POV: Kael Stormborne
I woke up bleeding.
That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing was that I could not move without everything screaming.
The cave was dark. Cold stone. The kind of place that had probably never seen sunlight. Ryker had chosen well. The alliance would never think to look for fugitives somewhere this exposed and bare and wrong.
My shirt was soaked. The bandage Ryker had applied during the ride was already gone through with blood. The wound on my side had opened again. Of course it had.
I tried to sit up and my vision went white.
"Do not move," Darius said from somewhere near the cave entrance. He was watching for guards. Watching for hunters. "Just stay still and do not bleed out."
Easy for him to say. He was not the one leaking like a broken container.
Sera stirred somewhere across the cave. She had collapsed the moment we stopped moving. Exhaustion and pain and the weight of the bond had finally caught up with her.
She was trying to stand.
Darius saw it at the same moment I did.
He moved toward her and growled low in his throat. Not at her. At the idea of her moving. At the idea of her being near me while I was weak and bleeding.
Sera froze.
"What are you doing?" Darius asked. His wolf was showing in his eyes. Golden. Possessive. Not willing to share anything right now.
"He is bleeding," Sera said quietly. "I need to help."
"No," Darius said. "You need to rest."
"I need to keep him alive."
Darius stepped directly into her path. His entire body was tense like he was ready to fight something. Someone.
"I will keep him alive," Darius said.
Sera looked at him and something shifted in her face. Something that was not meek omega anymore. Something harder.
"You cannot keep him alive because you do not know how," she said. "And neither can I. But I can try."
Darius growled again. Real this time. His wolf pushing at the surface.
I felt something crack inside my chest. Not just the pain. The jealousy.
She wanted to be near me. Even broken and exhausted, she wanted to be near me. The bond was pulling at her and she was not resisting.
I was being replaced. By him. By Darius who was faster and stronger and not currently useless.
Then Ryker appeared between them like stone.
"If Kael dies from infection," Ryker said flatly, "the bond dies. All four of us. That includes you, Darius. So let her help."
Darius looked like he wanted to argue. His fists were clenched. His jaw was clenched. Everything about him was a coiled spring ready to snap.
But Ryker was right and he knew it.
Darius stepped aside.
Sera did not wait for permission or invitation or anything else. She just moved. Shoved past all three of us like she had any right to move past three Alphas who could kill her with a thought.
I wanted to be impressed. I wanted to show it on my face. But I was too busy trying not to pass out.
She dropped down beside me and I could smell the exhaustion on her. Smell the fear mixed with something that might have been determination.
"This is going to hurt," she said.
"I have experienced worse," I said.
"No, you have not," she replied. She was already ripping fabric from the hem of her dress. "I watched you during the rituals. You have never been hurt like this and survived it."
She was not wrong.
Sera went to the cave opening where the stream was. Darius and Ryker watched her like hawks. Protective. Possessive. Angry that she was moving away from them.
She came back with water in her hands cupped carefully. Then she started cleaning the wound.
It was worse than I expected. Her hands were gentle but the water was ice cold and my skin felt like it was being scraped away. I bit down on my tongue to keep from making sound.
"Tell me what you need," she said. Not asking. Commanding. "What do you need to survive this?"
I could not think through the pain. Could not organize thoughts into words. My wolf was snarling about her being so close. About her hands on my body. About the fact that she was taking care of me and that meant something deeper than just survival.
It meant she cared.
Even broken. Even terrified. Even running for her life. She cared.
Ryker was already moving. He found a plant growing near the cave entrance. Something with leaves that had healing properties. He brought it to her and she crushed it with her fingers and worked it into the wound.
Darius stood guard at the entrance. Furious about being useless. Furious about being kept back.
And Sera sat there with her torn dress and her small hands and her voice like steel and she said words that made all three of us stop breathing.
"If you two want to kill each other, that is fine," she said. Her eyes were fixed on the wound she was working on. "Do it. Go ahead. Tear each other apart. But do it after we are not being hunted for execution. Do it after I am not bleeding and he is not dying. Do it when I have the luxury of caring about your male pride. Until then, shut up and let me work."
The cave went completely silent.
Three Alphas. All of us staring at a tiny omega who had just given us orders like she was not terrified and broken and the weakest one here.
Except she was not weak anymore.
Somewhere between the isolation chamber and the escape and the ride through darkness, something had changed. The meekness was gone. The omega training had cracked open like an egg and something was hatching underneath.
I caught her wrist when she was finishing the bandage. Her skin was ice cold from the water. Her pulse was racing. She looked at me like she was ready to fight.
"You are stronger than you pretend to be," I said quietly.
She stared at me for a long moment. Her violet eyes were different now too. Less frightened. More calculating.
"I had to be," she said finally. "You were dying. I could not afford to be weak."
Then she pulled her hand away and I let her because she was right. I was still dying and there was nothing I could do about it except survive the next few hours.
Behind us, Darius and Ryker were watching her like she had just rearranged the entire world.
Maybe she had.