Page 66 of Property of Mako
Her blood was everywhere. On my hands, my chest, soaking into the dirt. Too much.
Trying desperately to stop it, I pressed down, but it poured through my fingers, hot and slick. “No, no, no—fuck, stay with me, Lyra. Don’t you leave me too.”
Her eyes were half-lidded, lips pale, voice weak as she floated in and out of consciousness. “It…hurts.”
Not since I buried the old me had I lost my cool. I was rational, calm, calculating—that was why I was the club’s enforcer. I rarely reacted from emotion. Yet since meeting Lyra, it was as if those tightly wound emotions were slowly coming apart at the seams.
Haidyn’s voice cut through my panic. Cold, sharp. “You have seconds, Mako. Do it. Now.”
Feeling like a cornered animal, I bared my teeth at him. “I won’t?—”
“You will,” he snapped. His eyes narrowed, hard as steel. “Or she’s gone. And if you think Thane won’t get his hands on her corpse to use her very cells, you’re a fool. Save her. Or lose her.”
My chest heaved with rage, with grief, with terror. But when I looked back down at her face—at the girl who had unraveled me from the inside out—there was no choice.
She. Was. My. Mate.
With a savage growl, I ripped open her shirt to expose the wounds that nearly gutted me when I saw how bad it really was. Before I could change my mind, I bit into my wrist, tearing my own flesh open. The blood welled up, thick and dark, carrying the heat of my power. My hand shook as I smeared it across the jagged wounds on her chest, forcing it into the angry slashes.
Her body convulsed, a weak cry escaping her lips.
I knew what I had to do, but it was akin to forcing yourself to place your hand on a hot burner. I didn’t want to… yet Haidyn was right… there was no other choice.
“Come on, baby, take it—take me in,” I begged, lowering my wrist to her mouth.
Her lips were cold, her breath shallow. Determined, I forced my wrist past her teeth, shoving my blood into her mouth and down her throat.
At first, nothing. Then the muscles of her neck moved, and she began swallowing, her body jerking against me as if every drop burned on the way down. She writhed weakly, trying to push away, but I held her tighter.
“That’s it,” I whispered fiercely, my own tears hot and blurring my vision. “Drink. Fight. Stay with me.”
Her fingers clutched weakly at my arm, nails digging in, her body caught between life and death, between human and something more. I hated this for her.
Time ceased to register. I had no idea how long she drank from me before she stopped. Her lips softly parted, and my wrist fell away.
Haidyn’s voice was quiet behind me, almost solemn. “It’s done. Now the real fight begins.”
“What do you get out of this?” I angrily demanded. “How is this repaying my debt?”
Haidyn sighed. “Honestly? I get nothing out of this. Well, other than it pleases my secretly romantic heart that you won’t lose your mate to old age and that pesky dying business now. Okay, okay, I might also derive just a teeny bit of pleasure out of watching you battle with your morality and the power of the mate bond.” He chuckled.
“You’re a sick fuck,” I snarled.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he quickly warned. “Don’t push your luck, vampire. Piss me off and maybe I’ll take her for about twenty years or so. Tuck her away somewhere and watch you and her go crazy as the pull of the mate bond drives you insane little by little.”
He may have only been fucking with me, but that wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. Especially now that Lyra was transforming and I could literally feel the connection strengthening and knitting together.
As I cradled her battered body, I battled with the decision I’d just made. Guilt clashed with greedy satisfaction at knowing I would have my mate essentially for eternity.
Chapter 32
An Inferno of Rebirth
Lyra
Fire.
That was the first thing I was aware of. Fire in my chest, my veins, my bones. Every nerve lit up, screaming. I tried to cry out, but the sound that came from me was not human—it was a guttural snarl that ripped from my throat like an animal in pain.
