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Amora
My heart is lodgedin my throat, heavy and choking. Hot tears sting my eyes, blurring the scene unfolding before me. I hold my breath, fists clenched against my knees as I kneel only inches away from Frost’s deathly still form.
Kian grunts with the effort of doing chest compressions. His messy chestnut hair swings wildly around his rugged face as his body heaves above Frost’s with each compression. Arms taut, muscles bulging, he looks so much more massive than Frost’s lithe, slender form. Like one wrong move will break the smaller man beyond recovery.
Or maybe I feel that way because I know he’s dead.
No, I snarl at myself, tightening my fingers until my nails dig painfully into my palms. The sharp sting grounds me to the here and now, and I try to drag my thoughts away from the black pit that threatens to consume them, reminding myself that there's still hope.
He’s not dead. Not yet.
At least… I hope not.
Frost’s shadow marks—those dark, swirling, tattoo-like patterns that cover his body—are still moving. Sluggishly, but still, they are moving. I have no idea if that’s a good thing or not, since his shadows are a separate part of his consciousness. Like a parasite that lives inside him. Inside all of them.
If he had died, would they be dead, too? Or would they continue to feed off him like a virus?
For all of our sakes, I hope it’s the former, because it’s the one thing I’m clinging to right now. I'm not letting that tiny hope go. If the shadows on his skin are still moving, that means he hasn’t been taken from me yet.
“Come on,” Kian growls. Even roughened and strained as it is now, his voice is still like whiskey and woodsmoke, the deep sound much more reassuring to me than I want it to be.
Not too long ago, he was my enemy. The one man in all the world I hated enough that if he’d died, I would’ve danced on his fucking grave. Hell, my only goal in life was to send him to that grave myself. I avoided whiskey for years because I couldn’t stand the way it reminded me of him.
And now…
Now, I don’t know. I don’t know what we are to each other, but I know I don’t want him to die, any more than I want Frost to die. I need him to live. I need all three of my onetime mates to live, in spite of everything they did to me and all the bad blood that’s passed between us.
Maybe we still haven’t healed from their betrayal on that mountaintop, when they severed the bond between us like they were cutting away a burr. But the possibility is there, I think. One day.
Things do change.
Just like people do die.
I clench my teeth and take a deep breath, trying to get ahold of my emotions. The mountain breeze has dissipated, leaving the cold night air sitting heavy on my bare skin. The trees around us seem dangerous and too still, full of darkness and shadows.
Maybe even shadows that could hurt us.
I never used to fear the dark as a little girl, but now I know that some monsters which lurk in the shadows are all too real.
“Frost!” Kian snarls, his breath huffing out on the name. A swirl of white fog emanates from his lips as he speaks. “Come on, goddammit. Stay with me.”
His own smoky tattoos wave erratically, twisting and twining up his arms as his muscles twitch and jolt from the effort. I've never seen his shadows move like that; it’s a stark, visible show of his emotions.
Kian isn’t the type to let his emotions rule his actions or body. The very fact that he is now terrifies me, threatening to snuff out the tiny spark of hope that still lives in my chest.
Malix’s tattoos aren’t as wild as Kian’s, but they’re moving too. He kneels at Frost’s head, his dark hands contrasting starkly with Frost’s abnormally pale face and even paler hair. He watches Kian work with hooded violet eyes, his usually good-natured expression broken. Dazed. Despairing.
The look on his face stabs me right in the heart. Right in the place where our mate bond used to reside. Now, it’s only a gaping void that feels like it’ll never be whole again.
The three of them may have cut their metaphysical tie to me in some stupid, cruelly heroic attempt to keep me safe, but the bond between each of these men is as strong as ever. They’re all so close. Inseparable, really, like three parts of a whole that won’t survive without all its pieces. Frost is an essential part of who they are.
If he doesn’t make it…
I swallow in a vain attempt to shove down my tears. I shift closer on my knees, wishing I could touch Frost. Wishing he’d open his eyes. Wishing I had told him how I really feel about him before I lost the chance forever.
And still, his tattoos, the external marker of the magic that makes him a feral shifter, continue to wave in agonizingly slow motion.
Fury creeps in at the edges of my thoughts. Quinton did this to him. Frost’s old alpha pushed too much shadow magic into him. More than he could handle until it overwhelmed him. The sound of Frost’s agonized scream has continued to replay in my head over and over since we escaped Quinton’s pack, fighting for our lives and leaving several bodies scattered in our wake as we raced off through the forest.
Even worse than the scream was the look of pure, raw agony on Frost’s face. But maybe the agony was better than the blank, slack, dead look he wears now.
Quinton stopped his heart.
Quinton killed him.
And I'm going to kill Quinton if it’s the last fucking thing I do.
“Frost!” Kian growls again, his tone a frantic mix of anger and fear. “Wake up. We need you! Come back to us.”
The way his large hands compress Frost’s bare chest makes bile rise in my throat. Frost’s skin gives under the force of it like soft clay, making him look like a silicone dummy rather than a man. How is this not breaking his rib cage? Bruising his organs?
How can he come back from this?
Malix closes his eyes and bows his head as if in prayer, still cradling Frost’s head in his lap. Sweat beads at his dark hairline, reminding me that we just sprinted miles and miles to get away from Quinton and the rest of his pack.
