Page 131 of Caged

Like a corpse.

Her long white hair fans out like a halo, but it’s tangled and matted with blood.

I blink back tears and focus on her chest, praying to every named and unnamed deity in existence for even the tiniest movement.

Please, love. Please breathe.

My heart thumps once. Then twice. And by the third beat my panic has grown into a living, breathing thing. I can’t feel my lips or my fingers. My eyes strain, lack of moisture makes them burn but I don’t dare fucking blink. If I do, I could miss it.

Please, baby. Please.

Wait— was that?

Yes! There it is! The smallest shift. A shallow rise and fall that I almost miss.

My Alpha whimpers in relief. I wish I could join him but I’m still too on edge. Something still isn’t right. Yes, she’s breathing, but it’s too slow; the endless seconds between breaths lasting too long.

I keep watching her, taking in every possible detail. There’s blood everywhere. Covering her hair, her clothes, violent streaks stain too much of her fragile frame. My pain intensifies and my vision blurs, her image softening until all I see is the corpse of a child, waiting to be buried in a wedding dress she’ll never get to wear.

The image is macabre but painfully accurate. I wish I could wipe her down. The least she deserves it for someone to clean the blood off her delicate skin.

Fates… there’s so much blood. Mine, her father’s men… and her own.

I’m busy memorizing every inch of her I can see, selfishly praying it will help distract me from my own pain, when my gaze snags on something I can’t believe I missed. One pale forearm is hanging off the side of the table, a long length of medical tubing resting in the crook of her elbow. From there, it extend all the way toward the floor where it’s attached to a half-full blood bag. Half-full, because her blood is being drained, the bag filling with deep crimson liquid in a steady trickling flow.

Propped next to it are two addition blood bags. Both full.

My stomach clenches but I can’t look away. I fixate on her blood, counting each drop stolen straight from her veins.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The sound of her blood falling into the now almost-full bag is so fucking loud. It echoes through the heavy darkness of the cell. Every drop she loses feels like a taunt. Like the universe is judging my inability to keep my Fates-given Mate safe.

I just… can’t understand it. They’re draining her.

Gods, they’re fucking draining her blood right in front of me.

“Calm down, boy. If your heart rate accelerates, it will push the silver through your bloodstream quicker.” Albertson’s hisses so softly only someone with supernatural hearing could pick it up.

To further cover his warning, he turns to Varenthrall and loudly warns, “She’s less than a pint from crashing. Take anymore and you’ll kill her.”

I fucking snap.

My Alpha lets loose as the monster inside me explodes. A sound rips out of my chest.

It’s ancient. Primal.

Fucking feral.

I thrash against the restraints, yanking at them so hard I feel the snap of my bone breaking in my wrist.

I don’t care. Don’t even register the pain.

I’m fucking desperate. Desperate to escape. Desperate to rip that fucking tubing from my Omega’s arm and feed her my blood until her skin shines with the luminous, healthy glow it had the first night we met.

Get to her. Have to get to her. My Mate. Have to MOVE!

“If you want to die faster, then keep it up, boy. You can’t help her if you’re dead,” Albertson hisses.