Page 18 of Upon Shattered Bonds

“Can we move her?” he shouted at Kaien, the healer still hovering over her body.

“I—she’s—”

Barring his teeth, he snarled, “Can we move her?”

“Her heart is still damaged.”

“But?”

“But we could teleport her inside.”

A thread of relief loosened his shoulders. “Which room?”

The moment Kaien sent the psychic coordinates, Zeke carefully wrapped himself, Nina, and the healer in a teleport and cautiously manifested them inside a bedroom. Conscious of her injury, he hadn’t so much as disturbed her hair from the way it’d fallen outside.

Already, the vampires and Nina’s lieutenants were gathering medical equipment within the room. Despite their speed, they were moving too slow. Zeke leapt into action, hooking up a bag of fluid and arranging it alongside the bed as Kaien continued to push healing energy into his twin.

Laying motionless, Nina seemed so fragile.

“Blood.” Drake’s voice had regained some semblance of his former authority. “She needs blood to heal.”

Zeke didn’t hear anything else. Shaking, he tore at his sleeves and opened his wrist veins with his teeth. His blood would feed her, and she would survive. The potent liquid surged from the wound only seconds before he brought it to Nina’s slack mouth.

Even as he gently opened her lips to receive the nourishment, the blood began to pool on her tongue. She didn’t swallow. If she couldn’t swallow, she couldn’t drink.

Despair hit him hard, and the unfamiliar feeling burned within him. Clenching his jaw, he growled when his wrist began to heal closed. Once more, he tore at it, hating that the one thing he could do for his mate wasn’t working.

“Stop, Zeke,” came Drake’s voice. “She can’t drink this way; let us help her. The IV line will be more effective.”

Snapped out of his irrational state, he took in the room. The vampires and the Raeths were staring at him with varied expressions of wariness and concern, as though he were a wild animal.

“Fine.”

Pulling his wrist away from Nina’s mouth, he straightened and offered his arm instead. Drake nodded, hurrying to where he sat and quickly finding a vein for the transfer. Only when crimson finally painted the cording red did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

That was when Aidan arrived, his face tight with anguish. In two steps, he’d closed the distance between them and cupped a hand against Nina’s ashen face. Citrine-orange eyes, feral with the wolf beneath his skin, rose to meet Zeke’s with a dominance that would have been commendable in any other situation.

“Why are you here, Zeke?” Aidan had finally voiced the question that’d lingered on the faces of those who surrounded them.

“Nina is my mate.”

“Nina hates you.”

Though the sentiment stung as it was spoken, Zeke didn’t care. “She may hate me, but she’s my mate, and I won’t leave her again. The past no longer matters. I’ve loved her for eleven centuries and it’s about damn time I showed it. I’m staying—” he inclined his head at the alpha wolf who continued holding his gaze, “—and I challenge any of you to remove me.”

Aidan’s lip, but wisely, the other man didn’t force the issue. Zeke was older, stronger, and wielded an expansive array of immortal gifts which could outmatch that of all the immortals in the room. They wouldn’t stand a chance against him in an open fight.

Aidan disengaged from Zeke’s intense eye contact and refocused on Kaien. “What happened?”

Nina’s twin, battling the agony that was the energy drought, leaned against a side table, his breath shuddering in and out of him. His new wife was holding his arm, lending support, while Kaien answered Aidan’s question.

“There’s a dead Raeth on the terrace that might hold the answer.”

“The body needs a guard,” came Zeke’s command. “At least until we can verify his identity.”

Though Celeste was clearly unaccustomed to taking orders from him, Nina’s lieutenant disappeared from the room.

Aidan’s eyes roamed over Nina’s blood-stained clothing. “What did this to her?”

---