Page 11

Chapter

Ten

M ia's hands ached from clenching them so tightly. Every instinct screamed at her to touch Jim, to smooth the sweat from his brow, to hold him through the spasms racking his body. But she couldn't. Not when her touch might distract Jasmine and Beatrice from saving his life.

The sharp scent of ground cinnamon and charred sage filled her nostrils as she paced the worn floorboards.

Each creak beneath her feet matched the frantic rhythm of her heart.

On the couch, Jim curled into himself, muscles spasming under the conflicting magical influences, and it took everything in her not to go to him.

"Can't you two hurry it up?" The words came out sharper than intended, but watching him suffer while doing nothing was killing her.

"I'd like to see you try to neutralize a truth potion while accounting for an unknown blood oath," Jasmine replied without looking up, her hands moving with practiced precision among glass bottles. "One wrong ingredient and his brain turns to pudding."

"Delicious pudding though," Beatrice added cheerfully, measuring a viscous blue liquid into a copper bowl. The liquid hissed and released lavender smoke. "Oops. That's not supposed to happen."

Jim groaned from the couch. "If my brain's going to be pudding anyway, can I request chocolate?"

The tight knot in Mia's chest loosened just enough to breathe. Even in pain, he was still him. She moved to perch on the armrest near his head, her fingers hovering inches above his damp hair. So close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin, but still not touching. The denial was torture.

"Just hang on. The wonder twins are working on it." His scent—pain-sharp and metallic—scraped against her senses. "How bad is it?"

"Oh, you know," Jim smiled weakly, and even that ghost of his usual grin made her heart stutter. "Tickles a bit. Like being flayed from the inside."

Her hand moved without permission, almost touching his cheek before she caught herself. His eyes tracked the movement, something hungry and desperate flashing in their depths.

A crash from the kitchen shattered the moment. Beatrice stood frozen, a broken mason jar at her feet.

"That was the last of the moonflower extract," Jasmine muttered.

"I have an idea!" Beatrice exclaimed, diving for her purse. "What if we substitute with dandelion root?"

As they bickered, Mia turned back to Jim. His eyes had taken on a glazed quality that sent ice through her veins.

"Jim? Stay with me." She snapped her fingers in front of his face, and this time she did touch him—fingertips against his jaw, turning his face toward her.

His gaze sharpened, focusing on her with an intensity that made her whole body flush. "Always wanted to," he murmured, the words pulled out by invisible hooks. "Tried to stay away. Couldn't. Not forever."

Heat rushed to her cheeks. The low hum of Jasmine and Beatrice's debate faded to white noise.

"You need to be careful what you say," she whispered, but her thumb was stroking his jawline now, unable to stop.

"I know." He grimaced, turning his face into her touch like a man starved. "Ask me something safe. Distraction helps."

Mia hesitated, then asked the question burning inside her since he'd returned. "Did you miss me? When you were... wherever you were?"

His expression softened, pain momentarily receding. "Every day. Every hour. Like missing a limb." His voice went rough with honesty. "Used to sketch your smile from memory. Never got it quite right."

The confession gutted her. While she'd been building walls of anger, he'd been trying to capture what he'd lost. Her eyes burned with tears she refused to shed.

"Why couldn't you get it right?" she whispered.

"Because nothing compared to the real thing. To you."

"Jim—"

"Drink this!" Beatrice bounded over, shattering the moment with a steaming mug that reeked of overripe bananas and burnt coffee.

Mia jerked back, her hand leaving Jim's face. The loss of contact felt like losing skin.

Jim eyed the bubbling concoction. "Will it help or am I about to turn into a toad?"

"Fifty-fifty chance either way." Beatrice beamed.

Jim looked to Mia, a silent question in his eyes. She nodded, reaching for his free hand and squeezing. He squeezed back, then downed the contents in three gulps.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then Jim's entire body went rigid, his back arching off the couch at an impossible angle. The mug shattered in his grip.

"JIM!"

His eyes rolled back, showing only whites. Black veins spread from his throat like poison, visible beneath his skin as they crawled across his face. He wasn't breathing.

"He's not breathing!" Mia shoved Beatrice aside, cradling Jim's head. His skin had gone cold, clammy. "Jim! Breathe!"

Nothing. His lips were turning blue.

Without thinking, Mia tilted his head back and breathed for him, forcing air into his lungs. Once. Twice. His chest rose and fell only with her breath.

"Come on," she whispered against his lips between breaths. "Come back to me."

On the fifth breath, Jim convulsed. His body temperature spiked so fast steam actually rose from his skin. He gasped, sucking in air like a drowning man, his hands flying up to grip Mia's arms with bruising force.

"Mia?" His voice was wrecked, eyes wide and unfocused. The black veins were receding, but his pupils were blown so wide his eyes looked like dark pools. "Everything's... sparkly. You're sparkly. Like you're made of stars."

He was shaking violently, teeth chattering. She pulled him against her, his face buried in her neck as tremors racked his frame.

"Sparkly is better than dead," Jasmine observed, though even she looked shaken.

It took several minutes for the shaking to subside. When Jim finally pulled back, he looked drunk—but alive. The pressure lines around his eyes had eased.

"Can you talk about... things now?" Mia asked, still holding him steady.

"Let's find out." Jim cleared his throat, and a thin line of blood trickled from his nose. "Charlotte is?—"

He gasped, muscles seizing. More blood, from his ears this time. But he pushed through, words coming out between gritted teeth.

"Charlotte is a vampire hunter, not a romantic interest."

The words cost him. He sagged forward, and Mia caught him, feeling the way his muscles spasmed with each forced revelation.

"Jealous?" Jim managed a pained grin.

"Shut up and keep talking," Mia ordered, her relief making her voice rough.

Jim nodded, blood now seeping from the corners of his eyes like crimson tears. Each word around the blood oath extracted its price.

"Charlotte is investigating some..." He convulsed. "Distribution networks. For special products." Another spasm. "Involving people with unique dietary requirements."

"Vampire blood trafficking," Jasmine translated.

"Didn't say that." Jim's attempt at a wink turned into a grimace of pain. "But hypothetically, if someone was running such an operation..." Blood ran freely from his nose now. "They might be interested in certain local leadership positions. For logistical advantages."

"Matthews?" Mia's blood turned cold.

Jim tapped his nose, then promptly passed out for several seconds. When his eyes fluttered open, he was paler than before.

"Stop," Mia commanded. "You're killing yourself again."

"Almost done," he whispered. "You need to know. Because of you. Your blood."

"My blood?"

"Deadline wolf who gained the ability to shift." Each word was agony. "Extremely valuable to certain... researchers."

"Over my dead body," he added, so quietly only she could hear. The fierce protectiveness in his voice made her shiver.

"But how did you get involved?" Mia pressed, using her sleeve to wipe blood from his face. "Why did Charlotte approach you?"

Jim hesitated, free hand rubbing his forearm. "Because of something I brought with me. From before."

"Before what?"

"Before now." His gaze held centuries. "Way before."

The cabin fell silent except for the grandfather clock and crackling fire.

"Jim," Mia said slowly. "What exactly is under your skin?"

Instead of answering, he rolled up his sleeve. Jasmine stepped forward, muttering in an ancient language. The air shimmered, and dark lines emerged on Jim's skin—intricate symbols pulsing with blue light.

"Temporal anchors," Jasmine breathed. "I've only read about these in theoretical texts."

"What are temporal anchors?" Mia asked, mesmerized.

"They're—"

The word choked off as Jim's entire body seized.

The temperature in the room plummeted so fast their breath misted in the air.

Frost spread across the windows in spiraling patterns that looked almost like writing.

Jim's form didn't just blur—it fractured , like looking at him through a shattered mirror.

Each fragment showed a different Jim: one in medieval robes covered in plague sores, one in military uniform soaked in blood, one older with gray threading through his hair and eyes full of loss, one younger and unscarred but already haunted.

"JIM!" Mia lunged forward as he screamed—a sound that echoed across centuries, harmonizing with itself from different timelines.

His body convulsed violently, phasing between solid and void. Where he flickered out of existence, Mia glimpsed other places through the gaps—a plague-ridden street littered with bodies, a battlefield under a red moon, a sterile white room that reeked of vampire and medical equipment.

"Can't—hold—" Blood poured from his nose, his eyes, his ears. The temporal anchors on his arm blazed so bright they burned afterimages in Mia's vision, the symbols writhing like living things trying to escape his skin.

"No!" She threw herself at him, but her hands passed through empty air. He was fading, being pulled into the time stream, scattered across centuries. "JIM!"

Suddenly he solidified just enough for her to grab him.

The contact sent electricity shooting through her nervous system—not painful but overwhelming, like touching raw time itself.

She could feel it—the pull of temporal currents trying to claim him, trying to scatter his existence across a thousand moments.

"Then I'll be your anchor." She wrapped herself around him completely, her wolf rising to the surface. Her claws extended, digging into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood, physically holding him in place. "You want him?" she snarled at the invisible force. "You'll have to go through me."

The room shook. Picture frames fell from walls, glass shattering. The very air seemed to scream as two forces—Mia's will and time itself—battled for Jim's existence. Books flew off shelves. The fire in the hearth turned blue, then white, then colors that shouldn't exist.

"Mia, let go!" Jasmine shouted over the supernatural wind that had risen from nowhere. "It could pull you in too!"

"NEVER!"

Jim's form solidified slightly against her. "Can't... lose you... too..." Blood ran from his mouth as he spoke, staining her shirt.

"You won't. I won't let you." She pressed her forehead to his, pouring every ounce of alpha power into keeping him present. "Feel me. Feel this moment. This is real. This is now. This is where you belong."

For a terrifying moment, the pull strengthened.

She felt herself starting to fray at the edges, her own existence beginning to scatter.

She saw flashes—herself in different times, different lives, always searching for someone she couldn't name.

A wolf running through ancient forests. A woman in Victorian dress staring at a portrait.

A soldier scanning horizons. Always incomplete. Always searching.

Then Jim's arms came around her with desperate strength, and he pulled back .

The temporal storm broke. Reality snapped back into place with an audible crack that left their ears ringing. They collapsed together, shaking, covered in his blood, but whole. Present. Together.

"That was close," he gasped against her throat. "I almost... I couldn't find my way back until... until you..."

"Until I what?"

"Until you called me home." His eyes were wild, ancient, terrified. "You're my anchor, Mia. The only fixed point in time I have left."

She held him tighter, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow from hummingbird-fast to merely racing. Around them, the cabin looked like a tornado had hit it. Jasmine and Beatrice stood frozen, faces pale with shock.

Then came the knock.

It didn't just sound—it reverberated through the walls with unnatural force, making the damaged windows rattle in their frames. The temperature, which had been slowly returning to normal, plummeted again. But this cold was different. Wrong. It smelled of decay and old blood.

Frost spread across the windows again, but this time it formed a pattern—skeletal fingers reaching inward.

"Alpha Mia." Matthews' cultured voice drifted through the door, but there was something underneath it now.

Something that made her wolf snarl in primitive recognition.

Predator. Ancient predator. "I heard you were feeling unwell after the party.

I've brought something to help with your. .. headache."

Through the door, his scent reached her—too perfect, too controlled. And beneath it, the unmistakable reek of vampire. Fresh vampire blood, to be specific. On his clothes. On his skin.

Jim's temporal anchors began glowing faintly, responding to whatever Matthews truly was.

"He knows," Jim whispered, struggling to sit up. "He knows I'm here. He can smell the temporal displacement."

Another knock, harder this time. The door actually cracked.

"Do let me in, Alpha," Matthews continued, his voice like honey over broken glass. "We have so much to discuss. About your friend's interesting condition. About the challenge. About your... unique bloodline."

Mia's wolf rose fully to the surface, ready to fight. Beside her, Jim's form flickered once—a warning that his anchors were still unstable.

She didn't want to answer, but protocol demanded it. The Alpha of the Northern Pack was at her door.

But as Jim's fingers tightened around hers, his blood still wet on her skin, she made a choice.

Protocol be damned.

"I'm indisposed," she called out, surprised by how steady her voice sounded. "We can speak tomorrow at the second challenge."

Silence. Then a low chuckle that raised every hair on her body.

"Of course," Matthews purred. "Do rest well, Alpha. Both of you."

His footsteps retreated, but the wrongness of his presence lingered like a stain on the air.

Nobody moved for several heartbeats.

"Well," Beatrice finally whispered. "That was terrifying."

Jim laughed weakly, then promptly passed out in Mia's arms.

This time, she was ready for it. This time, she didn't let go.