Chapter 77: Use me 1 FIA I thought I was going to die. Not in the abstract way you think about death when you’re young and it feels like some far-off thing that happens to other people. No. I thought I was going to die right there on that floor with glass pressed to my throat and Bo’s weight crushing my chest. The fear was unlike anything I had ever known. It crawled through my veins like ice water. It squeezed my lungs until breathing felt like drowning. Every second stretched into an eternity while my mind screamed at me to move, to fight, to do something. But my body would not listen. My limbs felt heavy and wrong. The blood on my palms made everything slippery. I could not get purchase. Could not push her off. So I reached for him. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮 I did not know if it would work. The bond between us was still new. Still strange. But I threw everything I had into it. All my terror. All my desperation. His name ripped through my mind like a prayer I did not know I believed in. And then he came. The doors exploded inward and there he was. Cian. His face twisted into something I had never seen before. Something primal and dark and utterly terrifying. He moved so fast I barely tracked it. One moment Bo was on top of me. The next she was flying through the air. The glass dragged across my neck as she went and I felt the sting of it opening my skin. But I was alive. I was still alive. I watched him. Goddess help me, I watched every second of what he did to her. His hand closed around her throat like it belonged there. Like violence was just another language he spoke fluently. She slashed at him with the broken glass. Wild. Desperate. He caught her wrist and slammed it into the wall. The crack of bone was so loud it echoed through the room. She screamed and he did not flinch. His eyes found mine while he held her there. Checking. Making sure. And something passed between us through the bond. Something raw and unfiltered. He had not put his emotions in a bubble. Neither had I. So I felt it all. His rage. His fear. His desperate need to protect me. He was acting from a position of care. I knew it the same way I knew my own heartbeat. This brutal, violent thing he was doing. It came from somewhere soft. Somewhere that wanted me safe. That did not make it less terrifying. When he turned back to Bo, his face went blank. Empty. Like someone had reached inside him and switched off everything that made him humane. I tried to speak. Tried to tell him to stop. That we needed her alive. That she might have information. "Keep her alive," I managed. My voice came out thin and shaky. "We might need her." Bo laughed. The sound made my stomach turn. "I will never betray my ranks." Then she looked at me. Right at me. Her eyes were bright with something cruel. "Your mother will suffer," she said to Cian. "You will die." Her gaze slid to mine. "And your fake Luna will bleed." I saw the moment it happened. The moment whatever was holding Cian together just broke. He leaned close to her. His voice dropped to something quiet. Almost gentle. "Go first. Make the way for us." And he twisted. The sound her neck made would haunt me for the rest of my life. It was wet and sharp and final. Like branches snapping in a storm. He let her drop. She hit the floor and her body did not know it was dead yet. Her back arched off the ground. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish pulled from water. These horrible gurgling sounds came from her throat. Her heels scraped against the floor. Dragging. Twitching. Then nothing. She just lay there. Neck bent at an angle that should not exist. Eyes open and staring at the ceiling. I could not look away. "What the fuck did you do?" The words came out of me in a breath. I did not mean to say them. They just spilled out. Cian ignored me. He crossed the room in two strides and knelt beside me. His hands found my shoulders. Steadied me. "Put pressure on it," he said. "Cian—" "Put pressure on it." I pressed my hand harder against my neck. The blood kept seeping through my fingers. Warm and sticky and wrong. Then he lifted me. His arms went under my back and my knees and suddenly the floor was gone. I was pressed against his chest and he was carrying me like I weighed nothing at all. Like I was something precious that might break if he was not careful. We stepped over Bo’s body. He did not look down. The hallway passed in a blur. My vision was starting to swim at the edges. Colors bled into each other. Shapes lost their sharpness. Two omegas appeared ahead of us. Their faces went pale when they saw the blood. "There is a body in the Luna Suite," Cian said. His voice was flat. Businesslike. "Take it to the morgue. Get the room cleaned." They nodded and hurried past us without a word. I kept my eyes on his face. It was the only thing that stayed in focus. The hard line of his jaw. The tension in his brow. The way his eyes stayed fixed ahead like he could will the infirmary closer just by staring at it. "I’m sorry," I said. He looked down at me. "For what?" "I did not know she was that way." My throat hurt to speak. The words came out rough. "She used me. And I let her." Something flickered across his face. Something almost as soft as the way he was in that room. "Sometimes we just want to believe people are good." "What if there are more?" I asked. The thought made my chest tight. "You could regret the choice you made." He looked at me then. Really looked. And I felt something bloom between us through the bond. Something warm. Something fragile. Something I could tell he didn’t like but it didn’t stop it from flourishing nonetheless. Then he turned his eyes forward again. "I have no regrets." He said it simply. Like it was just a fact. Like the sky was blue and water was wet and he had no regrets about killing someone with his bare hands. "I know the witch who helped with this mess," he continued. "I will be saving my mother." Oh. The pieces of why he made such a drastic choice were starting to fit together in my head but the edges kept blurring. But I also could not take what Bo had said out of my head. If his mother was cured and there was no rot, then she could live a long and fulfilled life. He didn’t need to keep the ruse of marriage. There was indeed someone else at the forefront of his mind. The blonde witch. He would let me go, wouldn’t he? That was supposed to be good. It was what I wanted from the very beginning. So... Why didn’t it feel good? Why did it almost hurt? I shook the unbidden thought. Because there was no way. Not even if hell froze over. I was being this way because he came through when I needed him. That had to be it. That made sense. I needed to think of something else. Anything else. "Phone," I said suddenly. "Bo had a phone. You could find out who else she was working with." "Don’t bother your pretty head with that." His grip on me tightened slightly. "I know this is Uncle Gabriel’s doing. All the bastard knows how to do is fucking hide. Use others to his advantage." His jaw clenched. "But the next time I see him, I will let him know I am not to be fucked with." I heard him. I got what he meant. But more servants could be loyal to Gabriel and they would be dangerous to have around. I wanted to voice that out. But my body was starting to feel strange. Lighter somehow. Like I was floating just above his arms instead of resting in them. "I don’t feel so good." "We are almost there." He started walking faster. His boots struck the floor in a rapid rhythm. "Just keep your eyes on me." I tried. Goddess knows I tried. His face swam in and out of focus. I could see the worry there now. The fear. It cracked through that blank mask he had been wearing. Made him look younger somehow. More human. He was scared. For me. The thought wrapped around my heart and squeezed. Here was this man who had just killed someone without hesitation. Who had snapped a woman’s neck like it was nothing. And now he was scared because I was hurt. I wanted to tell him I was fine. That I had survived worse. That a little blood loss was not going to take me out. But my tongue felt thick in my mouth. My eyelids felt heavy. The world was tilting sideways and I could not make it stop. The last thing I saw was his face above me. The last thing I felt was the steady beat of his heart against my cheek. Then everything went dark.