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"He's trying to save his life, you overgrown Pomeranian," Arrow gritted out, his voice strained with pain. I didn't even know what I'd done to him, just that I was going to do all that and more if he kept me from that room another second.
His words made no sense. Either he was an idiot, or he hadn't seen what I had. You didn't slit someone's throat if you were trying to save them.
"Hold him!" Father Marius cried, his hand still wrapped tightly around my left wrist, trying to keep it wrenched behind my back.
"What does it look like I'm trying to do, jerk him off?" Arrow hissed. He adjusted his grip and wrapped both arms around my torso, pinning my arms to my sides. I strained against him even though he had me lifted a few inches off the ground and there was nothing to brace myself against but his chest, like I was a man possessed. "Can’t you compel him?"
Father Marius hesitated, his red eyes wide as they traveled over me. "I don't know if it'll work in this state. He shouldn't even be able to shift partially with the collar on."
"Try?" Arrow pleaded in a strained, guttural tone, and I was pretty sure I'd just mule kicked him in the dick.
Father Marius nodded, taking my face in his slender, paper-white hands. They were stronger than they had any right to be. His gaze turned hard and sharp as it bored into mine, and I felt like I'd snap my neck if I struggled against his hold any further, but I tried anyway.
"Eddie, be calm," he said, his voice at once soothing and commanding. It became the focal point of my frenzied attention, and the sensory overload around me seemed to dull and narrow into a pinprick, every sense—sight, sound, touch, and smell—fixated on him. He smelled like jasmine, and his voice sounded like the rain, cool and tender as it cascaded over me. "That's it, child. That's right. Just calm down."
I clenched my jaw, straining desperately against him, hard enough that my body went still in Arrow’s hold because I couldn't struggle against both of them at once. Tears were coursing from my eyes, making it harder to see Father Marius, but his grasp on my mind was already firm enough that he didn't need the continued eye contact to hold it.
"Castor," I choked out, my voice sounding like a mournful, strangled thing. It wasn’t even a plea or an argument, just the raw expression of every emotion that seemed to be tearing me apart from the inside. Chief among them was guilt, knowing I couldn’t protect him or make anyone understand. Knowing that for all I’d done and how far I thought I’d come, I was as useless now as I had been before.
"I know," Father Marius said gently, stroking his hands down my face. His voice and his eyes were so kind for someone aiding and abetting such cruelty. "I know, and you may not understand, but Dr. Kelly is doing everything he can to help Castor. To save him. The only way is to make sure the wolf blood is out of his system, and that's the fastest method of exsanguination."
"Exs...?" My mind was too fractured and overwhelmed to even process what that new word meant beyond death, so I gave up trying. "He'll die."
"No," Father Marius said firmly. "No, he's been taking infusions of vampire blood much too long for that to kill him. It will stop his heart just long enough for Dr. Kelly to replace his blood supply. It's like dialysis, just a bit more extreme."
I was still unable to breathe between stilted sobs, but the rage was simmering down as much as I wanted to cling to it. Every second that passed was a second I was away from Castor. A second he was alone with that psycho. "Will it work?"
The words didn't even sound like they were mine. I scarcely recognized my own voice, at once pathetic and animalistic.
"It should," said Father Marius. "It's the best chance he has right now. The only chance. Castor is like a son to me. If you believe nothing else, believe that I would never let anyone hurt him if I could prevent it.”
There was more to his words that made me want to believe them than the compulsion. His sincerity matched the look in his eyes. Then again, maybe that was the compulsion talking.
Either way, all the fight left me in a rush, and I went limp in Arrow's arms. "It's my fault," I gritted out. "He got attacked because he was trying to protect me."
Father Marius's gaze softened as he put his left hand on top of my head and tilted my chin up toward him with the other. "Listen to me, little one. Whatever happened out there, you acted quickly and you brought him here. That's the only reason he's alive right now."
Alive. I didn't even know if he was alive, so those words were hollow comfort. The beast that had been clawing its way out of my chest seemed to have vanished like a ghost, or maybe I'd just burned through the last of my energy fighting them.
"What's wrong with him?" Arrow asked warily.
"He's in shock," Father Marius said, stroking my hair. The touch felt distant. Like it was happening to someone else, but his hand was cool against my heated skin. "I'm going to put him out."
That announcement caused one final surge of panic to well up within me. "No!" I started struggling again, but all it took was one look in those crimson eyes to draw me back under the current of his control.
"Sleep," Father Marius said in a siren's voice.
And I did.
ChapterTwenty-Four
CASTOR
Iwoke up with a gasp, but all that filled my lungs was air that was freezing hot and too thick to breathe. I grasped at my throat only to find it bandaged. Before I could tear at the cloth strips, someone was at my side, holding my arm down.
"Easy," Dr. Kelly said, straining to keep me in bed.
"Eddie!" I cried, looking around to find myself back in the clinic. How? My memory was only working in bits and pieces. It was still disjointed, but not quite as much as before. I could remember the forest. I could still see the wolves surrounding him as the blind rage filled me.
