Chapter 177

Chapter 177

SAINT.

The old bastard would not look at me.

He had not looked at me even once since I laid her down.

That was the first sign that something had gone wrong.

Meryk had never once not looked me in the face. Even when he spent the whole morning telling me about my death day, he fucking looked me in the face when he spoke. But now he crouched over my mate with his back to me and would not even turn around, almost like he had already read the ending and was deciding how gently to phrase it.

I do not need things phrased gently. I need them phrased fast.

"Meryk."

He had two fingers on her wrist with his eyes closed.

"Meryk, look at me."

"Quiet, Alpha." He shut me up like he was telling a child to stop tugging his sleeve.

I have torn men's throats open for softer disrespect than that, but I stood here and let him speak that way to me, because he had her pulse under his thumb and there was not one thing on this earth I wanted more than the information behind his lips.

That's what she had made of me. I was aware of the joke. I was aware that the entire pack would pay money to see it. But I didn't fucking care.

Eve lay on the low cot by his hearth where I'd set her. She had not moved. Her hair was still stuck to her cheek from where she'd fallen, and I had not fixed it because my hands had blood on them that was not mine and I did not want it on her face.

Kyrie was on his knees by the door. He had walked in behind me and gone down about three feet inside the threshold and stayed there. He wasn't looking at Eve. He wasn't looking at anything. He was just staring into space.

That was the one thing that kept pulling at me. No jokes or witty statements about how this was all my fault.

He was fucking quiet. And he seemed broken, too.

I've watched that man crack jokes with a hole in his lung, while looking death in the eyes. Whatever broke in him when Eve hit the floor hadn't been put back yet, and some tired part of me thought it was the first honest thing I had seen him do in years.

I'll deal with it later. Everything gets dealt with later. Right now, I only had room for her.

Meryk moved his hand to her neck, holding it an inch above the mark like he was testing a hot stove. I watched his face close up, and then he swore.

Meryk. I've seen this man deliver a stillbirth and a war declaration in the same week without changing his tone, but right now, he swore under his breath in a language older than the pack ever knew.

Wonderful. Very comforting.

Fuck.

"How long since it turned?" he asked.

"Since what turned?"

"The edges. They're black." He finally looked up. "How long?"

"This afternoon. Under two hours." I replied immediately.

"You're sure?" He narrowed his brows.

"I've been keeping an eye on her neck like a madman. I'm sure."

He put both hands on his knees and looked into the fire. I gave him three seconds to start talking, which was two more than I had.

"Say it." I bit out.

"Alpha—"

"Meryk," I warned. "You've been stalling since I came through that door. You don't stall. So either your hands have forgotten how to do this, or you're afraid of what you're about to tell me. Which one is it?"

He looked up at me.

"The loop is dying."

There it fucking was.

"Not the bond," he said, as if to make it feel better. "The bond will outlive the three of you and everything you build, so don't waste the afternoon hoping otherwise. That's not yours to kill. I mean the loop. The circuit her body sits inside. It's been carrying the weight of a full mating on one anchor since he marked her, and her body has held on far longer than it should have. She's stronger than either of you deserve."

"I know what she is." I cut the praises. I didn't need anyone to tell me how strong she was. Plus, he could come pay us a visit on a Sunday morning when this is all over and tell us how strong she was. We'd be willing to give him a plate of warm soup and our undivided attention. But right now, I said: "How long does she have?"

"Midnight."

My world came to a stop.

Behind me, Kyrie made a small sound that sounded like a sob.

Never thought I'd see the day Kyrie Graves broke down this way for anyone in the world.

"By midnight the loop closes, or it collapses. And when it collapses, it doesn't take just her wolf, Alpha. It takes her heart." He held my gaze, drying his hands on the cloth. "A few hours. That's what you have."

I stood there and did the math, because that's what I do instead of falling apart. Because, at this point, it was so tempting to just fall apart and let it all out.

I almost fell into that temptation. But no. I had to be strong for her.

I had to.

I looked past him at the window.

The sun had already started to lean west over his yard, sitting low enough in the sky to throw the shape of the frame across the floorboards. Four hours of light, maybe five if the afternoon was generous, and the afternoon had not been generous with me yet.

Still, it was a good number of hours until midnight. Maybe I can do something about this.

"Then tell me how to close it," I said.

"There are two ways, and my office obliges me to name them both, so hear both before you start deciding who you are going to kill." He picked up the jar again and turned it in his fingers. "The first is rejection. If the Beta rejects her fully and she accepts it, his claim dies, and the mark dies with it. She'll be left with just one bond. She'll live."

I didn't turn around.

I wanted to. The urge was overwhelming.

There's a version of me that's been tapping on the glass behind my eyes since Africa, and it wanted very badly to turn around and watch Meryk's words land on him. To see his face when someone handed him the one thing that saves her and costs him everything.

I didn't. Because if I looked at him, I'd want to kill him, because the Kyrie I know would never give this girl up. Even if it means saving her life.

"And the second?" I forced the question out of my locked throat.

"Both of you will have to mark her at the same time, in the same breath, all three wolves willing and ready to share." He paused. "Then the loop closes the way the goddess had originally designed it. It was always meant to be three."

"Then it's the second one. Both of us. We mark her together."

"It can't be done, Alpha," Meryk said.

I turned my head slowly. "Try that again. Choose better words this time."

"There are no better words, so you will have to deal with the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may sound." He met my eyes and did not blink. "One woman, one wolf. That is the founding law of this pack. It's been the covenant guiding your pack." He went on, emphasizing the word 'your' as if it would make any difference.

I didn't need emphasis. I needed a solution. One that would end with me keeping this woman as mine. That's all I needed. So, Meryk could keep his emphasis to himself.

"What you're deciding is forbidden by the founding law of this pack. If I put my hands on that ritual tonight, I'm not a healer who is only bending a custom — I'll be seen as a man who the people trust, performing a rite the elders have to answer with in blood. Hers, yours, his, and mine. She'd survive until sunrise and be dead by noon, and I'll be dead, too. And you would be standing there and watching it happen with all your power and no way to stop it."

"Then the covenant won't see midnight. And neither will the elders, if they fucking oppose me." I stood up immediately. "I'll kill every single one of them and name new elders if I have to."

"Do not be stupid with me today, Alpha. I do not have the time for it." He cut straight across me, which nobody ever fucking does. "You do not have to kill a single old man, because there is a clean way to this, and you have always known this. Change the law."

"I told them I would. I gave them a deadline." I replied.

He crossed to the window and pushed the shutter wider so the light fell fully across her, and he looked down at Eve while he said the rest of it. "And what actions have you taken since you told them this?" He didn't let me answer. "None."

I was quiet, because I knew the old man had more to say.

"A deadline is not a law, my boy. You can shout at that council until your throat bleeds and it will not shift an inch, because the covenant does not bend to a man throwing mere tantrums. It is a blood instrument. Six seals, and every elder, has to sign with their blood. All six or it can't stand. And until it is made a law, I cannot touch her without signing her death warrant."

All six of them, one of whom sat across that table and explained, enjoying every syllable of it, that Kyrie had earned her by being faster.

"Pratt won't sign," I stated.

"No," Meryk said. "He will not."

"Then he'll be persuaded."

"He has hated your father since before you were born, and he has spent his whole life waiting for a Rollins to come to him needing something." He said without any pity in it, which I appreciated more than if he had tried to make it sound easy. "You will not persuade that man. You will have to outthink him, and you will have to do it before the sun touches those trees."

I put my lighter back in my pocket and pushed off the wall.

Meryk turned from the window, and he was looking at me instead, like there was this burden in his heart that was suffocating him. "There is also the matter of what the second way will cost you. Your own—"

I looked the fuck at him.

What the fuck?

Was he about to spill that in this fucking room? With Kyrie Graves here?

Fuck.

I let my silence do its usual magic while I decided how much more of my patience the old man was worth.

I watched him understand every fucking tick in my jaw and fire in my eyes. Then I spoke slowly, hoping I was able to make every syllable land right where I wanted them to land.

"Meryk. You have served three Alphas. And in all of my time as Alpha, I have never once raised my hand on you." I tilted my head. "Do not make today the day. Finish that sentence in this room, in front of him, and I will forget every loyal service of yours before the next word leaves your mouth, and you know that I will. It is the one thing about me nobody has ever needed to be told twice."

He held my gaze for a moment, then he inclined his head half an inch. "As you wish, Alpha. Good luck with changing the law."