst through the door with Beatrice and Bertram behind her. They surrounded Jim with professional efficiency, but Mia couldn't step back. Her hand found his, fingers interlacing.

"What happened?" Jasmine asked, all business.

"He tried to show me why he left." Mia's voice was steady now, alpha-strong despite the tears. "The truth potion forced him to break a blood oath. He—" She swallowed hard. "He's been watching me die across timelines. He left to stop it."

Beatrice made a small sound of distress. "This is my fault?—"

"No." Mia's tone brooked no argument. "The only fault lies with whoever cursed him to carry this alone."

"We need to move him," Bertram said gently. "Somewhere secure."

"My cabin," Mia decided. "And I'm carrying him."

No one argued as she gathered Jim into her arms. He was too light, as if the magic had burned through his substance. But he turned his face into her neck, unconsciously seeking comfort, and her wolf rumbled with fierce satisfaction.

Ours, her wolf declared. Broken or whole, cursed or free. Ours.

As she settled him in the car, Jim's eyes fluttered open for just a moment. "Mia," he breathed, her name a prayer on his bloodied lips.

"Sleep," she commanded softly, her thumb brushing his cheekbone. "I've got you now."

His eyes closed, trusting her completely, and something in her chest cracked wide open.

She'd spent a year hating him for leaving. Now she knew he'd spent that year watching her die, fighting to change a future written in blood.

"Drive," she told Jasmine, never taking her eyes off Jim's face. "And hurry."

Because now that she understood the weight he'd been carrying, she had a new mission: keeping Jim Miracles alive long enough to convince him that some futures were worth fighting for together.

Even if it meant defying death itself.