Page 86 of Shadow Bound

Ranger had been standing silently behind Ryker, his eyes widen and he maneuvers around us, rushing to crouch beside his twin.

“I didn’t mean to. I swear I didn’t mean to,” I repeat over and over. “I didn’t want this to happen. I knew I’d kill him. Oh my god, I killed him.” My lungs are no longer working, I can’t breathe.

I’m starting to hyperventilate, unable to catch my breath. My vision becomes spotty and the rushing in my ears only gets worse. Ranger and Ryker are talking to each other, but they sound like they’re underwater. Ryker’s hand lightly pats my back, I swear he’s telling me to try and calm down, but my body isn’t having it.

I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.

Looking away from Ransom, I stare at my hands that are covered in streaks of his blood. I’ve never been so disgusted at the sight of blood in my life. Frantically, I try to rub it away, but it’s dried and caked on, refusing to move.

Hands are abruptly gripping either side of my face and jerking my head up so I can look at them. Ranger is kneeling in front of me now. His mouth is moving but I can’t hear him. Shaking my head at him, I continue to gasp for air. “Isabeau!” he shouts. “Breathe. Honey, you have to breathe.”

“I killed him,” I gasp out.

“No.” Ranger shakes his head, his blue eyes looking at me with…pride? “No, you didn’t. He’s alive, you didn’t kill him.”

My body locks up, the tightness in my chest doesn’t leave quite yet. “What?”

“You did it without killing him,” Ranger repeats. “He’s alive, Beau. He’s just passed out—probably needs a transfusion, but we prepared for this.”

“We?”

“He had a plan and he let us know what was going down so we would be on standby to help afterward. We have everything set up at home to take care of him,” Ryker explains from beside me. “He’s okay, Isabeau. You did good.”

He’s alive. I can finally breathe again knowing this.

My eyes shoot between Ryker and Ransom. “I didn’t do good!” I shout at him as I ungracefully stumble forward onto my hands and knees. “I almost killed him!” I clamber over to Ransom.

Needing to confirm it myself, I lower my head to his chest and close my eyes. Listening hard, I wait for the sound of his heartbeat. When the sluggish, but very present beat fills my ears, I collapse onto his chest and let out a choked sob. The relief making me breakdown again. My hands hold his shoulders as I cry on his bare chest.

They let me cry, but eventually Ranger tells me we need to get Ransom back to the house so we can get him the transfusion. Silently, I walk slowly behind the brothers who carry my bloodmate—holy fuck, my bloodmate—back to Winslow’s home. Not once as we walked, could I pull my eyes away from him.

The pull I felt to Ransom Weylyn before tonight was intense, but now it’s all-consuming, taking over every part of my body. I can’t imagine being apart from him. For the first time, I think I understand why Nessa has spent centuries angry and vengeful. Ransom has been mine—really mine—for a matter of minutes and I’d burn the world down if something happened to him.

I’m not justifying Nessa’s actions, but I do understand them. As for Noah, I don’t know what it’s like to have a shifter mating bond, but I have a sinking suspicion I might soon. Ransom said he loves me, and I care just as deeply for him, but something is blocking the mating aura from appearing. In my heart I know it’s me, while I know how I feel, my walls while jagged and falling apart are still partially up.

As I look at his face, still wishing he’d open his eyes, I silently command myself to start trying to drop the remnants of my walls and fully let Ransom in. He may already be my bloodmate, but I want every bond I can have with him. Nothing in life has truly ever been mine, but Ransom is mine and I want everything I can possibly have with him.

Ihave the headache from hell. A wrecking ball to the head would probably hurt less than the pounding that’s going on in my skull. My limbs feel heavy, like my muscles are too weak to lift them. Shit, even prying open my eyelids takes a lot of effort.

It’s like I have the hangover from hell. It’s as if I went to a bar and asked the bartender to fill a glass up with every type of liquor they had to offer and then order sixteen of them.

Blinking, I try to clear my hazy vision, but the bright light streaming in through the open window makes my corneas burn. Wincing, I throw my arm over my eyes and groan loudly. Why is the sun up? The last thing I remember was being in the woods at night and Beau…

Isabeau!

The events of the night all come rushing back to me at once. I provoked Isabeau into completing the blood bond and she didn’t end up killing me like she thought she would. Flying up into a sitting position in bed my eyes scan the room, looking for my vampire, but I find that I’m alone in Winslow’s guestroom. The chair that had been sitting in the corner of the room has been pulled closer to the bed, a blanket lies haphazardly across the arm. Did Beau sit there all night watching over me? I can smell her honey scent in the room, it tells me that she’s been here recently, but where is she now?

The bedroom door creaks open and at first, I think I’m going to finally lay eyes on my bloodmate, but my eldest brother and his mate walk through the door. Pruitt’s face breaks into a smile when she sees that I’m awake, and while I’m ecstatic to see her home after ten months, she isn’t the woman I want to see right now.

Ryker is also smiling at me, something he hasn’t done a whole lot of since Pru left. It’s good to see him at peace again. “Look who’s alive,” he muses lightly.

“I feel like death,” I admit lightheartedly.

“You looked like death last night.” Pruitt walks into the room and sits on the end of the bed. “When they brought you in here, you looked like you were dead.”

“I wasn’t,” I point out the obvious. “She didn’t kill me, just like I knew she wouldn’t.”

“Good call on the transfusion.” Ryker nods his head toward the now empty blood bag and IV that still sits in my arm. “You needed two bags of blood dude and when you still wouldn’t wake up, I thought we were going to have to sedate your girl.”

---