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Mariah let out a choked gasp, and I cupped her cheek, holding out hope, even as I heard her heartbeat slowing down. I was being ripped apart from the inside out.
“Stay with me, baby. Stay here. Please.”
Her eyes fluttered open. “I love you,” she said, barely a whisper.
And then her heart stuttered once more before going silent.
Chapter 28
Evan
The penthouse felt like a tomb, the air heavy with grief. Two days had passed since we lost Sebastian. Two days since I’d come back to find Abi beside herself. I hadn’t even had to tell her what happened. She'd felt their bond tear apart the moment he died.
Her body had shaken with wracking sobs, and I’d gone to her, taking her in my arms as she poured out her grief.
“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly. Her pain tore through me, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
“Sebastian…" she said between sobs. “I felt him leave this earth, Evan. I felt it break, I—”
“I failed him, Abi. I failed both of you.”
She took my face in her hands then. “Oh, sweet boy, please don't blame yourself.” My own tears streamed down my face. “Sebastian knew the risks. He would never want you to blame yourself.”
We’d clung to each another, the weight of our loss too heavy to bear alone.
In the two days after that horrific night, the image of Mariah's lifeless body haunted me. I could erase the memory of how I’d stared down at her as her heart had stuttered to a stop. Seconds had ticked by. Minutes. I’d held her, praying and begging, not willing to admit she was gone, then…
She'd gasped, jerking back to life, and then cried out, guttural screams emerging from her throat. Screams full of such incredible pain that I’d nearly lost my mind not knowing what to do to help her. Fate had played a cruel game, bringing her back just when I thought all was lost, only for her to be tortured by the serum she’d been injected with.
Sebastian’s men had found their way to us then, but it was too late. Sebastian was dead, Mariah might be following right behind, and Tomas had fled.
I’d struggled to keep my rage at bay, but it felt as if the tenuous thread that’d held my world together had snapped. Everything was falling apart. I was falling apart, like my very soul was being ripped to shreds.
I still felt that way now as I stood by Mariah's bedside in the penthouse, watching her chest rise and fall with slow, steady breaths. Her honey blonde hair fanned out across the pillow, framing her face like a halo. She looked completely at peace, but beneath lay a storm of agony, tearing through her every moment she was unconscious.
I’d brought her here, alive but in pain, and the only way we’d been able to get her to stop screaming was to sedate her. I’d insisted that a medic watch over her nonstop since.
“Her vitals are stable, sir,” the medic said. “The sedative continues to keep the pain at bay… for now.”
“What does that mean?” I said.
“Just that we’ve been having to up the dosage to keep her stable. I’m not sure how much more we can give her at this point without taking a risk.”
“When will we know if she'll wake up?” It was a question I’d asked countless times in the past forty-eight hours. My dragon was equally beside himself as we waited to know what would happen to our mate.
“I can’t be sure,” he said, just as he’d answered every time before. “We'll just have to wait, sir. In another day or two, we can safely assume her body hasn’t rejected the serum.”
Despite the medic's confidence that she would, in fact, wake up at some point, I couldn’t stop thinking about the worst case scenarios. What if Mariah never woke up? I had no idea what’d really been in that syringe. What if her body rejected the serum and she died, just like all the others before her? Tomas was going to pay for his experiments on my mate, but I couldn’t focus on that yet.
My mind was consumed with Mariah. I wouldn't lose her. Not after everything we’d been through. Sebastian had given his life to save her, and I couldn’t accept that it’d been in vain.
“Please, Mariah,” I whispered, taking her hand in mine. I could feel the faint thrumming of her heartbeat. “You're strong. You can fight through this.”
I could sense the turmoil inside her. Whether or not it proved successful in the end, the serum coursing through her veins was already changing her, turning her into a shifter whether we liked it or not. Panic tinged my every waking moment as I worried her body might prove too weak in the end. She might not be able to handle the change.
By the third day, when there was still no change in Mariah’s state, we arranged our return flight to Texas. We needed to go home with Sebastian’s body and honor our fallen alpha. Mason came along, overseeing the details, as I was in no state to handle anything. Abi had pretty much taken over Sofia’s care. It was all I could do to hold it together, to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
When we arrived home, I could feel Sebastian’s absence like a physical weight. He’d been more than just my mentor and alpha. He was my father.
