Page 68 of The Mafia Bloodline
The doctor looked to the changelings. “We need to move her now. Prep the surgical suite!”
I cried out again, the sound tearing through the room. Volken lunged forward, but Gideon and Ivan caught him before he could reach me.
“Volken, let them work!” Ivan shouted, struggling against his strength.
“Let me go!” he roared, fangs flashing. “She’s in pain! She’s mine!”
The doctor shouted over the chaos, “We’ll lose them both if you don’t let me work!”
Roman appeared then, dragging him back, his power rolling through the room like thunder. “Volken. Listen to me.”
Volken’s chest heaved, eyes glowing like a dying star. “She’s dying,” he rasped.
Roman shook him once, hard. “She’s not.But she will if you don’t let the doctor work.”
They hauled him out just as the doctor shouted for more hands. The door slammed, locking him out.
On the other side, Volken’s roars filled the hallway, they were primal, guttural sounds that made even hardened changelings flinch.
Inside the room, everything blurred. I remember lights, hands, the metallic scent of blood. The pain crested, pulling me under, until the world faded into blackness.
Chapter 23
I couldn’t breathe.
The hallway walls pressed in around me, every second stretching like an eternity. The sound of her voice, her scream, still echoed in my head. My brothers stood nearby, silent, grim.
Lucien’s hand clamped down on my shoulder. “She’s strong. She’ll make it.”
Roman’s gaze was steel. “You can’t break now, brother. She needs you when she wakes.”
I leaned forward, my hands braced on my knees, trying to stop shaking. My head lowered as my hands cover my face.
“She’s everything,” I whispered. “If she doesn’t come back to me…”
Viking interrupted quietly, his voice stripped of mockery for once. “She will come back.”
No one argued.
No one even tried to soothe me because there was nothing to say. The truth hung heavy between us, thicker than blood, sharper than steel.
The bond pulsed faintly in my chest, a flicker of pain that wasn’t mine, a tether stretched to its limit. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff, staring into a void that was already calling my name. If she died, that bond would snap, and with it, me.
That’s the curse of our kind, that’s what makes us unstoppable and unbearably fragile all at once. The Dragic brothers had always been feared, not just because of our power, but because of what anchored it. Our mates.
They were our balance, our sanity.
Take that away, and what’s left isn’t a man it’s a weapon without a target, a storm without a horizon.
I didn’t have to say it aloud. I saw it in Roman’s eyes, in the way his jaw tightened as he watched me unravel. He knew what it was to feel your soul dragged toward death and be helpless to stop it.
Lucien stood on my other side, silent, his sharp mind working even now, searching for something logical in a situation that had none. But even he couldn’t reason this away. His expression was grim, the faintest twitch at his temple betraying the storm beneath.
And Viking…Viking just leaned against the opposite wall, his knuckles white, his head bowed. The laughter, the teasing all gone. “If she goes,” he said finally, voice low and raw, “then you’ll follow. And if that happens, brother, the rest of us will bring down the gates of hell itself.”
My throat worked, but no words came. I could only nod, the weight of their vow pressing against my chest. They weren’t just my brothers in blood. They were my shield, my anchor. And they knew just as I did that if Runa’s heartbeat stopped, mine would too.
I dragged a hand through my hair, still streaked with demon ash, and forced myself to pace. I couldn’t sit still. The sterile hallway, the smell of antiseptic, the faint beep of monitors, it allfelt wrong. I should’ve been in there, tearing out the heart of whatever dared to hurt her. Not standing here, helpless.
