The Alpha's Cursed Mate

Chapter 41

The night of my promise to the God, I sat against my wooden tub with my knees to my chest, and I believed the God had inflicted upon me the greatest pain and the most encumbering fear I would ever feel in my lifetime, but now, as Alexei bleeds in my arms, I know different.

He heaves a cough, and his body jerks against me. I continue to caress his face, but blood streams from the corner of his mouth and pools between my fingers. The gash in his chest is so deep and long, it doesn't clot. It flows endlessly in thick ribbons down his sides and the muscles of his stomach. My mind hazes, and the mate bond wraps around my throat. Alexei has always seemed immortal, but his state looks beyond the healing power of Alpha blood — all of it is leaking from him and soaking into the dirt underneath us — and I cannot depend on it to save him.

My head snaps up at the sound of a guttural growl, and I pull Alexei closer to me. A wolf leers from between the trees, lurching closer with its head hanging low. My lips downturn.

"Leave us!" I roar and pull Alexei closer.

The wolf bares its canines, nearing. It belongs to Alpha Davra or Pollard; it salivates for the praise received by killing a phenomenon like Alexei, causing my rage to overflow. I leave my mate and sprint at the wolf, a mere flash before its eyes as I wrap around him and squeeze like the giant water snakes on the East Islands. I grit my teeth and contract my arms until its ribs crack. The wolf whimpers loudly then falls limp. I throw its body to the side, and it hits the ground with a thud.

Alexei coughs again — smaller. I go to him and drop to my knees, hovering my hands over his wound but not daring to touch. He continues to watch the sky, and he musters the word, "Go."

Bloody tears slip quickly down my cheeks and splatter on his skin. "You told me not to worry," I say, and my voice splinters. "W-Will you heal? Is it going to close?"

He can't seem to answer my desperate questions. Instead, his eyes shut, and he uses the last of his energy to grab my hand. A sob rakes through my chest, and I hold his hand with both of mine, pressing his knuckles against my mouth. My body shakes — growing more violent with every passing second — until the God's words surface from the depths of my mind.

You carry the vampirism. Spread your curse.

I study the details of Alexei's face and lay my palm flat under his throat. His heartbeat is so weak; there isn't any time left to contemplate my decision. I stoop to his neck and bite suddenly, piercing his skin, scrunching my face and fighting the urge to drink. The God pushed his venom into me, so I force the same ability out of myself, and soon I feel the release.

I flood his body with my curse and withdraw before the lure of his Alpha Blood becomes too fierce for our bond to restrain me. I wipe his blood on my sleeve and look at the mark of my bite on his skin, covering it with my hand then stroking the side of his face with my other. "Please," I whisper to the God or Goddess or whoever is listening. "Please don't take him."

I pull Alexei to rest on my lap and enclose myself around him; his large body has never looked so feeble. I continue to stroke his head and plead over him as I rock and weep. Our bond feels so weak it strains as though the last strings holding us together are due to break.

I turn my head when another wolf emerges from the surrounding trees, and I cry toward the sky. A flurry of furious words reaches the tip of my tongue, but I stop myself from shouting at the beast once I notice the blue paint swiped down its snout; he's one of ours.

I stare at it, refusing to let go of my mate. We must be a bizarre sight; him, torn open and bitten — me, also bleeding, but from the strangest place. The wolf looks at his Alpha who's teetering on the brink of this world, and his shifts, making himself naked but able to speak. He says, "I saw him fighting Alpha Pollard."