“Fuck, it’s a good thing that guy is dead, because I would have killed him for all the pain he made you feel,” he gritted out.
My bond with him flourished too, his love and protectiveness flooding me and stealing more of my pain. Even without all three bonds completed, I almost felt free.
It didn’t make any sense. My bondmate was dead.
Replacement bonds shouldn’t fix the pain of that broken connection—but they were. The new ones were patching the old, broken one and making it something new. A blocked off path that no longer connected me to the man who’d forced it on me.
“West, come here,” I whispered.
He hesitantly came closer, lifting a hand to caress my cheek.
“Talia, I…”
“Let me claim you too.”
Leaning further forward, he tilted his head to the side. For all his previous doubts about whether we could be good together, he would do anything to have a chance to love me for longer. Even put himself at risk of another heartbreak, when we all knew another one would end him.
I kissed his neck before I bit down to lay my mark on him, and he gasped.
The three completed bonds overtook the original one almost entirely. They’d staunched the incoming flow of pain, sharing in the agony I’d already been feeling, lessening its burden.
Where all hope had been lost, now I had everything.
Chapter
Fifty
WEST
I’d known Talia was mine a long time ago, known I would do anything to keep her safe, even if it risked my sanity.
Bonding her when she might still die was no small risk, but for her, I would never regret it. No matter what happened, I had to know that I’d done everything I could to keep her with me.
The agony of her broken bond was ours, now. It flowed between my packmates and I like a river of torment.
How the fuck had she managed even a second of this alone?
I clutched her close, a stuttered purr rumbling up. It was a futile attempt to soothe her pain. She slumped against me as she fell unconscious, her body giving out.
“Fuck. We need to get her out of here,” Mercer said.
He clutched his arm, still dripping blood onto the floor. “Are Jurah’s guys here yet?” I asked Lavinia tersely.
“Did Benjamin… did you…?” Lavinia’s voice was faint and pained.
I let out a frustrated growl. “Are they here?”
Emilia responded. “Outside. They just pulled up.” She sounded stunned too, but not to the extent her older sister was.
Conrad stood, hoisting Talia into his arms so I could stand too. Mercer swayed as he got up, his face pale. I glanced at the blood staining the floor and his clothes. There was too much of it—if he kept going like that, he was going to pass out.
I grabbed the hem of his shirt and ripped through the material until I had a strip of it detached. My shirt was already gone, laid on Benjamin’s body from when I tried to stop the bleeding.
Using the strip of Mercer’s t-shirt, I wrapped his arm and tied it tight. Hopefully, that would keep him from bleeding out as we navigated away from this damn warehouse.
Men burst in the same way Conrad and I had, guns drawn. They spread out through the space, threatening and detaining the mercenaries who hadn’t escaped out the back.
One came over and checked Benjamin’s pulse, but I shook my head. “He’s dead.”
