Chapter 81 – On the Edge of Everything
Chapter 81 – On the Edge of Everything
Jared’s whole body trembled as he bent lower, his lips brushing the shell of Kori’s ear. Her skin was clammy against his mouth, her pulse fluttering weakly beneath the surface. She was fading too fast.
‘Now, Jared,’ Zeus urged, pacing, frantic in his head. ‘Do it. Mark her, give her our strength before it’s too late.’
Jared closed his eyes, his breath hot and ragged as he angled his face toward the curve of her neck. His canines slid down, sharp and aching, as if his body already knew what needed to be done. He hovered there, the heat of her skin calling to him, begging him to claim her, to bind her life to his.
“This could kill you,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “But I can’t—can’t let you go. Not like this.”
His teeth grazed her neck—
And the door slammed open.
“Alpha!” Sam’s voice cut the silence like a blade, the urgency sharp enough to make Jared snarl in warning without lifting his head from Kori’s throat. “Something’s—”
Sam stopped mid-shout, his boots skidding on the floorboards. His eyes widened as he took in the scene before him—his Alpha crouched over Kori’s limp body, blood everywhere, canines bared inches from her skin.
For a heartbeat, Jared thought he might challenge him. Thought Sam might throw himself across the room to stop what he saw.
But the Beta froze. His chest heaved, his jaw tight, but his eyes flickered with understanding. He said nothing. He didn’t move.
Jared’s growl faded, though his voice came out like gravel when he spoke. “Say what you came to say.”
Sam swallowed hard, forcing his gaze up from Kori’s pale form to Jared’s blood-streaked face. “The house—everyone’s asleep. All of them. Warriors, staff—hell, even Frank. Like they’ve been drugged or… spelled. I tried shaking them, shouting, nothing wakes them. It’s not natural.”
The words sliced into Jared’s chest. A spell. An ambush. His wolves were dead to the world while this—while the intruder—slipped in and gutted his mate.
His head snapped back toward Kori, her pulse slowing even more beneath his fingers.
Sam took a tentative step forward, voice softer now. “Alpha…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t ask. He didn’t question. His loyalty was absolute, his silence a vow.
And Jared bent lower, his teeth pressing just enough into Kori’s neck to dimple her skin.
There was no time.
No other choice.
Jared’s world narrowed to the single point of Kori’s throat. Every other sound—the thud of his heart, the distant creak of the house—fell away beneath the drum of Zeus’s panic. Her skin was paper-thin beneath his lips, warm and trembling. She looked so small there, so fragile, and the sight of her slipping away made his hands shake.
He didn’t hesitate any longer. The old motion was instinct more than choice: lean in, let the wolf take the edge. His teeth found the soft hollow at the base of her neck. When he sank in, it wasn’t cinematic—there was no glorious ripping—just a terrible, intimate pressure and a white-hot flare of pain from her that rent the silence.
Kori’s hand fluttered at his shoulder. A small sound—half-cry, half-whisper—escaped her. He felt it like a shard in his chest. She moaned, a raw, pained sound, but her body was slack with shock and weakness, and she couldn’t fight him off. That made the whole thing worse; it made him furious and frantic in the same breath.
Blood came—warm and immediate—and metallic on his tongue. Jared tasted it and cursed softly; the iron was like an alarm bell in his head. He tasted her life and it sent a jolt through him that was equal parts hunger and dread. Zeus’s voice thrummed in his veins, urging, pleading. ‘Now. Give. Bind.’
When he pulled back, his mouth was wet, his hands trembling, and Kori’s skin had pale rings around the small puncture points. She was breathing, shallow and ragged, but alive. Alive and fragile in a way that made the world tilt.
He didn’t waste time. Fingers slick with her blood shook as he pressed them into the wound to staunch the flow, then flexed his claws along his inner wrist until the skin split. Pain lanced up his arm, sharp and raw, but it was a chosen pain. Warm blood welled from the cut, bright against his hand.
He tipped his wrist, letting a thin, steady stream of his blood fall where Kori’s wound gaped. The warmth mingled with hers; it soaked the sheet, soaked his palms, and Jared felt something ancient and fierce press at the edges of his mind. He murmured, half-prayer, half-command.
“Moon—be with her,” he breathed, voice rough. “If there is mercy in your light, let this work. Let her answer us. Let her stay.”
Zeus howled once in his head—an animal sound that was terror and hope braided together—and Jared pressed harder, feeling the tug of something reaching for her from him: heat, a shimmering thread of power that he didn’t fully understand but that felt like kinship, like a lock meeting its key.
Kori’s fingers tightened on his bloodied palm. Her breath hitched; the color returned to her lips in small, wrong little waves. Pain flickered across her face, then eased into something softer—like sinking into an exhausted sleep after a fever. Jared didn’t know whether the change was the blood, the mark, or just the ebb and flow of life clinging to a slender thread. He only knew she was still with him and that, for the moment, that had to be enough.
He kept talking, low and steady, not sure whether the words were for her or for Zeus or for whatever old law of wolves and mates he could not name. “Hold on,” he told her. “Please. Stay. I won’t let you—”
Her lashes fluttered. A wet warmth soaked his palm where her fingers pressed against him. She let out a soft, uncertain sound—less a cry now, more a fragile acknowledgment—and for the first time since he’d burst through the door, Jared let himself believe that the risk might not have been in vain.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, tasting iron, tasting Kori, and for a heartbeat the house felt unbearably quiet and full all at once: danger still out there, a threat sliding through the edges of their lives, and the fragile, fierce new bond blooming in the center of it.