Page 129 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

He goes down under me, blood coming fast. The doors burst inward. Adrian is first through them, gray-faced and barely upright, and he goes straight to Jessa, scooping Mia off the floor and pressing my daughter into her mother’s arms. A dozen more pour in behind him. Someone breathes, “Alpha Marcus.”

My uncle isn’t finished. Even with his throat torn open, he thrashes under me, swiping for my eyes. I don’t let it be quick. My claws go into him a dozen times, and every time they sink home, I see another of the dead over his face, my father gray on his sickbed, Daniel staged on his own floor. I give Nathaniel the slow end he gave them. Some ruined part of me is screaming the whole time because I trusted these hands with everything once. Adrian moves to turn Jessa’s face away. She won’t let him, keeping her eyes on mine steadily, telling me without a word that she isn’t going anywhere, not even now.

I drag myself back to a man on the last of my strength, and in death, my uncle’s body shifts back under me, broken and still. Swaying, painted red from throat to knee, I stand over it. Twenty shifters fill the room, and one steps forward with his head bowed. I don’t look at him. My eyes go to Jessa.

Her breath hitches. “Marcus,” she whispers. “Your pants.”

I laugh, half wild. Then the floor comes up, and I go down with it.

“Marcus!” She’s on her knees over me before I hit the ground.

My wolf is failing under me. I can feel it dying now, the wolfsbane winning at last. Every breath comes shorter than the last. My claws slide out and won’t retract, the animal clawing to stay in the world. I’ve got seconds left, and I can feel every one of them running out. I get a hand around the back of Jessa’s neck and pull her down to me.

Her tears fall onto my face. “Marcus!”

“I’m dying.” The words are torn from me. “A healer can’t fix this. You can.”

“What do I do?” She’s frantic. “Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“I have to mark you.”

“Mark me?”

“He means the mating mark.” Adrian drops beside us. He looks at my torn throat and the ruin of me, and his voice sinks. “But she isn’t your fated mate, Marcus.”

“She is,” I gasp, my wolf weakening now.

His eyes go wide. Then he grips Jessa’s shoulder. “Let him mark you. The bond will pull him back. It’s his one chance.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t hesitate. “Okay, do it.”

“You don’t know what it means,” I get out.

“Do you really have time for a conversation?” Her voice breaks. “Marcus, just mark me. Do whatever it is you have to do to live. We need you.”

I look up into her face. “But do you love me?”

She glowers at me through her tears. “You absolute jerk. You’re making me say it now?”

“I won’t do it otherwise.” I can barely lift the words.

She drops her forehead to my bloody chest and laughs, wet and helpless. “You manipulative shit.”

“Yes.” I manage a grin.

“Yes.” She presses her mouth to my jaw. “Yes, I love you. Now mark me.”

I turn my head, set my teeth to the curve of her shoulder, and mark her. She gasps, her fingers locking in my hair. The bond snaps taut between us, her heartbeat sliding in against mine until the two run as one, and strength floods back up my spine in a hot rush. My back arches off the boards. The whole world goes white, then black.

I wake in my own bed with the ceiling above me and two small bodies tucked against my sides. Mia’s got a fist in my shirt. Bella’s drooling on my arm. Both of them are dead asleep.

For a breath, I let myself believe none of it happened. Then I hear the soft clatter of a pan downstairs, and it all comes back at once.

I ease out from under the girls and pull on the sweatpants left over the chair. My legs hold. I take the stairs slowly and find Jessa at the stove, stirring something, her hair loose down her back.

“Jessa.”

She turns and looks at me for one long second. Then a broken sound comes out of her, and her knees go.