Chapter 62

Chapter 62:

The scene before me was a tableau of failure. Azalea was on her knees, her hands hovering uselessly over Adella’s convulsing body, her face a mask of terror. And standing above them, frozen like a statue carved from cowardice, was Braydon Hyde.

He just stood there.

He looked at Adella — at the woman he claimed to love, the woman dying at his feet because of his mother’s poison — and he did nothing. His face was pale, his eyes wide and vacant, paralyzed by the fear of consequences, paralyzed by the monster he called a mother.

Kill him, Ragnar snarled, the urge to shift and tear out Braydon’s throat nearly blinding me. He let them hurt her. Rip him apart.

But Adella was the priority. Vengeance could wait; survival could not.

I didn’t slow down. I didn’t shout a warning. I didn’t even look Braydon in the eye. I slammed into him with the force of a freight train, my forearm connecting with his chest and lifting him off his feet, hurling him backward. He smashed into the opposite wall with a sickening crunch of drywall and slid to the floor, gasping, a broken and pathetic heap.

I dropped to my knees beside Adella.

Up close, the damage was horrifying. The silver poisoning was aggressive — far more potent than standard dust. Black, spiderweb veins were already crawling up her neck, pulsing with a sickly heat. Her skin was grey, her lips tinged with blue.

She wasn’t breathing.

“Move,” I growled at Azalea, though she was already scrambling back to give me space.

Stories you won’t put down on.com

My hands, usually steady enough to dismantle a firearm in the dark, trembled for a fraction of a second as I reached into my jacket pocket. I pulled out the silver-neutralizing serum injector — carried every day since I found her, a paranoid precaution I had prayed I would never use.

I didn’t bother with gentleness. There was no time. I jammed the needle into her thigh and depressed the plunger until the hiss of the pressurized vial ceased.

“Come on, Adella,” I commanded, my voice raw. “Fight it p>

The black veins didn’t recede immediately. Her chest remained still. The silence in the hallway was deafening, broken only by Braydon’s wheezing sobs from across the floor.

I tore her high collar open, buttons scattering across the carpet. The sight made my blood boil. Right beside the fading bruise of my mark from the night before, the skin was blistering — the silver trying to burn my claim away.

I pinched her nose, tilted her head back, and sealed my mouth over hers.

Her lips were cold. Terrifyingly cold.

I exhaled hard, forcing my breath into her lungs, pushing my own vitality down into her failing body. Breathe, I ordered through our bond, driving my Alpha command into the void where her consciousness should have been. I forbid you to leave me.

I pulled back, watching her chest. Nothing.

Again! Ragnar screamed.

I dove back down, breathing for her, pumping her chest with one hand. One. Two. Three. Breathe.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Adella Everett,” I snarled against her mouth. “Breathe p>

Suddenly, her body jerked.