Page 173 of This Blood that Bonds Us

“Here.” He handed me some. “He wouldn’t take it earlier, but maybe things are different. Hurry.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. In seconds, I arrived back in the cathedral where Zach and Luke were fighting alongside Kilian. Aaron wasn’t moving. I bit into the blood bag to pour down his throat. He couldn’t be dead. No. He would get up and be annoying any second. It wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be.

We had done nothing on our forever list. Not a single thing. At every attempt for grief to find its way through my panic, I pushed it further down. I’d had so much practice with it, it was a reflex. His skin was cold. My brain wouldn’t stop reminding me.

Someone slammed into me from the side, and I reared back to see that prick Henderson stalking toward me.

“Uh, can I help you?”

“Yeah, you and your brother can die.”

“Jeez. Holding in some anger there, huh, buddy?”

He charged me, and in seconds, his fingers dug into my throat as he lifted me off the ground.

“You . . . really . . . don’t like us.”

“I don’t like traitors.”

Zach tackled him, and we all tumbled to the ground. I sat up long enough to see Luke and Dom fighting Sirius. They were nearly spent. Super bloody.

“Ah!”

Henderson hit me again, and Zach flung him across the room into the wall. A scattering of lit candles fell over him and singed his clothes. The collective lot lit the gathering bodies closer to the wall and sent them ablaze.

“Don’t touch my brother.”

Our fights collided till we all stumbled back to look at each other. Kilian was clutching his side. One of his eyes was gone. Sirius’s arm was broken, practically hanging there. Ezra was the least beat up, but his gaze flitted to the pulpit every few seconds. I knew that look. The look of a fellow bolter.

“How did this happen?” Ezra looked at my brothers. “I don’t understand.”

“I told you they’re traitors,” Sirius spat.

“No. Their brother paid a high price to break the bond of your queen,” Kilian said.

Ezra shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

“Guess you didn’t see this one coming?” Zach said.

“It can be remade. It’s not too late,” Ezra said.

A shiver of fear fell over me. Something told me if we didn’t beat The Guard here, they weren’t against holding us all down to remake that bond.

And with that bond, Aaron’s sacrifice would be for nothing. This was it. He was right. Losing was not an option.

I shifted my thoughts back to Aaron, whose blood was pooling onto the floor. All the fighting was taking too long. Aaron needed help. He needed blood.

Ezra bolted, and I lunged for him. The others collided with shouts and grunts. He tried to fling me off, but I held onto his arm till he bit my wrist.

“Ah, fuck,” I groaned. I really shouldn’t have spent all that time moping instead of learning to fight.Bad Presley.

Zach slid next to me and grabbed Henderson as he tried to ambush me from behind.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Been better.”

Suddenly, Sirius and Henderson fixated on me while Luke and Kilian barred Ezra from leaving. I had to hand it to them. It was a good strategy—I was useless.